
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, January 29, 1994                   TAG: 9401280203
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

TECH SMOKESTACK DOESN'T MEASURE UP

Virginia Tech may have to go back to the drawing board with its plans to build a new coal-fired boiler, after the state Department of Environmental Quality discovered that numbers it used to determine pollution levels were wrong.

"We discovered that the information that Tech had given us describing the boiler stack was incorrect," said Don Shepherd, the department's regional director in Roanoke.

If the department's computations on this new information are correct, it means that four times as much pollution as anticipated will be generated by the new boiler in the form of nitrogen oxides.

Despite the new information, the department said the emissions are still well within federal guidelines.

The department had been told the boiler plant's existing smokestack was 175 feet tall, and the diameter of the opening at the top was 5 feet, when actually the dimensions are 185 feet and 10 feet, respectively, Shepherd said.

Tech wants to build the $8.5 million boiler, which would burn 5.5 tons of coal per hour, primarily to help heat the university during winter months. The boiler plant is on the edge of the Virginia Tech campus in downtown Blacksburg.

The school already has two coal-fired boilers - one almost 40 years old - and three boilers that burn oil or natural gas. They feed their emissions into the existing smokestack.

When the department was looking at the existing boilers, it discovered that records show Tech exceeded the amount of coal it was allowed to burn in one of them in 1992. Tech gave the state revised numbers that show the coal use was within guidelines, but the department has asked for verification.

Spencer Hall, assistant vice president for facilities at Tech, said he wasn't sure how the mistakes were made. He said the engineer the university had hired would meet with state environmental officials to review the data.

The new information is a vindication for environmental groups and opponents of the coal-fired boiler who turned out at a public hearing earlier this month.

"It just proves the fact that the community has to be a watchdog all the time, because no one is above accountability, even the largest university in the state," said Mary Rhoades, chairwoman for the air quality commission of the New River Valley Environmental Coalition.

by CNB