Settlement reached as biomass plant fined in California

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reached a settlement for Clean Air Act violations by the Thermal Energy Development Partnership (TEDP).

The settlement totalled $145,000 (€106,500) as TEDP’s biomass power plant in California “failed to properly operate and maintain emission monitoring equipment”.

TEDP’s monitoring equipment reportedly failed to track sulfur dioxide for 30 months, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides for 27 months and opacity for 9 months. There were no known emission violations.

‘EPA will continue to rigorously enforce against facilities located in the San Joaquin Valley, a geographic focus for our regional Strategic Plan. The message is simple: facilities must comply with the requirements to monitor their pollutants,’ says Jared Blumenfeld, EPA’s regional administrator for the Pacific Southwest. ‘With some of the poorest air quality in the nation, the Valley cannot afford to risk any further deterioration.’