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 Lake Shore coal plant Our nation is in the midst of a transition away from dependence on coal-fired electricity. Markets are shifting as coal is replaced by natural gas, as the country moves away from the deplorable practice of mountaintop removal coal mining, as states adopt standards for energy efficiency and renewable energy, and as the “endless supply” of coal seems to be much less than previously thought. Ohio can play a pivotal role in accelerating the shift away from our dirtiest form of energy. Ohio has more installed coal-fired generating capacity than any state in the nation, including 18 plants that have over 200 megawatt capacity. While some of the plants have upgraded their pollution controls, many have not. FirstEnergy’s Lake Erie coal plant fleet – Bay Shore in Toledo, Lakeshore in Cleveland, Eastlake in Eastlake, and Ashtabula in Ashtabula – are all older coal plants that do not have current pollution controls, such as scrubbers. They should be replaced by cleaner energy sources.
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FirstEnergy Lake Erie Coal Plants Air Pollution Emissions, 2009
(All numbers in pounds)
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| Name of coal plant |
Sulfur dioxide |
Nitrogen oxides |
Total air emissions* |
| Ashtabula |
9,613,000 |
1,982,600 |
12,128,217 |
| Bay Shore |
15,755,000 |
7,392,200 |
24,280,384 |
| Eastlake |
97,339,000 |
14,110,200 |
115,450,403 |
| Lakeshore |
2,142,400 |
841,200 |
3,130,783 |
| Total |
124,849,400 |
24,326,200 |
154,989,787 |
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| 96% of all air emissions at these four plants are sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. |
| *Total air emissions includes all air emissions from all reports submitted on the four plants. |
| Source: FirstEnergy |
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The average age of the 11 units at these four coal plants is 50 years. The two oldest units are both at the Eastlake plant, the dirtiest of the four plants, and went on line in 1953. The newest unit of these four plants is also at Eastlake and went on line in 1973. The Ashtabula and Lake Shore plants each have one unit. There are six units at Eastlake and three coal units at Bay Shore. The Lake Shore coal plant is along the Shoreway in Cleveland, Ohio, about 4 miles east of downtown. Ashtabula coal plant is located in Ashtabula, Ohio, about 60 miles east of downtown Cleveland. Eastlake coal plant is located in Eastlake, Ohio, about 20 miles east of downtown Cleveland. Bay Shore coal plant is located on the Maumee River and Maumee Bay in Oregon, Ohio, near Toledo. All four plants are located on Lake Erie.
 Eastlake coal plant Coal-fired plants make people sick
Coal pollution affects all major body organ systems and contributes to four of the five leading causes of death in the United States: heart disease, cancer, stroke and chronic lower respiratory diseases, according to Physicians for Social Responsibility. Ohio ranks first in the nation in toxic air pollution with coal-fired power plants as the major contributor. Ohio ranks second in the nation in deaths from coal plants, which shorten the life of 1,221 people each year. Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide make up 96% of emissions at all four of FirstEnergy’s Lake Erie coal plants, causing acid rain and polluting Lake Erie, which provides drinking water for 11 million people.
The market is shifting away from coal
 Ashtabula coal plant We are already in the midst of a transition away from coal in the U.S. The overall demand for electricity in Ohio is likely to remain flat, and energy efficiency is most cost-effective method to deal with demand. Alternatives and renewables are being developed in Ohio right now. Natural gas prices are low and expected to remain there for many
years. The utility industry has begun identifying coal plants that they consider “vulnerable”- those coal plants that are smaller, older and cannot meet future regulatory upgrades, and the medium-sized ones that may or may not be able to meet the coming regulatory upgrades but doing so would not be economically feasible in this climate. FirstEnergy has plans to idle, to some extent, all four of their Lake Erie coal plants, which they announced in August, 2010. The economic part of the decision to retrofit or replace a coal plant is major: technical experts have estimated that a 500 MW plant, if it needed all of the possible future regulatory controls, may spend $392.5 million at just one plant ($785/kw.)
Future regulations would make it very expensive – for the ratepayers – to operate these dirty old coal plants
Possible future federal regulations may make old coal plants too expensive to operate. It is most likely that any additional costs to maintain and upgrade these old coal plants would be passed along directly to ratepayers. There are four regulatory proposals that both industry and citizen groups believe could affect the operations at old coal plants, depending upon what is adopted and enforced:
Coal ash regulations.
The USEPA proposed two competing coal ash regulations. One, favored by citizen and citizen groups would regulate coal ash as a hazardous waste and provide stringent, enforceable rules for coal ash. The other, favored by industry, would not classify coal ash as a hazardous waste and would not provide enforceable standards. Eight public hearings were held in the fall of 2010, and the EPA received over 400,000 comments about the proposed coal ash regulations. The EPA is in the decision-making part of the process now. Congress, meanwhile, is attempting to not allow funding for the strongest of the two proposed regulations on coal ash.
Clean Air Transport Rule.
This proposal would require significant reductions in sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions that cross state lines. These pollutants react in the atmosphere to form fine particles and ground-level ozone and are transported long distances, affecting the health of people inside and outside of Ohio. The Clean Air Transport Rule could be issued in draft form early this year.
Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) rules for mercury at fossil fuel power plants.
This would limit mercury emissions from coal plants. An EPA draft of the regulation is planned for March 16, 2011 and the final could be issued before the end of the year. Experts estimate that if a medium-sized 500-megawatt plant needed all of the future pollution controls it could cost an estimated $785 per kilowatt. This could cost ratepayers almost $2 billion to upgrade just these four plants. The Ashtabula and Lake Shore coal plants are 256 megawatts each, the Bay Shore coal plant is 640 megawatts and the Eastlake coal plant is 1289 megawatts. It could take an estimated $200 million each to upgrade FirstEnergy’s Ashtabula and Lake Shore plants, half a billion dollars to upgrade the Bayshore plant and over a billion dollars to upgrade the Eastlake plant.
 Bay Shore coal plant FirstEnergy’s merger with Allegheny Energy provides an opportunity to move away from old coal plants
FirstEnergy completed its merger with southwestern Pennsylvania utility Allegheny Energy on February 25, 2011, making it the biggest power company in the nation, with more than 6 million customers. The merger, which will include control of Allegheny’s electric generating plants, may make this the key time for FirstEnergy to retire its older Lake Erie plants. In a February 27 Plain Dealer story, company spokesperson Ellen Raines said, “When you operate a larger number of power plants as a single fleet, you rely more on the power plants with environmental control and on plants that can run more efficiently.” FirstEnergy needs to hear that its customers want it to move away from relying on its outdated plants.
NRC panel to hear from 4 opposition groups, utility
PORT CLINTON — “Four activist groups that contend FirstEnergy Corp.’s Davis-Besse nuclear plant is unworthy of a 20-year license extension are to appear Tuesday before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s licensing panel.
But the panel, called the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, told the groups it will refuse to hear about the plant’s safety record, including the near-rupture of its original reactor head in 2002…
The NRC said the panel will decide if the groups are allowed ‘admittance to the [licensing] proceeding.’”
— Tom Henry, Toledo Blade
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 The sun sets behind FirstEnergy Corp. power plant in Eastlake. (Jamie-Andrea Yanak/Associated Press) CLEVELAND — “The nation’s biggest power company is now based in Akron, but whether it’s good or bad for Ohioans is a matter of perspective…
[FirstEnergy spokeswoman Ellen] Raines said that bringing Allegheny’s newer coal-fired power plants under FirstEnergy’s control bodes well for the company’s ability to generate more power, more efficiently and more cleanly, the company contends.
‘When you operate a larger number of power plants as a single fleet, you rely more on the power plants with environmental control and on plants that can run more efficiently,’ Raines said.”
— John Funk, Cleveland Plain Dealer
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 Senator Jason Wilson WELLSVILLE — “[State Senator Jason] Wilson said he has invited the governor – who accepted – to visit communities along the river, starting in Belmont County and working their way to East Liverpool. ‘He wants to understand us,’ Wilson said, saying that Kasich ‘lives in Upper Arlington; to him ‘brownfield’ means someone put too much fertilizer on the ground. We have to educate him about our area.’
Wilson said he and others in the government have done all they can to help bring Baard Energy to the area, saying it now hinges on finances. He also offered ‘as much help as I can’ for securing grant funding for the village.”
— Jo Ann Bobby-Gilbert, Salem News
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CINCINNATI — Last night’s audience at the University of Cincinnati were surprised that Ohio would permit expansion of a landfill within 3,000 feet of two schools. The group, comprised largely of Environmental Studies students, took copies of the joint Ohio Citizen Action / Property Owners Want Equal Rights report titled, “The Future is Now” to report back to their classes. My presentation was sponsored by the Environmental Studies Department and the University of Cincinnati Office of Sustainability.
— Melissa English, Southern Ohio Campaign Director, Ohio Citizen Action
AKRON — “The merger and absorption of Allegheny will give FirstEnergy control of four very large coal-fired power plants that are newer than FirstEnergy’s own fleet. The big plants, three of which each produce more power than the Perry nuclear power plant, will more easily meet anticipated tougher environmental air pollution regulations.
Altogether, Allegheny operates 10 coal-fired power plants, including three very small plants, of the size that are closing around the nation because it would be uneconomic to clean up their emissions.”
— John Funk, Cleveland Plain Dealer
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 PARKERSBURG, WV — “As part of a continuing effort to study the neurological effects of metals, particularly manganese, on children, the Communities Actively Researching Exposure Study (CARES), is expanding recruitment efforts into Wood County.
The study initially limited enrollment to residents of Marietta and Cambridge, Ohio, and is now extending enrollment to include Wood County residents.
The study is a collaboration between Marietta/Washington County Neighbors for Clean Air initiative, Marietta and Cambridge schools and health department officials. The study is in its second year of research in Marietta.”
— Pamela Brust, Parkersburg News and Sentinel
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CLEVELAND — A group of international leaders of non-profit organizations visited Ohio Citizen Action’s Cleveland office today for a lively round-table discussion on community organizing, public involvement, and non-profit management. The group was traveling under the auspices of the Department of State’s International Visitor Program and sponsored by the Cleveland Council on World Affairs.
Participants in the delegation included: Cesar Antonio Ricuarte Perez, Executive Director, Fundamedios, Ecuador; Sufiya Sheik, Manager, Society for Weaker Community, India; Rasma Pipike, Director, Civic Alliance, Latvia; Baria Nabil Daye, Founder and President, Tripoli Youth Forum, Lebanon; Ana Maria Mosneagu, President and Founder, E-Civis, Romania; Semsi Kamile Canbay, President, Tokageder Association of Research and Development of Social Issues, Turkey; Emmanuel Ojara, Country Director, Clearwater Initiative, Uganda; Noe Martinez Guevara, Coordinator of Public Management, Transparency International, Venezuela; Norman Skougstad, English Language Officer; and Ed Schaefer, International Visitors ProgramCleveland Council on World Affairs. They met with Ohio Citizen Action Excutive Director Sandy Buchanan, Finance Director Lynn Scheerhorn, and Cleveland Program Director Stephen Gabor.
Through the Cleveland Council on World Affairs, Ohio Citizen Action has hosted visitors from a variety of countries over the past four years, including delegations from Italy, Ukraine, Yemen, Pakistan and Armenia.
— Sandy Buchanan, Executive Director, Ohio Citizen Action
 No ribbon-cutting ceremony yet for Baard Energy’s proposed refinery. WHEELING, WV — “Thus far, the idea of converting coal to liquid fuel has yielded little more than broken promises of job creation and industrial rebirth for the Ohio Valley.
While one such proposal, the Baard Energy project in Columbiana County, appears to be moving forward – albeit well behind schedule – residents of West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle since 2008 have watched two others crumble before even getting off the ground.
The question is this: why are these facilities so hard to construct?
First off, they’re very expensive. A project planned on former Weirton Steel Corp. property was estimated at $2 billion.
There also are environmental permits to consider, and carbon sequestration – which would allow the proposed plants to inject their carbon emissions deep into the ground – remains an unproven technology, by all accounts. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s current stance on burning coal doesn’t help, either.
The latest of those projects, in Weirton, fell apart after it was revealed one of its principals had a federal arrest sheet and spent several years in prison for stealing millions from a New York cemetery. Another project, planned for Benwood, was scrapped just two months after its announcement when one party in the deal – Synthesis Energy Systems – decided it would prefer to do business in China instead. Consol Energy Inc. was the other partner in that project.”
— Ian Hicks, Wheeling Intelligener
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 Alison Auciello, Canvass Director for Ohio Citizen Action
CINCINNATI — The members of Xavier’s Sustainability Club are urging Rumpke to explore alternatives to expansion at the Rumpke Sanitary Landfill. The group discussion on February 15th was focused on overcoming the obstacles to Zero Waste and making recycling convenient for everyone. Emily TeKolste, a Student Sustainability Intern, asked “If Rumpke would benefit from Zero Waste, what’s keeping them from doing it?”
The group has been organizing recycling competitions in their residence halls and plan to continue educating their campus about diverting the maximum amount of waste from the landfill. In addition, they are writing letters to Cincinnati’s City Council to ask for support of Colerain Township’s local zoning authority.
— Alison Auciello, Canvass Director, Ohio Citizen Action
 Carole Rudra, an assistant professor of social and preventive medicine at the University at Buffalo. BUFFALO, NY — “The app will measure the person’s location very frequently using a GPS receiver in the cell phone. It’s going to stream that data to our server. We’re going to use that data in models of air pollution exposures. The models we’re using are based on a person’s location at any given moment — how close they are to a major road, how densely populated the area is, the particular time of day and time of year.
Our primary purpose is to use these apps for participants in research studies — not to measure their pollution instantaneously, but to link their health information to their air pollution. We’re also going to try to design the app to give the user an instantaneous or near-instantaneous estimate of his or her air pollution exposure. That’s a secondary aim of our project.”
— Carol Rudra interviewed by Christina Hernandez, smartplanet.com
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 EAST LIVERPOOL — “Although one piece of needed property is scheduled to be auctioned at sheriff’s sale in March, the Columbiana County Port Authority board is hopeful that all land needed for Baard Energy’s Ohio River Clean Fuels project will be acquired by the end of next month.
‘That’s the stated goal,’ said the port authority’s legal counsel, Tim Brookes at Monday night’s board meeting. The port authority is still awaiting funds to be wired from Planck Trading LLC of Boca Raton, Fla., which is financing the land purchases on Baard’s behalf.
In January, the port authority approved the purchase of three parcels of land in Yellow Creek Township with $600,000 that was committed by Planck in October.
The next two properties to purchase consist of 27 and 142 acres, Brookes said. A third 145-acre property owned by Peter Barta II will be auctioned at the sheriff’s sale. The port authority had an option to purchase the land for $1.45 million, but it fell through because of Barta’s indictment and conviction on drug charges in 2009, as well as the foreclosure on his property filed by the bank.”
— Jeremy Lydic, Youngstown Business Journal
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 Naomi Davis, founder of the environmental organization Blacks in Green, is shown in her Woodlawn neighborhood holding a photograph of her grandmother, whose industriousness Davis says can help spawn a green revolution in the city's more rugged neighborhoods. CHICAGO — “When environmentalist Naomi Davis walks past the boarded-up homes and businesses in her Woodlawn neighborhood, she envisions a community that will confront the climate crisis by becoming self-sustaining, with vibrant, black-owned stores and green gardens.
It’s a way of life that she imagines will combine the best of today’s technological advances with the gritty, self-reliance of her grandmother’s era.
She admits it’s a lot to imagine.
But the 55-year-old attorney and founder of the nonprofit Blacks in Green believes global warming presents a unique opportunity for black communities to rediscover their self-reliance and power. Davis said she founded the group in 2007 to remind blacks that they have a history of working with their hands and that there’s a need to reinvent so that they are less dependent on corporations.”
— Dawn Turner Price, Chicago Tribune
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 An aerial view shows the aftermath of a coal ash spill after a retention pond wall collapsed at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant in Harriman, Tenn., in December 2008. WASHINGTON, D.C. — “For months now, political pressure has mounted against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to regulate for the first time the disposal of coal ash — an environmental hazard fouling water supplies and threatening communities across the country.
This week, the pressure on regulators took a new turn as two Republican congressmen inserted language in a must-pass spending bill that would stop the EPA from moving forward to protect the public and the environment from the hazards of coal ash.
Reps. David McKinley of West Virginia and Cliff Stearns of Florida say they added the language because of concerns about lost jobs and other consequences of ove-rregulation.
In the last election cycle, from 2009 to 2010, Stearns took in $54,000 in campaign contributions from energy companies — half from electric utilities that would be affected by EPA regulations for coal ash. During his 2010 campaign, McKinley received $43,300 from energy companies, and $22,751 of that came from mining interests, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.”
— Kristen Lombardi, Center for Public Integrity
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 Toledo councliman Joe McNamara insists FirstEnergy's reluctance to embrace solar is costing Toledo jobs. TOLEDO — “Toledo needs FirstEnergy Corp. to get serious about solar energy, according to a city councilman who Thursday called for a public rebuke of the utility for its failure to meet state-required investment benchmarks.
Councilman Joe McNamara told reporters FirstEnergy’s reluctance to embrace solar is costing Toledo jobs, a situation he said is deplorable for a utility making nearly $1 billion in profit.
FirstEnergy is effectively snubbing its nose at Toledo by failing to meet the minimal requirements established in 2008 by a new state law requiring greater energy diversification, he said.”
— Tom Henry, Toledo Blade
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Letters supporting the Fracking Emergency Medical Right to Know Act 7,672 neighbors have sent handwritten letters and made personal phone calls urging state legislators to support the Fracking Emergency Medical Right to Know Act as of May 14, 2013.
Ohio coal-fired power plants
Resources on proposed Cleveland incinerator
AEP’s Muskingum River Power Plant
Letters to American Electric Power 989 neighbors have sent handwritten letters urging AEP to retire its Muskingum River coal plant as of July 15, 2011.
Letters to Duke Energy 2,307 neighbors have sent handwritten letters and telewires urging Duke Energy to retire Miami Fort Unit 6 and Beckjord coal plants as of July 15, 2011.
Letters to Kokosing Asphalt 8,709 neighbors have sent handwritten letters and petitions urging Kokosing Asphalt to be a good neighbor as of February 25, 2011.
Letters to Rumpke 9,205 neighbors have sent handwritten letters and petitions urging Rumpke to be a good neighbor as of April 15, 2011.
Letters to FirstEnergy 3,914 neighbors have sent handwritten letters and petitions urging FirstEnergy to retire their four Lake Erie coal plants as of July 15, 2011.
Mountaintop removal coal mining
Letters to Senator Sherrod Brown and Senator Rob Portman 6,615 members have sent handwritten letters and petitions to Senator Brown urging him to support US EPA rules that will protect our health from polluting coal plants as of January 24, 2012.
3,751 members have petitioned Senator Portman urging him to support US EPA rules that will protect our health from polluting coal plants as of January 24, 2012.
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