Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — Two coal-fired power plants in Arkansas are among the nation’s 50 worst producers of mercury pollution, according to a report released Wednesday by the Environmental Integrity Project.

Entergy Arkansas’ White Bluff Plant in Jefferson County ranked 32nd on the list, and the company’s Independence plant in Independence County ranked 33rd.

The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit said while emissions at the Independence plant fell 2.35 percent from 2007 to 2008, the most recent period for which data is available, emissions at the White Bluff plant rose 12.74 percent.

The study found that 27 of the 50 worst emitters of mercury, including the two in Arkansas, actually produced more in 2008 than in 2007.

Glen Hooks, director of the Sierra Club in Arkansas, described the report as “stunning,” and noted that Arkansas’ mercury emissions rose while a new plant is being built in the state.

The Sierra Club, Arkansas Audubon and area landowners have been fighting the planned Southwestern Electric Power Co. plant in Southwest Arkansas for several years.

Their efforts have been unsuccessful, however. In January, the state Pollution Control and Ecology Commission adopted a hearing officer’s recommendation to uphold the air permit for the $1.6 billion, 600-megawatt John W. Turk Jr. Power Plant currently under construction in Hempstead County.

Entergy Arkansas spokesman James Thompson said Wednesday that the utility is aware that the two plants are on the list, but said both plants are operating within federal and state emission limits.

Thompson said Entergy was the first utility in the nation to voluntarily stabilize greenhouse emissions in 2000 and is the only U.S. utility to be named to the Down Jones Sustainability Index for seven years.

“We’re doing everything within the limits. Everything we’re asked to do, we have done that,” he said.