Oct. 7--Add the City of Portland to the chorus of voices urging Portland General Electric to shut down the Boardman coal-fired power plant in northeast Oregon.

Mayor Sam Adams sent a letter to the utility this week criticizing a draft resource plan that PGE released for public comment in early September. The plan will go to regulators next month, and Adams, along with other ratepayer and environmental advocacy groups, wants PGE to shut down the coal plant by 2020 instead of installing expensive pollution controls that would allow it to operate the plant until at least 2040. The pollution controls won't address Boardman's carbon dioxide emissions.

"I believe such a coal-dependent (resource plan) is a poor long-term resource strategy as carbon regulationand firm targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions are implemented," Adams said in the letter.

According to PGE's analyses, Boardman is a low-cost, reliable resource that will generate economical electricity even after installing pollution controls and paying projected future carbon taxes. A 2020 shutdown, the utility says, doesn't mesh with the pollution control requirements that state and federal regulators imposed earlier this year, so PGE didn't analyze that option when preparing its resource plan. PGE said Tuesday that it will seek clarification from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality on whether a 2020 shutdown could be allowed, and under what conditions.

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