Shame on PGE

For all the effort Portlanders have gone to building more sustainable buildings, for all the progressive thinking that’s gone on here, both at the public and private level, about architecture’s relationship to the environment, it turns out that one of the city’s leading institutions is polluting the air like an English factory from the Industrial Revolution.

A new study commissioned by the US Forest Service has found that Portland General Electric’s massive coal-burning power plant, in Eastern Oregon near the small town of Boardman, so pollutes the are that a haze envelops much of Oregon and Washington.

What’s even more horrifying to read is that ever since the plant was built in 1975, it’s been operating without modern pollution control equipment such as scrubbers. According to today’s Oregonian article by Michael Milstein, the plant was authorized “just in time to avoid toughened provisions of the federal Clean Air Act.” Boardman, Milstein continues, is “one of only two major coal plants in the West” without modern pollution controls.

So since its very inception 21 years ago, the Boardman plant has been operated with PGE knowing full well that it ought to have pollution control equipment that it didn’t have. They escaped on a virtual technicality laws to protect clean air, and knowingly took advantage of it. And they did so with a massive industrial plant adjacent to some of America’s most beautiful scenic treasures, such as the Columbia River Gorge, Mount Adams, Mount Hood, and Hells Canyon.

I’m a PGE customer, as are many thousands of Portlanders, and I’ve seen the utility offer an increasing array of green power options such as wind turbines. And yet all the while they were belching a constant cloud of polluted air.

Naturally some will respond to this rant that such pollution controls can be very expensive. But I'm completely accepting of my power rates going up in order to stop such massively scaled pollution.

As many know, the Boardman plant has actually been out of service since last fall as PGE has struggled to repair breakdowns. This could have been a time to install scrubbers or other pollution control equipment. But PGE officials told the Oregonian that it could be five years before they even begin to install such controls, and only then they’d be doing so after their mandated deadline from the Environmental Protection Agency had reached its end. PGE’s primary step right now, as I understand it, is probably going to be more study. To find out burning coal pollutes the air? I think we can answer in the affirmative quite confidently right now.

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality is taking comments on Boardman’s emissions renewal permit. Here is a link to the website for leaving comments. I urge everyone to bombard PGE with messages. PGE needs to wake up to what’s ridiculously obvious, that running a huge coal burning plant without pollution control is absolutely unacceptable, that it contradicts the values that we as Portlanders hold strongly.

If you think PGE’s guilt-by-association with Enron was a black mark on the company, it’s nothing to the blackness of burned coal filling the skies for three decades.

Comments

[agustin]

What is the relation to portland architecture?

[Brian Libby]

The plant may not be in Portland, but it's a huge structure built by a major Portland institution, and one that affects energy use by much of the city. If this plant and its appalling lack of pollution controls represents PGE's environmental values, then what can we expect them to build here in town the next time they hire an architect? Furthermore, architecture and urban environments are inextricably linked to the natural environments surrounding them. PGE's Boardman plant has for three decades needlessly polluted the air in a way that has affected some of the state's most enduring treasures. I'll admit this topic doesn't fit neatly into a literal definition of Portland architecture, but I think it's very relevant.

[Chris McMullen]

If Portland buildings ceased lighting their interiors and exteriors when not in use, maybe PGE wouldn't have to run that coal plant.

[nathan]

Absolutely appalling.

First its Enron.
Then it turns out they are outright stealing from Portlanders.

And now this? Time to get rid of these scum for good.

I have no repect for these cowards. We should be actively searching for a final solution to these bastards.

[adron]

Funny.

Portlanders force a clean power plant to close down after some problems that provided at one time 40% of the states power. Heaven forbid there was a solution to these other possible polution issues.

So Trojan is gone for good now.

Meanwhile a coal plant oft not looked upon is puking polution out and about everywhere. For all the misguided attempts Portlanders make to prevent polution and protect the environments sometimes it really seems they should just let things be, and find actual solutions instead of attacking things that stand.

If the Nuclear power is so bad, why do so many countries still use them WIHTOUT problems to power their entire country? Why do they have such better environmental standards than us Americans? (France and others, it seems soon Iran too.)

If we must use coal, just work with the companies to get them cleaned up. Work with the Government to find some adjusted rates to pay for these "scrubbers".

The ironies abound. :o wow.

...and Nathan, really... such harsh words, without any real suggested solutions. Come now, try to be a bit more useful.

[Bob R.]

Adron, while I agree that nuclear power can be handled safely (with a strict and transparent regulatory system), it is not correct to say that Portlanders forced the power plant to close down.

There was strong public opposition, and a ballot campaign, but PGE prevailed at the ballot box (after spending a good deal of PR $$$).

It was PGE, facing high repair bills for a defective heat exchange system (which they knew about before the election) who decided to close the plant.

- Bob R.