Residents Oppose WE Energies Discharging More Mercury Into Lake

OAK CREEK, WI -- More than 150 people turned out for Monday's Wisconsin DNR public hearing at the Oak Creek Community Center over WE Energies' Oak Creek Power Plant water discharge permit.

DNR officials led an informational hearing before the standing-room-only crowd. WE Energies is asking the DNR for special permission to discharge more mercury and arsenic into Lake Michigan than current standards allow.

Wisconsin currently allows up to 1.3 parts per trillion of mercury to be discharged in to Lake Michigan. WE Energies has officially applied for a variance in order to release up to 4.1 parts per trillion into the lake. Citing the time needed to make adjustments, WE Energies officials are requesting to push back their compliance date to 2023 - a delay of three years.

State Senator Chris Larson said at the meeting: “ While WE Energies and the partners involved in this power plant are moving in the right direction, delaying this process should be unacceptable. The longer they delay in moving to a renewable model, the longer neighbors have to put up with unsafe levels of mercury and the mounting problems of coal ash. Wisconsin can do better.”

Racine Dominican Sister Janet Weyker, another neighbor of the plant also spoke in favor of environmental protections: “The DNR, along with the EPA, should be upholding and strengthening safe standards rather than weakening them. If the water permit is granted as it is written now, it would be telling us that the DNR cares more about the economic well-being of the dirty energy companies than about the health of people living around the Oak Creek plant and those who drink the water and eat the fish from Lake Michigan.”

Members of the public still have time to express their concerns by writing to the DNR’s permit drafter: Jason Knutson, Wastewater Section Chief, Department of Natural Resources, 101 S. Webster St. PO Box 7921, Madison, WI, 53707, Jason.Knutson@wisconsin.gov. All comments or suggestions received from members of the public no later than February 18 will be used, along with other information on file and testimony presented at the hearing, in making a final determination, officials say.

Image Via Natalie Chulew, Published With Permission