Georgia Power's Plant Hammond in Coosa will give its new "scrubber" its first run Friday.
Workers there undoubtedly will have their fingers crossed, but if all goes as well as a similar test last month at Plant Bowen in Euharlee, they can relax, and the scrubber will stay on schedule to begin commercial operation May 1.
Scrubbers remove sulfur dioxide and reduce fine particulates produced by coal-fired power plants, requirements of the U.S. Clean Air Act. Georgia Power says its scrubbers remove as much as 95 percent - one manager at Plant Hammond even predicts as much as 98 percent at his plant - of sulfur dioxide emissions.
Floyd County is designated a "nonattainment area" by the federal Environmental Protection Agency for fine-particle and ozone pollution. Counties in nonattainment status risk losing federal funding and face greater difficulty recruiting industry, said William Steiner, executive director of the Coosa Valley RegionalW.C. Dunaway, asset manager at Plant Bowen, said, "We gobble up three to four train loads (of coal) a day." Development Center.
"Without the scrubber, Floyd County probably would not reach attainment," said Heather Abrams, chief of the air protection branch of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division. "With the scrubber, you're well on the way to attainment."
"We certainly should be very close (to attainment). We're sure hoping so," said Sam Freeman, director of business and industry services for the Greater Rome Chamber of Commerce. "The efforts by Georgia Power at Plant Hammond and Plant Bowen, and the efforts by Temple-Inland recently, have to help our air quality immensely."
(During the past three years, paper mill Temple-Inland in Coosa has completed various upgrades and replacements of process equipment in its steam power-generating and chemical recovery areas.)
"Our folks don't recruit businesses that have emission issues," Freeman said. But he did say that, in general, a business might have to spend extra money to meet standards in a nonattainment area that it might not have to spend in an attainment area.
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