Manchester, NH March 20, 2009****The installation of a “scrubber” at PSNH’s Merrimack Station power plant will significantly reduce air releases of chemicals listed today by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in its annual report on releases of pollutants to the environment.
The scrubber is being installed at Merrimack Station as required by state law and will significantly reduce emissions of mercury and sulfur dioxide. In addition, the scrubber’s “wet flue gas desulphurization” process is also expected to virtually eliminate emissions of hydrochloric acid and hydrogen fluoride at Merrimack Station, and reduce emissions of sulfuric acid at the facility by more than 70 percent. The three chemicals are listed by the EPA as the top three acid gases released in New Hampshire in 2007.
The EPA’s “Toxic Resource Inventory” (TRI) is issued annually in order to raise awareness about chemical releases to the environment to provide a single account of discharges that are currently regulated under multiple environmental programs. PSNH and its corporate parent Northeast Utilities have participated in the TRI reporting for more than a decade.
Wood Power at Schiller Station
The replacement by PSNH of a coal-fired boiler with a wood-fired boiler at Schiller Station in Portsmouth has resulted in a significant reduction of several key emissions reported in the TRI. A comparison of total emissions at Schiller in 2007, the first full-year of operations of the Northern Wood Power boiler, compared to average total emissions in the years 2002 – 2005 shows the following percentage reductions: sulfuric acid, 29 percent; hydrochloric acid, 28 percent; hydrogen fluoride, 26 percent.