AKRON, Ohio, Jan. 22, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE: FE) has announced that it currently plans to provide scrubber material and coal combustion byproducts (CCBs) from its Bruce Mansfield Plant in Shippingport, Pa., for beneficial use at a coal mine reclamation project in La Belle, Pa., beginning Jan. 1, 2017. Until then, the scrubber material from the Bruce Mansfield Plant will continue to be safely stored at Little Blue Run, a permitted residual waste impoundment located in Greene Township, Pa., that has been in use since the early 1970s.
FirstEnergy has negotiated an agreement with Matt Canestrale Contracting, Inc., that ultimately will result in CCBs from the Bruce Mansfield Plant being used at a mine reclamation project in La Belle, Pa. As part of the project, the CCBs are required to be approved by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) for beneficial use. Subject to DEP approval, the CCBs are expected to be transported by barge along the Ohio and Monongahela rivers from Shippingport to La Belle, Pa. Currently, CCBs produced by FirstEnergy's Mitchell Power Station are beneficially used at the La Belle mine reclamation site.
As part of this project, a new dewatering facility is expected to be constructed on the grounds of the Bruce Mansfield Plant to convert CCBs from a wet to a dry consistency. Design engineering for the dewatering facility is under way and construction is expected to begin in the 2014-2015 timeframe.
The decision follows a recent Consent Decree between FirstEnergy Generation, LLC and the DEP that requires the company to discontinue disposal of wet CCB material at Little Blue Run after December 31, 2016.
"After conducting a detailed review of future disposal options beyond Little Blue Run, the decision was made to beneficially use this CCB material for an existing mine reclamation project," said James Lash, president, FirstEnergy Generation. "This was an economic decision based on the costs of barging the material to a third-party site compared to permitting and constructing an expanded disposal facility near the existing Little Blue Run impoundment."
Approximately 450,000 tons per year of CCB materials from the Bruce Mansfield Plant are expected to continue to be converted to synthetic gypsum and sent across the street to the National Gypsum Plant for use in the manufacture of wallboard. Since 2000, more than five million tons of this material has been recycled as wallboard. In addition, the company continues to seek other opportunities for its CCB material.
FirstEnergy also has informed the DEP and Army Corps of Engineers that it will formally withdraw previously submitted permit applications seeking to expand Little Blue Run by constructing a new, state-of-the-art dry CCB disposal facility in Greene Township adjacent to the existing impoundment.
FirstEnergy will continue to monitor and maintain the existing Little Blue Run site in an environmentally responsible manner and in compliance with all permit requirements even after disposal of wet CCB material ceases. As part of the Consent Decree, the company will submit a formal Little Blue Run closure plan to DEP no later than March 31, 2013. It will provide details regarding future plans for the facility, including a study regarding potential future ground water impacts in and around the facility. The closure plan is expected to incorporate the extensive groundwater monitoring program that is currently in place at Little Blue Run.
Rated at 2,490 megawatts (MW), the Bruce Mansfield Plant is the largest generating station in Pennsylvania, capable of producing enough electricity to power about 1.5 million homes. It also is one of the most highly controlled facilities in the country, utilizing scrubbers, Selective Catalytic Reduction technology and other advanced environmental equipment to help produce electricity in an environmentally responsible manner.
FirstEnergy is a diversified energy company dedicated to safety, reliability and operational excellence. Its 10 electric distribution companies form one of the nation's largest investor-owned electric systems, serving customers in Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and West Virginia. Its generation subsidiaries control more than 20,000 megawatts of capacity from a diversified mix of scrubbed coal, non-emitting nuclear, natural gas, hydro, pumped-storage hydro and other renewables. Follow FirstEnergy on Twitter @FirstEnergyCorp.
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Actual results may differ materially due to: the speed and nature of increased competition in the electric utility industry, the impact of the regulatory process on the pending matters before FERC and in the various states in which we do business including, but not limited to, matters related to rates, the uncertainties of various cost recovery and cost allocation issues resulting from ATSI's realignment into PJM, economic or weather conditions affecting future sales and margins, regulatory outcomes associated with Hurricane Sandy, changing energy, capacity and commodity market prices and availability, financial derivative reforms that could increase our liquidity needs and collateral costs, the continued ability of our regulated utilities to collect transition and other costs, operation and maintenance costs being higher than anticipated, other legislative and regulatory changes, and revised environmental requirements, including possible GHG emission, water intake and coal combustion residual regulations, the potential impacts of CAIR, and any laws, rules or regulations that ultimately replace CAIR, and the effects of the EPA's MATS rules, the uncertainty of the timing and amounts of the capital expenditures that may arise in connection with any litigation, including NSR litigation or potential regulatory initiatives or rulemakings (including that such expenditures could result in our decision to deactivate or idle certain generating units), the uncertainties associated with our plans to deactivate our older unscrubbed regulated and competitive fossil units and our plans to change the operations of certain fossil plants, including the impact on vendor commitments, and the timing of those deactivations and operational changes as they relate to, among other things, the RMR arrangements and the reliability of the transmission grid, issues that could result from the NRC's review of the indications of cracking in the Davis Besse Plant shield building, adverse regulatory or legal decisions and outcomes with respect to our nuclear operations (including, but not limited to the revocation or non-renewal of necessary licenses, approvals or operating permits by the NRC or as a result of the incident at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant), adverse legal decisions and outcomes related to ME's and PN's ability to recover certain transmission costs through their transmission service charge riders, the continuing availability of generating units, changes in their operational status and any related impacts on vendor commitments, replacement power costs being higher than anticipated or inadequately hedged, the ability to comply with applicable state and federal reliability standards and energy efficiency mandates, changes in customers' demand for power, including but not limited to, changes resulting from the implementation of state and federal energy efficiency mandates, the ability to accomplish or realize anticipated benefits from strategic goals, our ability to improve electric commodity margins and the impact of, among other factors, the increased cost of fuel and fuel transportation on such margins, the ability to experience growth in the Regulated Distribution and Competitive Energy Services segments, changing market conditions that could affect the measurement of liabilities and the value of assets held in our NDTs, pension trusts and other trust funds, and cause us and our subsidiaries to make additional contributions sooner, or in amounts that are larger than currently anticipated, the impact of changes to material accounting policies, the ability to access the public securities and other capital and credit markets in accordance with our financing plans, the cost of such capital and overall condition of the capital and credit markets affecting us and our subsidiaries, changes in general economic conditions affecting us and our subsidiaries, interest rates and any actions taken by credit rating agencies that could negatively affect us and our subsidiaries' access to financing, increased costs thereof, and increase requirements to post additional collateral to support outstanding commodity positions, LOCs and other financial guarantees, the state of the national and regional economy and its impact on our major industrial and commercial customers, issues concerning the soundness of domestic and foreign financial institutions and counterparties with which we do business, the risks and other factors discussed from time to time in our SEC filings, and other similar factors. The foregoing review of factors should not be construed as exhaustive. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for management to predict all such factors, nor assess the impact of any such factor on FirstEnergy's business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. FirstEnergy expressly disclaims any current intention to update, except as required by law, any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
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