Westar settles w/ DoJ over air pollution suit in Kansas

[Mark Crispin Miller]

Westar Settles Air Quality

Suit For $3M, Plant Upgrade

 

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100125-708735.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines

 

Westar Energy Inc. (WR) has agreed to spend $500 million to reduce air pollution at a Kansas coal-fired power plant and pay a $3 million penalty to settle an environmental lawsuit filed by the Justice Department.

The company's general counsel, Larry Irick, said Westar obeyed all environmental laws and regulations but chose to settle because it meant money would go to cleaning up the environment rather than to litigation.

"Investments will really do something for the environment, but protracted litigation won't accomplish any environmental benefit no matter how the case turns out," he said.

Westar said it would install a selective catalytic reduction system on one of the three coal units at the Jeffrey Energy Center by the end of 2014. It may install another in the following two years, depending on the success of the first. The systems reduce nitrogen-oxide emissions. The company also said the planned installation of new low-nitrogen oxide burners and electrostatic precipitators, which reduce ash, will go forward as planned.

In addition, some $6 million will be spent on environmental mitigation the next six years.

President and Chief Executive Bill Moore said in the past several years Westar has spent several hundred million dollars "to improve the environmental performance of our coal plants."

An official in the EPA's office of enforcement and compliance assurance said Monday's settlement "sets the most stringent limit for sulfur dioxide emissions ever imposed on a coal-fired power plant in a federal settlement."

In its suit filed almost a year ago, the U.S. Department of Justice said Westar violated federal air quality laws by failing to update the plant's pollution-control equipment when it made major modifications there over the past decade. The DoJ claimed the pollution upgrades are required whenever a utility makes large changes to a power plant. Westar at the time defended itself as "good environmental stewards," saying it had invested almost $500 million in recent years to cut emissions.

Westar shares were up 0.7% at $21.70 in recent trading. The stock is up 11% from a year ago.