Associated Press, May 11, 2008

Chester, VA - Dominion Virginia Power is cleaning up its Chesterfield Power Station _ annually ranked among the top air polluters in the state.

The energy provider dedicated a major piece of pollution-control equipment this week at its Chesterfield County power plant.

The equipment, called a scrubber, will remove 95 percent of the sulfur dioxide _ about 37,000 tons a year _ from the coal-burning smokestack and it also will remove 90 percent of the mercury.

Along with reducing acid rain and removing toxic chemicals, the addition of the equipment brings the company's investments in air-pollution control at the plant to $650 million by year's end, said Bob McKinley, Dominion's vice president for power-plant construction.

Dominion said that between the late 1990s and 2015, it will have spent $2.6 billion on environmental improvements at power plants serving Virginia and its 2.2 million customers.

The Chesterfield County plant produces 1,700 megawatts of electricity, or enough to serve 425,000 homes. The plant's largest unit generates 650 megawatts, or about 38 percent, of the facility's output.

The scrubber will use water and about $2 million worth of pulverized limestone each year to capture sulfur-dioxide from the plant's emissions. Dominion plans to transport 260,000 tons of gypsum _ a byproduct of the scrubbing process _ annually to a U.S. Gypsum plant in Norfolk, where it will be made into drywall.

The equipment should reduce sulfur-dioxide emissions at the plant's largest unit from 39,616 tons to less than 2,000 tons annually. Annual mercury emissions should be cut from 201 pounds to 20 pounds.

The power plant also has two natural-gas burning generating units and three other coal units. The company said the coal units will be fitted with a single scrubber to accommodate all their emissions.

Spokesman Jim Norvelle the Chesterfield plant should fall well down the list once all environmental improvements are completed.