Governor Ridge, DEP Honor USGen's Scrubgrass Generating Plant; Power Plant Wins Environmental Excellence Award for Pollution.

KENNERDELL, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 22, 1998--Governor Tom Ridge presented Scrubgrass Generating Plant with the 1998 Governor's Award for Environmental Excellence at a ceremony and reception today at the Forum Auditorium in Harrisburg.

Scrubgrass Generating Plant, an affiliate of U.S. Generating Company, received the award in recognition of its successful, ongoing clean-up and restoration of lands blighted by waste coal from long-ago mining operations. The plant uses advanced generating technologies that enable the waste coal, or gob, to be used as fuel to produce electric power. As the waste coal is removed from the fuel sites, Scrubgrass is reclaiming hundreds of acres of land previously beneath the massive culm banks.

Since the plant began operations in 1993, nearly 600 acres of abandoned mine lands have been reclaimed under cooperative agreements in Allegheny, Armstrong, Butler and Clearfield Counties. Scrubgrass is presently conducting reclamation work near Apollo, Penn., at the former Foster No. 65 Mine of the now bankrupt Leechburg Mining Company. This site is identified by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) as one of the worst sites in Western Pennsylvania and a primary source of pollution of the Kiskiminetas River.

"Scrubgrass' operations are providing societal, environmental and economic advantages to the state, region and county," said DEP Secretary Jim Seif. Clean-up efforts undertaken by the Scrubgrass plant have already saved Pennsylvania taxpayers more than $10 million. During its first 25 years of operation, the plant is expected to eliminate more than 15 million tons of waste coal, at savings to the Commonwealth of more than $20 million, as estimated by the DEP.

The annual Governor's awards are sponsored by the DEP's Office of Pollution Prevention and Compliance Assistance. Created in 1995, following Governor Ridge's inauguration, the award honors select individuals, employers, municipalities and institutions that have undertaken projects to benefit the Commonwealth's environment and economy.

Together, Scrubgrass Generating Plant and the other 1998 award winners represent a combined annual savings to the state of more than $39 million, liquid-waste reductions of more than 144 million gallons, solid-waste reductions of more than 12 million tons, and more than 5.5 million tons of air emissions reductions.

"It's exciting to win the award this year. We just celebrated our five year operating anniversary in June, and it's a nice belated birthday present," said Marty Kreft, Scrubgrass general manager. "We're very proud to be making an important, positive contribution to Pennsylvania's environment."

Waste coal sites pose serious threats to water quality and public safety. Precipitation, in the form of rain or snow, combines with sulfur in the waste coal to form acid mine drainage. The drainage runs off into nearby streams and rivers endangering aquatic life downstream.

"This is pollution prevention," said Todd Lawton, Scrubgrass Fuels Manager. "By removing the waste-coal from these sites, we are actually eliminating the source of pollution, not just reducing it."

Scrubgrass Generating Plant is located in Scrubgrass Township, Venango County. It generates enough electricity to power approximately 83,000 homes. The plant uses circulating fluidized-bed combustion boilers, the best available technology for burning of waste coal cleanly. The plant's emissions are well below state and federal requirements, and much lower than those of older coal plants in the state, factors contributing to the win. The combustion process produces an alkaline ash, which the DEP has approved for use in active and abandoned mine reclamation. The ash is returned to the site to neutralize other acid bearing materials which could not be used as fuel and to supplement native soils to promote site vegetation.

U.S. Generating Company (USGen) is one of the nation's leading competitive electric generation companies. Through its affiliates, USGen owns and manages one of the nation's largest portfolios of reliable, efficient generating plants, with a total capacity of more than 8,000 megawatts and representing a capital investment of more than $6 billion. USGen is a wholly owned indirect subsidiary of San Francisco-based PG&E Corporation, which provides a full range of energy services throughout North America through its unregulated affiliates.