Report: Coal power plant in Pennsylvania caused low birth weights in N.J.

Environmental officials said for years that a coal-fired power plant on the Delaware River in Pennsylvania harmed New Jersey residents by spewing air pollution across state lines.

Now it appears they have proof.

A study published this week by a team of scientists shows New Jersey mothers living as far as 20 to 30 miles downwind from the Portland Generating Station had a greater chance of having babies with low birth weight.

The study said babies born in Morris, Sussex, Hunterdon and Warren counties from 1990 to 2006 were 17 percent more likely to be born with very low birth weight - under 3⅓ pounds - and 6.5 percent more likely to be born with low birth weight - under 5½ pounds.

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The plant stopped burning coal on June 1, 2014 after a long legal battle with New Jersey officials who said Portland’s corporate owners refused to install technology to make the plant’s emissions less harmful.The plant has been rarely used in recent years.

“We want our study to show that there are consequences when one polluter was not being regulated or controlled for many years,” Muzhe Yang, an economics professor at Lehigh University who led the study, said Tuesday. “This is the only pollution source for these downwind communities so there is most definitely a cause and effect relationship.”

A spokesman for Portland's corporate owners would not comment on the study, first published Monday in an academic journal.

Officials at the New Jersey Department of Health said they have not yet reviewed the study, but said low birth weight can be the result of many causes.

"Low birth weight is difficult to attribute to one risk factor without a close look at the data and other contributing risk factors such as prenatal care, gestation length and a host of others," said Nicole Kirgan, an agency spokeswoman.

The study comes at a time when President Donald Trump wants to restore the coal industry in the U.S. by cutting several Obama-era environmental regulations. But the plant’s corporate owners say they have no plans to reopen Portland. Many power plants nationwide no longer burn coal because natural gas is significantly cheaper. PSEG plans to shut its two New Jersey coal plants in June.

Portland had long been cited as a reason North Jersey continually fails federal clean air standards. The region is directly downwind of coal-burning power plants in Pennsylvania, Ohio and other places. State officials blame the emissions for contributing to New Jersey's high asthma rates and other health problems.

The Portland plant, which opened in 1958, had the greatest impact because of its proximity, just across the Delaware River from Warren County, state officials have long said. It was one of the dirtiest plants in the region. In 2009, it emitted 30,000 tons of sulfur dioxide – almost three times the amount of all seven of New Jersey’s coal plants at the time.

Air monitors and computer models have shown that sulfur dioxide from the plant had long wafted into Warren, Sussex, Hunterdon and Morris counties. State Department of Environmental Protection officials have said the plant likely pollutes air in Passaic and Bergen counties although there is no data to support it.

The DEP sued the federal Environmental Protection Agency in 2006 for not enforcing clean air regulations at Portland and its then owner RRI Energy for not installing the latest air filters. The legal battle spanned several administrations until the plant’s owner announced in 2012 that it would be shut down.

The plant has been owned since December 2012 by NRG Energy, one of the largest energy companies in the U.S.

David Gaier, a company spokesman, said he hasn’t read the study and could not comment on it.

The plant was effectively shut down on June 1, 2014. But Gaier said the plant still generates electricity on some high demand days by burning either natural gas or oil.

Gaier said the company has no plans for the future of the plant.