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The Tennessee Air Pollution Control Board (“Board”) issued a January 20th proposed Technical Secretary’s Order and Assessment of Civil Penalty (“Order”) to the Tennessee Valley Authority (“TVA”). See Case No. APC22-0175.
The Order references TVA’s Cumberland Fossil Plant (“Plant”) which is located in Cumberland City, Tennessee.
The Plant is described as a coal-fired steam electric generating facility. Further, the Plant is stated to have been issued a Major Source operating permit on July 1, 2021.
The Board’s Division of Air Pollution Control (“Division”) is stated to have received the Plant’s 40 CFR Part 63, Subpart UUUUU semiannual compliance report on July 22, 2022, for the period from January 1 through June 30, 2022.
The report is stated to have indicated that SO2 emission related issues occurred for five consecutive days due to control equipment malfunction. Further, the Order states that the report and subsequent correspondence indicated the following:
- There were 120 hours of excess emissions due to control equipment failures occurring simultaneously.
- Multiple recycle pumps were out of service for several days. Several recycle pumps were out of service when the board tripped for few hours.
- The inlet damper (2B) was inoperable for one scrubber recycle pump.
- A large section of the upper header was severed which caused another scrubber recycle pump to be out of service.
- On May 20, 2022, the load was first dropped from approximately 650 MW to 500 MW. On May 21, 2022, two recycle pumps were returned to service and the load was dropped from 650 MW to 500 MW as corrective action. On May 21, 2022, the load was increased; however, within the next hour, 2F 6.9 KV board tripped. On May 21, 2022, the load was once again reduced. Once the board malfunction was addressed, load was brought back up on May 22, 2022.
The Order proposes to assess a civil penalty of $1,500.
The Order provides certain appeal rights.
A copy of the proposed Order can be downloaded here.
