MIDWEST GENERATION - Fisk & Crawford

These plants have a combined generating capacity of nearly 900 megawatts of electricity – enough to provide power for more than half a million homes and businesses.

The electricity produced by Fisk and Crawford goes directly onto the local electric grid for use in Pilsen, Little Village and the downtown district.

Illinois is part of a regional power grid that buys and manages power across thirteen states. A financial transaction for purchasing power may occur anywhere in the region, but power is used closest to where it is generated.

The Fisk and Crawford plants employ almost 200 people. These are stable, permanent, good-paying jobs. Most of the workers at the plants are members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union (Local 15). In addition to these direct jobs, the plants often have special projects that provide hundreds of hours of work for building and construction trade union workers each year. The plants also depend on a steady supply of vendors and suppliers for day-to-day operations.

The plants benefit Chicago in many ways. First, they provide enough power to meet the needs of more than half a million homes and businesses. Second, they provide good, stable jobs for almost 200 people, and hundreds of hours for members of the construction trade unions, and work for local suppliers and vendors. And third, they help ensure that Chicago has a reliable energy supply. The company and its employees also are major supporters of schools and nonprofit organizations located in the communities where the plants operate, helping contribute to a better quality of life for familes in Pilsen and Little Village.

Fisk and Crawford operate under tough regulations designed to protect public health set by the U.S. EPA (the federal Clean Air Act) and the State of Illinois. In fact, the regulations in Illinois are some of the toughest in the country for existing coal-fired power plants. The Fisk and Crawford plants began implementation of a 10-year plan mandated by the Illinois EPA to steadily reduce emissions through 2018.

Our plants meet strict environmental standards. Midwest Generation started reducing emissions as soon as we bought the plants, in 1999. Improvements continue today, and we are in compliance with a 10-year program mandated by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – some of the toughest reduction regulations in the country – which runs through 2018.

Both. Midwest Generation is heavily regulated by both Illinois and U.S. standards, and the standards have gotten increasingly tougher over the years. In fact, two new sets of regulations affecting these plants have been issued just since March 2011.

Plans to reduce emissions from the Fisk and Crawford plants started back in 1999 when Midwest Generation first purchased the plants and those improvement plans continue today. Since 1999, the plants have reduced emissions of sulfur dioxide by 30 percent, nitrogen oxides by 60 percent and mercury by more than 90 percent. In fact, these plants were some of the first in the country to install new mercury reduction technology.

And, more reductions are on the way. As required by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, additional controls now being installed will further reduce nitrogen oxide emissions, ultimately achieving a total reduction of 70 percent from 1999 by 2012. And, another round of reductions in sulfur dioxide emissions is scheduled to begin across the entire fleet of Midwest Generation plants in Illinois in 2013 and continue through 2018.

Reducing carbon is a nationwide goal and our company is a national leader in this effort with the development of wind power. Midwest Generation, along with the Chicago Tribune and others, believe environmental policy should be made at the state and federal level, not by individual cities. The proposed ordinance is also bad policy because it does not recognize the tough state and federal regulations under which the plants already operate, and establishes carbon emission limits that no coal plants can meet with existing technology.

The proposed Chicago Ordinance is bad policy because it doesn’t recognize the tough state and federal regulations under which the Fisk and Crawford plants currently operate. And, it establishes carbon limits that cannot be achieved with available technology. The ordinance essentially will force Fisk and Crawford to shut down, resulting in job loss and destabilizing our city’s energy supply.

In 2006, Midwest Generation reach a landmark agreement with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency requiring substantial reductions in emissions of mercury, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides and particulate matter at its plants. It’s one of the toughest regulatory programs in the country for older power plants. The additional reductions as part of the agreement began in 2008 with mercury, and by 2012, nitrogen oxide emissions will have been reduced by 70 percent. Sulfur dioxide emissions have already been reduced by 30 percent and will be cut further across the entire fleet of Midwest Generation plants in the state beginning in 2013 and continuing through 2018.

So this landmark agreement with the State, combined with federal Clean Air Act regulations, is achieving substantial reductions in air emissions.

Reducing carbon emissions is a nationwide goal, and there is considerable research underway to identify new technologies to accomplish that. Specifically, the federal government plans to test underground storage of carbon as part of the FutureGen project in downstate Illinois. And a Midwest Generation plant in Pekin is one of five sites in North America where the Electric Power Research Institute conducted research into the technical and economic feasibility of capturing and storing carbon emissions at an existing plant.

Neither Fisk nor Crawford, nor any other power plant that generates electricity from coal, can meet requirements in this ordinance. The plants would have to be permanently shut down or closed and converted to natural gas.

Yes. However, the cost to change over the plants is estimated at well over half a billion dollars. Construction costs would have to be financed, and banks will only lend if we have signed contracts from power service providers agreeing to buy the new higher-priced electricity generated by the converted plants.

If the Fisk and Crawford plants were to shut down, there would be an immediate loss of 200 jobs and a significant impact on hundreds of others in the building trades who work on special projects in the plants. This kind of job loss is especially devastating in difficult economic times like these. In addition, the City’s energy supply would be put at risk. The plants make an important contribution to the reliability and stability of the power grid serving the city, and their supply is especially important on the hottest days of summer when demand for electricity is high.

And beyond that, if these plants shut down, replacement electricity would come from plants in other states that don’t have to meet Illinois’ tough requirements to reduce air pollution. So there would actually be an increase in air pollution in our region because of the need to rely on coal-fired plants in neighboring states that produce more air pollution.

Rates would increase because electricity produced from natural gas and other sources like wind and solar is more expensive than coal.

The data for this study were gathered nearly a dozen years ago, before Midwest generation even owned these plants. Its conclusions are completely outdated, and it fails to take into account the substantial emissions reductions over the past decade by Midwest Generation – both voluntary and mandated by the U.S. EPA and the State of Illinois. This old study should have no bearing on the current debate, even though those who want the plants shut down continue to use it as a political tool.

Fisk and Crawford already meet the requirements spelled out in this ordinance. However, as with the Clean Power ordinance, we believe environmental legislation should be set at the state or federal level, and question the authority and legality of this ordinance.

According to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, Fisk and Crawford are not the source of high lead levels found in local communities.

Chicago’s air quality has been steadily improving as measured by U.S. EPA air quality monitors located around Cook County. There are many contributing factors to better air quality but it is, in part, due to the emissions reductions at the Fisk and Crawford plants.The federal monitoring of fine particulate levels demonstrates that the Fisk and Crawford plants capture 97 percent of fine particulates with current equipment, and that percentage will continue to go up as more emissions reductions are made. Chicago has met the federal standards for particulate monitors since 2006 – unlike more than 30 other metropolitan areas, including New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and even Salt Lake City

Asthma is a serious health condition, and it unfortunately affects many families, especially in urban areas. But the scientific studies simply do not support attributing illness to the Fisk and Crawford generating stations. In fact, the data compiled by health experts shows that the areas around these plants do not have higher asthma rates than other Chicago neighborhoods.

A third of employees working at Fisk and Crawford were either born in the surrounding communities, currently live there, or has family that does.

There are many benefits. Fisk and Crawford provide needed and affordable power to Pilsen, Little Village and the business district. The plants provide close to 200 good, full-time jobs, as well as work for hundreds more providing construction and other services. In fact, Midwest Generation spends $23 million with local suppliers and organized labor to support plant operations every year. We also pay close to $3 million annually in payroll and property taxes. Plant employees contribute hundreds of volunteer hours each year to local schools and neighborhoods and over the past 10 years Midwest Generation’s parent company, Edison International, has given more than $6 million in scholarships.