Power firm to pay $5m for cleaner buses, rail
The owners of an Everett power plant will pay to equip Boston school buses and MBTA commuter trains north of Boston with pollution-reducing filters in a groundbreaking settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency of smokestack violations over the last five years.
Pennsylvania-based Exelon Generation, which owns the Mystic Station power plant in Everett, will pay a $1 million fine for pumping too much soot and other harmful matter into the air from 1998 to 2003.
The company will also pay $5 million to retrofit the Boston school bus fleet and up to 22 commuter trains with filters that block harmful emissions.
The firm will finance three other environmental projects: a path for biking and walking along over a dam on the Mystic River, the restoration of a salt marsh in Chelsea, and a study of improvements along the Malden River.
The settlement, filed late yesterday in US District Court in Boston, reflects a trend in which polluters pay for projects, instead of or in addition to civil penalties.
EPA officials called the agreement historic, because it will benefit a much larger number of people than is typically the case. More than 50 communities along five rail lines north of Boston served by North Station should see less air pollution from the retrofitted trains, and Boston will become the first major US city to have a environmentally clean school bus fleet.
"This is a big step forward for improving Boston's air quality. With the upgrading of the school buses and trains, we'll remove 100 tons of pollution from Boston's air each year," said Steven Viggiani, senior enforcement counsel for the EPA's New England office.
The EPA, with the US Justice Department, charged Exelon with 6,000 violations of the Clean Air Act at four oil-fired units at the Mystic Station power plant over the past five years. The plant was emitting smoke that contained more soot and particulates than is allowed under the Clean Air Act. For decades, the plant was owned by Boston Edison, which was sold to Sithe Energies in 1998; Exelon became part-owner of Sithe in 2000 and purchased the plant in full in 2002. When notified about the violations, Exelon invested $2.5 million on new equipment and operating procedures, and shut down the three oldest units last year.
Exelon has since built a 1600-megawatt, gas-fired, state-of-the-art plant in the back portion of the Mystic property.
"These are all communities that have had to deal with industrial uses," said John O'Brien, vice president of government and regulatory affairs for Exelon. "We came to the realization there were several programs in Greater Boston that we could get involved in, that would have a direct benefit to air quality."
The company and the EPA together came up with the idea to retrofit the buses and trains, as well as the three other projects, Viggiani said. The projects were selected for several different locations because the entire Boston area was affected by the pollution from the Everett power plant and because "we were trying to bring air benefits to as wide an area in and around Boston that we could," he said. The school bus fleet was chosen because Boston public schools started an initiative last year to equip 100 vehicles with filters.
At $3.25 million, the retrofit of the school buses fleet is the largest part of the Exelon settlement. The money will pay for the filters, which trap particulates, smog-causing hydrocarbons, and carbon monoxide, for 500 city school buses, so that a total of 600 will run cleaner by 2005. The amount also covers the cost of ultralow-sulfur fuel for the buses for two years, which is expensive and not widely available.
"We've had a pretty good learning curve, and we're certainly in the forefront on this," said Richard Jacobs, director of transportation for Boston Public Schools. "We're very happy to be involved."
Under the settlement, Exelon will also pay $1.25 million to equip the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority commuter trains with another kind of filter, called an oxidation catalyst. It will be the "first commuter train retrofit ever attempted in the country," Viggiani said.
The funds will also pay for low-sulfur diesel fuel for the trains for three years. The filters are set to be on 15 to 22 trains by 2005.
Reducing emissions from diesel-fueled buses and trains has been a major initiative for the MBTA, which in recent weeks has also rolled out new buses fueled by compressed natural gas.
The three other projects Exelon is to fund will also have environmental benefits, officials said. The settlement calls for $250,000 to be spent on the design of a commuter bike path over the Amelia Earhart Dam on the Mystic River, a set of locks to control tidal flows built in 1966 that is currently closed to the public. The path would link the Assembly Square development site in Somerville and former industrial land on the Everett side eyed for parks and development.
The settlement also allotted $250,000 to restore a one-acre marsh along Mill Creek in Chelsea and $118,000 a study of the restoration of the Malden River.
Anthony Flint can be reached at flint@globe.com.
