First Energy - Environmental Record

Environmental Record

A study conducted by the University of Massachusetts Amherst recognized the relatively low pollution profile of FirstEnergy. Although FirstEnergy placed 58 out of 100 of the country's largest polluters, the company performed better than its regional competitors, including American Electric Power, which ranked number 35.

FirstEnergy is required to pay $1.5 billion by 2011 as part of a settlement to end a lawsuit that the United States Environmental Protection Agency has filed. This lawsuit alleged that the company failed to install pollution control equipment when upgrading its coal burning plants. Also as part of the settlement, major pollution control equipment is now being installed at the FirstEnergy Sammis site and others. This lawsuit was one of the New Source Review lawsuits filed in the 1990s.

To provide cleaner energy to its customers, FirstEnergy took several important steps in 2009. First, the company announced plans in April to repower units 4 and 5 at its R.E. Burger Plant in Shadyside, Ohio, to generate electricity principally with biomass, the only base load renewable source that can displace coal electrons. Furthermore, FirstEnergy is hosting a 1MWe pilot plant test of carbon capture retrofit equipment on one of the remaining coal units at the R.E. Burger Plant. In September, FirstEnergy decided to complete construction on the Fremont Energy Center, a 707-MW natural-gas-fired peaking plant by the end of 2010. And finally in November, FirstEnergy purchased the rights to develop a compressed-air electric generating plant in Norton, Ohio, which Ohio Governor Ted Strickland praised as "an example of how we can leverage technology and our natural resources to grow our economy and ensure our energy future." The Norton project, part of the company’s overall climate change strategy, has the potential to be expanded to up to 2,700 MW of capacity—the largest in the world by far. According to the Electric Power Research Institute, "a compressed-air energy storage project of this size...could be a key component in integrating large-scale intermittent renewables (such as wind) onto the nation's grid system." Together, these projects, when completed, will further reduce the utility’s emissions of CO₂, which already is about one-third below the regional average.

FirstEnergy Solutions Corp. has also given renewable energy certificates to help balance out the amount of electricity used in Earth Day events that were held at nine post-secondary education locations in Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Each of the schools received five SmartWind REC’s, enough energy to light a large building for the entire day.

A July 2012 consent decree from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is forcing FirstEnergy to close the Little Blue Run Lake, an unlined waste impoundment in Beaver County, Pennsylvania and Hancock County, West Virginia. Coal ash waste slurry has been piped there from FirstEnergy's Bruce Mansfield Power Plant since 1974. The reservoir at Little Blue Run is the country's largest coal ash impoundment. Pollutants including sulfates, chlorides, and arsenic have been found in groundwater nearby. FirstEnergy must stop dumping coal ash at the site by 2016, pay a penalty of $800,000, provide clean water to local residents, and do environmental monitoring of seeps for toxic pollutants including selenium, boron, and arsenic.

In November 2012 FirstEnergy lead an aggressive behind the scene attack on Ohio's electric consumers. Quietly campaigning to have lawmakers amend state efficiency standards -- without public hearings -- during the lame duck General Assembly sessions. Energy efficiency became a state mandate in 2008 when lawmakers agreed with former Gov. Ted Strickland after months of debate to pass a law requiring electric utilities to help customers use less electricity every year -- 22 percent less by 2025 than they did in 2009.Under the 2008 law, FirstEnergy slaps companies that do not invest in energy efficiency with higher rates. But industries that use their waste heat to make power could escape that rate increase.

As of November 29, 2012 FirstEnergy Corp. has abandoned its behind-the-scene lobbying campaign to persuade lawmakers to gut a four-year-old law requiring utilities to help customers use less electricity by switching to energy efficient equipment and lighting.