Carrboro, environmental groups to EPA: Cut UNC coal plant emissions or face lawsuit

The town of Carrboro and two environmental groups formally notified the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday that they plan to sue in an effort to strengthen the air-quality permit for the coal- and natural gas-fired power plant near the UNC campus.

Last year, the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality approved an updated permit for the university’s power plant, which is on Cameron Avenue near the Carrboro-Chapel Hill border.

But in an October 2021 petition, Carrboro joined with the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club to ask the EPA and Administrator Michael Regan to object to the permit and require DEQ to re-open it.

They contend that the permit does not limit the heat of the boilers to the levels used in the Division of Air Quality’s modeling and that the UNC plant actually exceeded that level 269 times between May 2019 and March 2021.

To reach higher temperatures, a plant adds more coal, leading to higher emissions.

In fact, they wrote, modeling conducted for the petioners shows that the permit would allow UNC to release harmful nitrogen dioxide at levels resulting in local air conditions more than four times those considered safe by EPA ambient air standards. They also contend the permit would allow UNC to exceed sulfur dioxide concentration standards.

In a written statement, staff attorney Perrin de Jong of the Center for Biological Diversity said: “The people of Carrboro and Chapel Hill can’t wait any longer to be protected from this deadly, unlawful air pollution. Because North Carolina failed to do its job, the EPA needs to step in and enforce the Clean Air Act.”

An EPA spokeswoman declined to comment, citing pending litigation.

Last year, UNC won a federal lawsuit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club over the power plant when a judge decided that references to boiler heat included in the previous permit were descriptions of the equipment rather than operating standards or limits.

UNC announced in 2010 that it would stop using coal to generate power for the campus by May 2020. It backed off of that approach by 2016, instead targeting a plan to be “greenhouse gas neutral” by 2050.

A climate action plan released by UNC in 2021 moved that goal up 10 years, to 2040. It also stated that it has cut coal use at the plant by 52% since 2007, primarily by increasing its use of natural gas.

Tuesday, a university spokesman wrote, “The University is on record in our Climate Action Plan clearly articulating a commitment to end coal use at the cogeneration facility as soon as feasible as part of our 2021 Climate Action Plan, which moves up the target for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by a decade to 2040. We will continue to monitor relevant developments with the Environmental Protection Agency and respond as needed.”

Difficult to breathe

In 2019, UNC’s Cameron Avenue coal plant emitted 275.32 tons of sulfur dioxide and 237.63 tons of nitrogen oxides.

Sulfur dioxide can make it difficult to breathe, according to the EPA, and is particularly harmful to people with asthma.

Nitrogen oxides have similar impacts, according to the EPA, irritating the respiratory system over the short term and potentially causing asthma to develop or greater susceptibility to respiratory infections over the long term.

Additionally, the groups and town say the permit lacks monitoring and record-keeping requirements for sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from 88 boilers, generators and fire pumps at the facility.

“Without these requirements, [DEQ’s Division of Air Quality] is left without a means to assure compliance with pollution limits and enable enforcement of permit deviations,” the groups wrote in their Tuesday letter to Regan.

A N.C. Division of Air Quality spokesman declined to comment directly on the notice of intent to sue.

Shawn Taylor, the DEQ spokesman, wrote in an email that the permit approved in August 2021 “includes appropriate limits, monitoring and record-keeping conditions so that the facility operates in compliance with all state and federal regulations.”

Although the Clean Air Act requires the EPA to respond to a petition within 60 days, the petitioners wrote, there has been no reply.

The notice of intent to sue gives the EPA an additional 60 days to comply with the parties’ demands or, they wrote, they will file a lawsuit. That lawsuit would call for the agency to take action on the petition, be that an approval or a denial.

“Due to the tremendous harm with which excess SO2 and NO2 pollution threaten local residents, the urgency of EPA’s obligation to discharge its nondiscretionary duty to respond to the UNC Petition is great,” the groups wrote in their letter to Regan.

Regan, a North Carolina native, is a former DEQ secretary.

Carrboro officials are specifically concerned about environmental justice issues, noting that the coal plant is located near historically Black neighborhoods such as Lloyd-Broad, Northside, Pine Knolls and Tin Top.

“EPA’s failure to provide a timely response to our petition objecting to this ineffectual air permit issued by the Division of Air Quality exposes Carrboro and Chapel Hill communities to dangerous levels of air pollutants,” Mikaela Curry, senior campaign representative for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign in the Carolinas, wrote in a statement.

This story was produced with financial support from 1Earth Fund, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work.