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September 28, 2007

Lynch praises decision on Brayton Point permit

Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch today praised an appeals board's denial of what he called Dominion Energy Brayton Point LLC’s request to "delay compliance" with permit requirements at Brayton Point Station in Somerset, Mass.

In a news release this evening, Lynch's office said Brayton Point's operation "under an inadequate 15-year-old permit" has been causing "significant violations" of Rhode Island water quality requirements.

The decision, dated yesterday, was by the Environmental Appeals Board, an administrative court of the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Lynch said in his statement that the decision "gives us hope that Dominion will resist pursuing further legal action and implement the technology that must be employed if Mount Hope Bay — two-thirds of which is within Rhode Island — is ever to recover from the harm inflicted by the operation of Brayton Point Power Station.”

On Oct. 6, 2003, the Environmental Protection Agency's New England Office issued a permit requiring Brayton Point’s operator to lower the plant’s thermal output -- how much water can be discharged and at what temperature it can be discharged -- and requires the operator to reduce its intake of water from the bay.

The plant would have to install what are known as closed-cycle cooling towers in its four coal-and oil-fired electricity-generating units, which Lynch's office said would reduce the plant’s intake of water from about 1 billion gallons to 56 million gallons per day.

The plant’s owners appealed the permit.

The Environmental Appeals Board denied Brayton Point Station’s request for a second review, so terms of the 2003 permit must be carried out immediately, Lynch's office said.

However, Lynch's release noted the company may seek an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals, First Circuit, in Boston.

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney

Posted by Mike McKinney  at 6:48 PM | Permalink

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