Illegal levels of mercury and more emitted from east valley power plant, feds say

Fourteen months after Environmental Protection Agency inspectors quietly notified the operator of the Desert View Power Plant that it had repeatedly emitted illegally high levels of mercury and other dangerous pollutants upwind of the low-income east Coachella valley community of Mecca, federal regulators will meet with residents and community groups on Tuesday night.

Residents have complained for years about billowing smoke plumes blowing from the plant over their homes, a school and a daycare center.

The meeting will be held from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Boys and Girls Club at 91391 66th Avenue in Mecca.

But it's unclear how much information federal officials will provide, as an EPA spokesperson said it is an active, ongoing investigation and he could not answer specific questions from The Desert Sun.

Agency inspectors issued a notice of violation in June 2022 against the plants' owners. A copy obtained by The Desert Sun shows they found that illegally high levels of mercury, hydrochloric acid, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides were emitted at various points from 2016 through 2021, in violation of the Clean Air Act's hazardous air pollutant standard. All are dangerous pollutants or are building blocks of smog and soot that can cause respiratory illness and premature deaths if breathed at high levels or over sustained periods of time.

The EPA also concluded the owners had not done required performance tests for mercury emissions from two plant boilers in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, and that they exceeded legal levels of mercury from the boilers in both 2016 and 2021. Short-term exposure to mercury can affect a person's central nervous system and cause acute illness.

A finding accompanying the violation notice also states "the EPA is not aware of any changes that Desert View has made that would bring the Facility’s emissions (of all the substances) below the emission limits."

But Peter Whittingham, a spokesman for Desert View's operator, Greenleaf Energy, said all that is emitted from the plant is harmless water vapor. He added that harmful soot from combustion and other pollutants are all controlled inside the plant using best available technology. He said "atmospheric conditions (and) the way the light might hit it" could make the vapor appear to be black smoke at times.

Whittingham said the plant's sole current customer is Imperial Irrigation District, and confirmed that it burns agricultural waste and old pallets and other wood trash from big box stores across Southern California. He also said no harmful substances have been emitted from the plant, except possibly for a few minutes before being detected, then "reported and addressed." He said an outside consultant was retained by the company to review the plant's continuous monitor readings and EPA and other inspection reports.

The consultant's findings cannot be shared while the matter is adjudicated with EPA, Whittingham said.

A spokesperson for the EPA, Joshua Alexander, said in response to questions about Whittingham's statements and its inspections and notice, "EPA cannot comment on our active, ongoing investigations, so we aren’t able to speak to the Desert View Power Plant investigation."

A press release last week about the plant being temporarily shut down, due to flooding of key equipment from Tropical Storm Hilary, said: "The company has been working closely with representatives of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency since last year to address a Notice of Violation issued by the agency." Greenleaf Power CEO Greg Cook said in the release that the company is “striving to resolve the findings tied to this permit in the most timely manner possible.”

“DVP is eager to conclude this process, which has taken more than 14 months despite our company’s timely response to every EPA request for data,” Cook said. “We have been completely transparent with the EPA and the community throughout this process and are disappointed that DVP was not invited to meaningfully participate in an upcoming community meeting regarding our facility and our operations.”

Residents and community groups have noticed in recent years that the company does burning at night or in the early morning, but said it is still possible to see a giant plume filling the sky above. As recently as 2019, the facility was the largest "stationary" polluter in the Coachella Valley, although truck and car traffic emits more air pollution overall.

A staff attorney and policy advocates with the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability's Coachella Valley office have pressed the EPA and the company to be more transparent with residents, and to ensure all necessary actions are taken to guarantee no harmful pollution is reaching residents and others downwind of the plant. They would like in-home filters and other measures, in addition to full enforcement by the EPA and cleaning up the plant as necessary.

"I would say it's pretty infuriating, I mean, excess emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, and the particulate matter," said Krystal Otworth, a policy advocate with Leadership Counsel. "And mercury. This stuff is toxic and has adverse health effects."

What's the solution?

She noted low-income eastern Coachella Valley residents also suffer from dangerous dust storms from the rapidly drying edge of the badly polluted Salton Sea, as well as agricultural pesticides and other woes. She said they had identified the power plant and its smokestacks, which are visible for miles from Highway 86, as a top concern.

Otworth said the notice of violation was "just another layer of the community being being told, 'Yes, this is a problem.' But we haven't heard, what's the solution? What are we going to do to remediate the situation? None of that and so there's, you know, there's an eagerness there. The community is waiting and waiting in anticipation for answers, I would say."

Under federal statutes, EPA can assess daily fines and other sanctions if violations are not resolved. There was no immediately available information about whether any penalties have been applied.

Otworth also said of Whittingham's statements about vapor, "This is the first time I'm hearing they're claiming that there are no hazardous emissions."

Greenleaf recently mailed a flyer to area residents stressing that it creates completely renewable power for 49,000 homes, and that environmental health and safety "is of the utmost importance." It noted it employs mostly area residents and that there had been no workplace accidents for 1,000 days, but did not mention smokestack emissions.

Otworth said it was critical for both the EPA and the plant operators to keep the community accurately updated about what was going on with emissions. Company officials, for their part, said in their news release that “we have been completely transparent with the EPA and the community throughout this process and are disappointed that DVP was not invited to meaningfully participate in an upcoming community meeting regarding our facility and our operations.”

Otworth and Alexander with EPA both noted the meeting is open to the public and anyone can attend.

Janet Wilson is senior environment reporter for The Desert Sun. She can be reached at jwilson@gannett.com or on Twitter @jwilson66

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Illegal levels of mercury at Coachella Valley power plant, feds say