Northwest Indiana Discussion

This increase is ridiculous!

What is sad is that McDermott first failed to get any movement out of being against Salinas' proported Elected Official's pay raises, that he now is making a segway to litigate Nipsco.

Who is the lucky attorney who McDermott hired to do the litigating and have they kicked in to McDermott's campaing war chest?

One GOOD thing about Illinois is the Citizen's Utility Board...They have a lot of clout!

That is true, but also look how often Com Ed has issues with a little wind as well, because they can't replace things that need to be replaced.

I would have no issue with this rate increase if it was actually going to upgrade systems, but no, Nipsco is paying more for insurance and benefits, so they want the rate increase. Maybe they shouldn't have given such great golden Parachutes to their former execs for the past 5 yrs if they couldn't afford them

Pollution Knows No State Lines: Aging Indiana Coal Plant Dumps on South Side







The State Line Power Station sits on a spit of land jutting into Lake Michigan that is officially the northernmost territory of Indiana. But considering that you cannot get to the coal plant from the Hoosier State unless you drive through Chicago, it is just a technicality. But it’s a big technicality, as it has kept Illinois regulators from addressing one of the worst emitters of soot in the entire country as it spews pollution over the South Side while Indiana seems disinterested in addressing the situation. That might be changing as a coalition of environmental groups have filed suit to push enforcement of a rash of air pollution violations levied against the aging coal plant.

Lately, the City’s Fisk and Crawford coal plants have gotten a lot of attention with suits, a proposed ordinance and regular protests, but an analysis done by the Trib confirms what anyone who has seen Stateline’s bellowing black smoke has already guessed---the Indiana plant is the worst polluter of the three. Michael Hawthorne’s latest investigative story for the paper notes that State Line is one of the worst nitrogen oxide polluters in the nation and emits more than Fisk and Crawford combined. It also dumps more mercury or sulfur dioxide into our air shed than either of the two plants in the City (both of which are older than State Line, which was built in 1929). Dominion, the owner of the plant, tells the Trib that the economics don’t work out to cleaning up the plant:

"We aren't going to make significant capital expenditures in the future at State Line," said Jim Norvelle, a Dominion spokesman.

That doesn’t sit well with a coalition of groups who have filed notice that they will sue to get dozens of pollution violations enforced. Brian Urbaszewski, director of environmental health for the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago tells the Gary Post-Tribune emissions could easily be lowered by installing scrubbers---common pollution control equipment---to remove particle pollution like sulfur dioxide:

"Hundreds of coal-fired power plants do not yet have scrubber technology, so there is still an enormous opportunity to significantly enhance public health ... Getting scrubbers on plants like State Line will save lives."

Ann Alexander, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Chicago, recently told Chicago Public Radio’s Northwest Indiana correspondent Michael Puente:

“Old cold plants are supposed to be cleaning up or shutting down and they are not and there are health impacts as a result.”

A recent Clean Air Task Force report quantifies those impacts, with very ugly results. In the greater Chicago region (southern Wisconsin to Gary, IN) every year, exposure to coal plant pollution sends over 250 people to the emergency room, causes nearly 600 heart attacks and kills almost 350 people.

So why has this mess been allowed to fester on Lake Michigan’s shores? If you have ever driven past State Line on the way to Northwest Indiana, you know that the coal plant is just the beginning of a massive industrial corridor. A quick drive on the Skyway takes you past State Line, BP’s Whiting Refinery, U.S. Steel’s Gary Works, Enbridge's massive oil tank farms, the Arcelor-Mittal’s Indiana Harbor steel foundry and Michigan City’s disconcerting coal plant which is dominated by what looks like a nuclear plant cooling tower. In that massive pollution parkway, it is pretty hard to isolate one bad actor from another. Still, we hope that the recent public exposure on State Line, and Dominion’s irresponsible disregard for people over profit, will force a clean up quick.

http://chicagoist.com/2010/09/19/pollut ... s_agin.php

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Power plants cited for air quality
Report raises questions of illnesses allegedly caused by pollution from three utility sites
Comments

September 10, 2010
BY GITTE LAASBY, (219) 648-2183

Seventy-one Northwest Indiana residents will die this year, 97 will get heart attacks and 1,115 will get asthma attacks as a result of air pollution from power plants, according to a report released Thursday.

But a spokesman for one of the power plants questioned the report's methodology.

The report, issued by the Clean Air Task Force, says soot from power plants would cause 44 deaths in Lake County, 15 in Porter County and 12 in LaPorte County in 2010.

People living closest to power plants are most likely to suffer serious health effects.

"There's a large bull's-eye around the plant. It will affect people nearby. It can also affect people hundreds of miles away, but it's less likely someone will be dying from pollution from the plant" farther away, said Brian Urbaszewski, director of environmental health programs with the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago, which commissioned the report.

The report is based on a model that incorporates emissions data that the power plants reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as well as weather patterns and population density.

The three power plants in Northwest Indiana are State Line Energy in Hammond, owned by Dominion; and Northern Indiana Public Service Co.'s Bailly generating stations in Chesterton and Michigan City.

Urbaszewski said emissions could easily be lowered by installing common pollution control equipment called scrubbers on polluting units. Scrubbers remove particle pollution like sulfur dioxide, which would otherwise form particles when it's emitted.

But one of the two units at State Line Energy's plant does not have such a scrubber, only less efficient, older technology.

"There's no excuse for the fact that power plant pollution cuts short the lives of nearly 350 people per year in the Chicago region when technology is available that could virtually eliminate this pollution," Urbaszewski said.

"Hundreds of coal-fired power plants do not yet have scrubber technology, so there is still an enormous opportunity to significantly enhance public health ... Getting scrubbers on plants like State Line will save lives."

NIPSCO's Chesterton and Michigan City plants are among less than a handful in the Greater Chicago are that have scrubbers.

NIPSCO spokesman Nick Meyer questioned the results of the report.

"The Clean Air Task Force, their mission is to shut down coal, essentially, across the country, so reports like these tend to be highly suspect," he said. "We question the correlation they're trying to make."

Dominion spokesman Jim Norvelle wouldn't comment on the report.

Along with three other groups, the health association sent a letter to Dominion Wednesday announcing they intend to sue the company for hundreds of air permit violations relating to excessive smoke between early 2004 and the end of 2009.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has previously cited the company for such violations. Norvelle said the company is "in discussions" with EPA, but would not comment on the impending lawsuit.

"We're not going to comment on the notice of intent," he said. "We'll wait till we see a lawsuit."

The health association said particle emissions nationwide have decreased by nearly 50 percent since 2004 thanks to installation of power plant scrubbers and other control measures mandated through enforcement of federal laws and state power plant clean-up laws.

As a result, deaths from power plant pollution is expected to decrease from 24,000 nationwide in 2004 to 13,200 in 2010.

Indiana's eighth in the nation in mortality risk from power plant pollution, according to the report.

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Just outside Chicago, a major polluter lurks
Indiana's State Line, one of the nation's dirtiest power plants, hangs on despite environmental dangers

September 18, 2010|By Michael Hawthorne, Tribune reporter

From a plane, it would be easy to think one of the nation's dirtiest power plants is within the Chicago city limits.

But the aging State Line Power Station, a major contributor to the city's chronically dirty air, sits just a few hundred feet over the state border in Indiana, leaving it largely unnoticed and untouched during a decades-long effort to transform the Chicago area's smog-choked history.

Protesters regularly march in front of two other coal-fired power plants in Pilsen and Little Village, demanding an end to noxious pollution that wafts into the Chicago neighborhoods. Federal and state prosecutors are suing the owner of the plants to force significant cuts in smog- and soot-forming emissions.

Yet a Tribune analysis reveals that the State Line plant, built along Lake Michigan by ComEd in 1929 and bought by Virginia-based Dominion Resources in 2002, is far dirtier than either of the Chicago plants. It emits more lung-damaging nitrogen oxide than the Pilsen and Little Village plants combined, and churns more sulfur dioxide and toxic mercury into the air than either plant.

Only a dozen other coal plants nationwide emit more nitrogen oxide in relation to the amount of electricity generated — a sign of how much less efficient State Line is than bigger, cleaner power plants.

State Line also is a fish killer, one of several old plants around the Great Lakes allowed to suck up millions of gallons of water to cool equipment, then pump it back out steaming hot. Illinois and Indiana banned the technology at newer plants decades ago because it is so destructive to aquatic life.

"It's a highly polluting plant that has existed for years in a sort of never-never land," said Howard Learner, president of the Environmental Law and Policy Center.

That may be changing. Last year, officials in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Chicago office quietly accused ComEd and Dominion of repeatedly violating federal soot limits and upgrading State Line without installing required pollution controls.

Although President Barack Obama's administration is targeting dirty old coal plants around the nation for aggressive enforcement, it so far has held off filing a lawsuit against State Line, prompting environmental groups recently to nudge the EPA by threatening their own legal action.

Responding to questions, Dominion said it decided earlier this year that it isn't worth cleaning up the company's sooty relic. It plans to keep selling State Line's electricity on the open market until a federal lawsuit or tougher pollution rules make it too costly to keep operating the plant.

"We aren't going to make significant capital expenditures in the future at State Line," said Jim Norvelle, a Dominion spokesman.

Sandwiched between Lake Michigan and the Chicago Skyway, the power plant is the first of several big industrial polluters encountered on a drive along the lake's southwestern shore from Illinois to Indiana. The only road into the plant's arched brick entrance begins in Chicago's East Side neighborhood near Calumet Park.

State Line once was the nation's largest power plant. Its latest pair of coal-fired steam turbines, installed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, generate enough electricity for about 100,000 homes.

As environmental laws forced dozens of other coal plants to clean up or shut down, State Line's owners largely avoided the toughest provisions of the federal Clean Air Act and other regulations. Regulators during the 1970s exempted dozens of old plants like State Line after utilities said they wouldn't be running much longer.

Four decades later, complaints about State Line are motivated in part by new research showing that people living in the Chicago area face some of the nation's worst health risks from coal plant pollution, which has been linked to cancer, lung disease and heart problems.

In the metropolitan region that stretches around Lake Michigan from Kenosha to Naperville to Gary, 347 people die, 584 suffer heart attacks and 264 are admitted to emergency rooms each year as a result of exposure to coal plant pollution, according to an analysis commissioned by the Clean Air Task Force, a Boston-based environmental group.

Only New York and Philadelphia record more deaths and illnesses from coal plant pollution, the group concluded after relying on peer-reviewed methods endorsed by the EPA and National Academy of Sciences.

Illinois officials have documented that pollution drifting from northwest Indiana is a big contributor to the Chicago area's dirty air problems. While air pollution locally and nationwide is declining, State Line's emissions have remained relatively constant for years.

Federal EPA officials who reviewed monitoring data submitted by Dominion found the plant has violated federal opacity limits dozens of times in the last decade. Measuring the opacity, or darkness, of smokestack emissions enables regulators to gauge whether power plants are emitting unhealthy concentrations of fine pollution particles, commonly known as soot.

"Everybody in the shadow of that plant is breathing black smoke and nobody is doing anything about it," said Brian Urbaszewski, director of environmental health for the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago.

Though it is at the end of 103rd Street, the plant's Indiana address has made it impossible for Illinois regulators to target it for enforcement. Indiana officials cited the company for opacity violations in 2002, records show, but have been silent since then.

The Indiana Department of Environmental Management "is not involved in litigation concerning State Line Energy currently, nor has IDEM received notice of any suits against the company in which it may choose to intervene," the agency said in a statement.

ComEd and Dominion spokesmen said the companies negotiated last year with EPA officials about the federal complaint against State Line. No talks have been held recently, the spokesmen said.

Susan Hedman, the Obama administration's regional EPA administrator in Chicago, said the agency is aggressively pursuing cases against old coal-fired plants, but faces a significant backlog of investigations that began during Bill Clinton's administration and languished during George W. Bush's administration.

"Excessive emissions of harmful pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulates will no longer be tolerated," Hedman said in a statement.

Federal and Illinois prosecutors already are cracking down on six coal plants that ComEd sold to Midwest Generation in 1999, including Fisk in the Pilsen neighborhood and Crawford in the Little Village neighborhood, as well as plants in Joliet, Romeoville, Waukegan and downstate Pekin.

A federal lawsuit, joined by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, accuses the companies of modifying and expanding the plants so many times that they should be considered new plants and forced to comply with modern pollution standards. Keeping the aging plants going without cleaning them up violates a provision of the Clean Air Act known as New Source Review, the EPA alleges.

Midwest Generation contends its pollution problems are being addressed under a deal with the Illinois EPA that will lead the company to clean up or close its coal plants by 2018. The federal lawsuit could force the company to upgrade or close its plants faster.

Several new or pending antipollution rules might force Dominion to speed up its decision to shut down the State Line plant. The U.S. EPA's recently proposed Transport Rule, for instance, renews an attempt to reduce pollution in areas around coal plants and in any other state where the plants' sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and soot emissions hamper air quality.

Dominion also could face a renewed campaign by the EPA to reduce the number of fish killed by old factories and power plants along the Great Lakes and other bodies of water.

Through a process known as "once-through" cooling, the power plant on average sucks in 458 million gallons of Lake Michigan water every day to cool its equipment. Illinois and Indiana banned the process at new power plants in the early 1970s but exempted older ones like State Line.

Drawing so much water kills 32 million fish eggs and larvae each year at the State Line plant, according to a Dominion study. The intense water pressure and high heat also kill 350,000 adult fish annually.

The EPA has proposed rules that would require older plants to install less-destructive equipment such as cooling towers, which act like a car's radiator and consume significantly less water. Enforcement has been delayed by industry lawsuits that contend the plant upgrades would cost too much.

"It's another example of how companies have fought to keep these decrepit old plants running as long as possible, despite their huge air and water pollution problems," said Ann Alexander, a Chicago attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "People assumed these dirty plants would be gone by now. It's time to finally make that happen."

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010 ... r-polluter



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I can discern can you and what I discern is this many years have gone by and the clean air act grows stronger every year and you have to know what that means gee guys are we that stupid ?

Ask yourself who set the rate on the electricity that is generated in Indiana and sold in Illinois

Who collects the tax money from the generator ? (Hammond Indiana )

Nipsco built a new plant in Wheat field and its tramission lines in Gary Hammond and East Chicago are over 100 years old .

Know what G? Closing down that plant will in all likelihood cause those utility costs to rise even more. If the operator doesn't have the political juice to nab some form of massive taxpayer funded bailout for upgrades it will close. So either way you pay, not the bond holders like it outta be.

You are right !

New this morning apparently the mayor of Hammond has weighed in on this.

http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/lake ... 58a26.html

Seems he's more worried about the loss of tax revenue. Also, note that he says they are more worried about using the Marquette Plan to make more green space available but that if it came to that he was gonna try and nab it first. The assumption being to put another tax paying operation in its place. Or maybe he found a new place to put his big honkin' Statue of Liberty replica to point the way for all them foreign sailors to come & defect to Hammond, IN.

I know! Maybe he wants it so his dad can make another $1 mil finder's fee and sell it to Cabela's as an angler showroom/ fishing pier

Mayor: State line closure activists need to see bigger picture



HAMMOND | If the continued cries of environmental activists ever achieve their aim and the state line power plant is shut down, the financial effects for the city could be damning.

"It would definitely be a big dent," City Controller Bob Lendi said.

Speaking at a recent Mayor's Night Out event in North Hammond, Lendi said the power plant's owner, Richmond, Va.-based Dominion Resources, Inc., is the largest taxpayer in the city.

"It also has the highest assessed value, higher than Lever Bros. and higher than Horseshoe (Casino)," Lendi said.

Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. said recent news stories have spurred interest in shutting down the facility, which was built in the 1920s.

Once the nation's largest power generation plant, tests indicate the plant releases a number of contaminants into the air. Water from Lake Michigan also is drawn in to cool the plant's turbines, killing fish and their eggs in the process.

The coal-powered plant produces enough electricity to light 128,000 homes and employs about 120 people.

McDermott said while environmental activists may look at the Marquette Plan as a rationale to push for the plant's closure, he thinks they may be misinterpreting the plan to add green space in the industrial lake shore area. The Marquette Plan aims to free more shoreline for public access.

"The plan supports businesses. It sets out a plan for if they ever shut down," McDermott said. "It's more of a 40-year vision. If these things shut down, we will work to acquire these (properties)."


http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/lake ... mode=story

Clean Air Act

EPA is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Clean Air Act. Learn more about how this landmark law has protected America's health and environment.

The Clean Air Act is the law that defines EPA's responsibilities for protecting and improving the nation's air quality and the stratospheric ozone layer. The last major change in the law, the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, was enacted by Congress in 1990. Legislation passed since then has made several minor changes.

The Clean Air Act, like other laws enacted by Congress, was incorporated into the United States Code as Title 42, Chapter 85. The House of Representatives maintains a current version of the U.S. Code, which includes Clean Air Act changes enacted since 1990.

This site provides links to sections of the U.S. Code containing the amended text of the Clean Air Act. Section numbers in the U.S. Code are different than the Clean Air Act's section numbers. The table of contents below gives corresponding section numbers in the Clean Air Act (CAA) and the U.S. Code (USC). Another difference is that titles in the Clean Air Act correspond to subchapters in the U.S. Code.

http://www.epa.gov/air/caa/

All that casino revenue being squandered when a wind farm could be built exclusively for the city of Gary resident to offset electric bills and build more wind turbines. As it stands now I have not received any benefit from the casino coming to Gary.

Gary has 22 miles of lake front and can build the largest wind farm offshore in the world with casino revenue.

http://www.energy.siemens.com/hq/pool/h ... ons_US.pdf

NiSource Declares Quarterly Common Dividend

MERRILLVILLE, Ind., Aug 25, 2010 /PRNewswire via COMTEX News Network/ -- The Board of Directors of NiSource Inc. (NYSE: NI) approved a quarterly common dividend payment of 23 cents per share, payable Nov. 19, 2010, to stockholders of record at the close of business Oct. 29, 2010.

About NiSource

NiSource Inc. (NYSE: NI), based in Merrillville, Ind., is a Fortune 500 company engaged in natural gas transmission, storage and distribution, as well as electric generation, transmission and distribution. NiSource operating companies deliver energy to 3.8 million customers located within the high-demand energy corridor stretching from the Gulf Coast through the Midwest to New England. Information about NiSource and its subsidiaries is available via the Internet at www.nisource.com. NI-F

SOURCE NiSource Inc.

NiSource Prices Offering of 21.1 Million Shares of Its Common Stock

MERRILLVILLE, Ind., Sept. 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- NiSource Inc. (NYSE:NI - News) ("NiSource") today announced that it has priced its public offering of 21.1 million shares of its common stock at $16.50 per share, to be sold by Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC ("Credit Suisse"), as forward seller in connection with the forward sale agreement described below.

NiSource intends to use any net proceeds that it receives upon settlement of the forward sale agreement for general corporate purposes, including the funding of its infrastructure investment growth opportunities.

For a period of 30 days following the offering, the underwriters of the offering will have an option to purchase an additional 3.165 million shares of NiSource common stock to cover over-allotments, if any. In the event this over-allotment option is exercised, the number of shares subject to the forward sale agreement described below will be increased by a corresponding number.

Subject to certain conditions, all shares will be sold in connection with a forward sale agreement NiSource has entered into with an affiliate of Credit Suisse as the forward purchaser. In connection with the execution of the forward sale agreement, and at the company's request, Credit Suisse intends to borrow from third parties, and sell to the underwriters in this offering, shares of NiSource common stock, including any shares related to the exercise of the over-allotment option.

The forward sale agreement provides for settlement on a settlement date or settlement dates to be specified by the company within approximately 24 months after the date of this offering. Subject to certain exceptions, NiSource may elect cash or net share settlement for all or a portion of its obligations under the forward agreement. Upon any physical settlement of the forward agreement, NiSource will deliver shares of its common stock in exchange for cash proceeds at the forward sale price, which will be determined at the pricing of the offering and will be subject to adjustment as provided in the forward agreement.

Credit Suisse, Barclays Capital, Citi and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC are acting as joint book-running managers for the offering.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities, nor shall there be any sale of any securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. The offering of the common stock is being made only by means of a prospectus and related prospectus supplement included as part of a previously effective shelf registration statement. Copies of the prospectus and related preliminary prospectus supplement for the offering may be obtained by contacting (i) Credit Suisse, Attn: Prospectus Department, One Madison Avenue 1B, New York, N.Y. 10010, Telephone: (800) 221-1037, (ii) Barclays Capital, c/o Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, N.Y. 11717, Telephone: (888) 603-5847, (iii) Citi, Attention: Prospectus Department, Brooklyn Army Terminal, 140 58th Street, 8th Floor, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11220, Telephone: (877) 858-5407, or (iv) J.P. Morgan, via Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, N.Y. 11717, Telephone: (866) 803-9204.

About NiSource

NiSource Inc. (NYSE:NI - News), based in Merrillville, Ind., is a Fortune 500 company engaged in natural gas transmission, storage and distribution, as well as electric generation, transmission and distribution. NiSource operating companies deliver energy to 3.8 million customers located within the high-demand energy corridor stretching from the Gulf Coast through the Midwest to New England. Information about NiSource and its subsidiaries is available via the Internet at www.nisource.com. NI-F

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Those statements include statements regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of NiSource and its management. Although NiSource believes that its expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that its goals will be achieved. Readers are cautioned that the forward-looking statements in this news release are not guarantees of future performance and involve a number of risks and uncertainties, and that actual results could differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the following: weather; fluctuations in supply and demand for energy commodities; growth opportunities for NiSource's businesses; increased competition in deregulated energy markets; the success of regulatory and commercial initiatives; dealings with third parties over whom NiSource has no control; actual operating experience of NiSource's assets; the regulatory process; regulatory and legislative changes; the impact of potential new environmental laws or regulations; the results of material litigation; changes in pension funding requirements; changes in general economic, capital and commodity market conditions; and counter-party credit risk, and the matters set forth in the "Risk Factors" section in NiSource's 2009 Form 10-K and subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q filed during 2010, many of which risks are beyond the control of NiSource. NiSource expressly disclaims a duty to update any of the forward-looking statements contained in this release.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

The market fall out is still ongoing and to think all the foul finger pointing the sorry company is about to go under!

Just think if they went under and it was ran by a court appointed trustee what type of bill you might get and how quick your services get turned off.

So quick to lynch !