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North Texas power company to issue vouchers for electric lawn mowers

Release Date: 05/22/2008
Contact Information: Dave Bary or Tressa Tillman at 214-665-2200 or [email protected]

Texas Municipal Power Agency to complete project as part of settlement with EPA

(Dallas, Texas – May 22, 2008) Texas Municipal Power Agency (TMPA) will pay a $26,250 penalty and issue $78,750 in vouchers for electric lawn mowers to resolve violations of the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency announced today.

The violations involve operations at the power provider’s Gibbons Creek Steam Electric Station in Grimes County. TMPA has since corrected the infractions and is in compliance with the Clean Air Act.

“It is imperative that business and industry do their part to help protect human health and the environment,” said EPA Regional Administrator Richard E. Greene. “EPA will continue to ensure that companies make every effort to follow environmental laws, so that our communities have cleaner, healthier air to breathe.”

TMPA is a municipal power company serving the cities of Bryan, Denton, Garland and Greenville. The company violated the Clean Air Act by exceeding opacity emissions limits at its facility, failing to report in writing that its continuous opacity monitoring system was out of service for 397 hours, and not submitting required emissions reports to EPA.

Under a settlement with EPA, the company will pay a civil penalty and complete a supplemental environmental project that involves issuing vouchers worth $150.00 each to designated retailers in its service area. TMPA customers and city residents can use the vouchers to purchase electric lawn mowers.

The project is aimed at helping reduce air pollution in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, which currently does not meet federal requirements for ozone. Ground-level ozone, or smog, is created when volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen oxides react with sunlight. Traditional lawn mowers emit carbon monoxide, VOCs and nitrogen oxides, while electric lawn mowers produce essentially no pollution.

The TMPA vouchers are expected to help replace 525 gasoline-powered lawn mowers, which has the potential to reduce 37 tons of greenhouse gases and other pollutants per year, or the equivalent emissions of more than 22,500 new cars, each being driven 12,000 miles.

To learn more about enforcement activities in EPA Region 6, please visit https://www.epa.gov/region6.

An EPA audio file is available at https://www.epa.gov/region6/6xa/audio.htm#audio052208_tmpa.