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Equipment that Monitors PREPA's Plants Is Up and Running at EPA Office in San Juan; EPA Officials to Demonstrate Equipment During Open House

Release Date: 06/26/2001
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(#01075) San Juan, Puerto Rico – Special equipment used to monitor five Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) power plants is up an running at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Caribbean Environmental Protection Division in San Juan, as Division Director Carl A. Soderberg, will demonstrated today. The equipment, which was required by EPA after PREPA continually violated environmental law at the five plants, gives real-time readings from continuous emissions monitors, which monitor for black smoke opacity, and other parameters that can impact the workings of the plants, such as oxygen used by burners, fuel oil flow and viscosity and boiler temperature and electrical production rate. "This information is very helpful to EPA because it allows us to see into PREPA’s plants even when we cannot be there in person," said Mr. Soderberg. "Of course, this information does not replace the need for physical EPA inspections of the plants, and EPA will continue to frequently visit each of the plants to check compliance." In March 1999, a Consent Decree between PREPA and the United States was entered in federal court, settling a lawsuit that had been filed against PREPA in 1993. The Decree requires PREPA to take both long and short-term actions to comply with all federal environmental laws. In addition, PREPA is required to undertake a number of environmental projects at a total cost of more than $3.5 million. Among these projects is the installation of telemetry equipment so that EPA can monitor the operations at the five plants at any time. Members of the public also have access to the information by making an appointment to visit EPA’s offices. In addition to showing what is happening at a given moment, the computers record the information so it can be reviewed at any time. This will help EPA, for example, by giving operating data that can be compared with information gathered during physical inspections. Some information, such as readings needed to determine white smoke opacity, can only be gathered by trained inspectors. EPA periodically inspects the five major steam plants subject to the Consent Decree. EPA continues to rigorously enforce the terms of the Consent Decree, approved by the Federal Court more than two years ago. EPA inspectors have conducted hundreds of inspections at the PREPA plants both before and since the Consent Decree was filed. While there have been improvements at the PREPA plants since EPA filed its lawsuit and began developing the Consent Decree a decade ago, PREPA continues to report and EPA continues to document serious violations. Since the Consent Decree became final two years ago, PREPA has paid more than $650,000 in stipulated penalties for violating various provisions of the settlement.