Jan. 22--Accusing the state of failing to control industrial air pollution, environmental groups say they are going to court to force the Maryland Department of the Environment to set new emissions limits for a Baltimore trash incinerator.

The groups also threatened to sue Atlanta-based Mirant power company for allegedly spewing harmful pollutants from one of its power plants in Southern Maryland. The plant has been operating for years without a permit.

Activists said the two legal actions are prompted by their frustration with the O'Malley administration for foot-dragging in dealing with air pollution violations at some of the state's largest factories and power plants.

"We've just had it," said Eric Schaeffer, a former federal environmental regulator who now leads a Washington-based activist group, the Environmental Integrity Project. He said these two cases are part of a long-running pattern in Maryland in which power plants and factories have been allowed to operate without pollution permits and up-to-date emission limits.

The BRESCO waste-to-energy incinerator in South Baltimore, which burns municipal refuse from Baltimore City and County, has been allowed to operate on an expired air pollution permit for about two years, Schaeffer said. The state drafted but has not issued a new permit for the incinerator, operated by Wheelabrator Technologies. Activists say the permit would let the facility emit more pollution than the law allows.

Joining Schaeffer's group in filing the lawsuit today in Baltimore Circuit Court are the Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper and Clean Water Action, as well as a Crofton resident who contends the air he breathes is contaminated by the incinerator's emissions. The Chesapeake Climate Action Network joined in the letter warning Mirant it would be sued.

The vast majority of Marylanders live in communities where air quality is poor, Schaeffer pointed out, tainted by ground-level ozone or fine-particle pollution. Ozone and particle pollution can cause breathing difficulties and premature deaths.

"Without these permits, facilities are generally not required to monitor and measure their emissions of air pollution, and both the state and citizens have no way of knowing whether the facility is actually meeting the emission limits they are subject to," said Jennifer Peterson, a lawyer for the environmental group.

According to the groups, the Chalk Point power plant on the Patuxent River in Prince George's County has been burning dirty fuel oil without installing equipment to control particle pollution as required by federal and state law. The plant burned more than 187 million gallons of this fuel oil from 2005 through mid-2007, the groups say, alleging that the plant has committed more than 1,400 violations of the federal Clean Air Act.

Schaeffer said he and other activists have been pressing the O'Malley administration to address these and other instances of industrial and power plant pollution for two years but have gotten little or no response. The groups have become so frustrated that they asked the Environmental Protection Agency last year to either make the state tighten its oversight of air pollution or take away the state's authority to regulate it.

Dawn Stoltzfus, spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of the Environment, said the agency has referred the case of Mirant's Chalk Point power plant to the state attorney general's office for "possible enforcement action." MDE expects to issue a new permit within the next two weeks for the waste-to-energy incinerator in South Baltimore, she added. State action had been delayed by "complex technical issues," she said.

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