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Southern Indiana Gas and Electric Company (SIGECO) F.B. Culley Plant Clean Air Act Settlement

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice announced on June 6, 2003 a Clean Air Act (CAA) settlement with the Southern Indiana Gas and Electric Company, Inc. (SIGECO) to resolve Clean Air Act violations at SIGECO's F.B. Culley coal-fired power plant (Culley Station). Under the settlement, SIGECO will spend approximately $30 million between now and 2007 to install state-of-the-art pollution controls to meet stringent pollution limits. The agreement requires SIGECO to install and/or upgrade state of the art air pollution controls at two of the Culley Station units, and elect to shut down a third unit or repower the unit with natural gas. Approximately 10,600 tons of SO2 and NOX emissions annually will be reduced from three coal-fired electricity generating plants in southern Indiana. In addition, SIGECO will retire pollution emission allowances that it or others could use to emit additional pollution into the environment. SIGECO will also spend $2.5 million to fund an environmentally beneficial project to the Culley Station to reduce sulfuric acid, and pay a civil penalty of $600,000.

This settlement is the latest in a series of cases to bring the coal-fired power plant industry into full compliance with the New Source Review requirements of the Clean Air Act. The SIGECO settlement resolves one of the first litigated cases arising from the nationwide Power Plants Initiative that commenced in November 1999 with the filing of complaints by EPA and the Department of Justice against SIGECO and seven other coal-fired electric generating plants under the Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) provisions of the Clean Air Act.

The Justice Department, on behalf of EPA, brought legal actions against dozens of coal-fired power plants controlled by American Electric Power, FirstEnergy, Illinois Power, SIGECO, Cinergy, the Southern Company, and TECO. This settlement with SIGECO will allow for a stay of a July 2003 trial on that particular lawsuit.


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For additional information, contact:

Loren Denton
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2242A)
1200 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.
Washington, DC 20460-0001
(202) 564-1148
denton.loren@epa.gov

Civil Enforcement | Cleanup Enforcement | Criminal Enforcement

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