"High Desert Power Project" Wins 2003 Power Plant of the Year Award ENSR's Pioneering Approach Facilitates Air Permitting, Plant Certification

Westford, MA - Constellation Energy Group's High Desert Power Project (High Desert) will be honored as the "2003 Power Plant of the Year" at a ceremony in New York December 12 by POWER Magazine, a leading energy trade publication. A primary reason for the honor cited by POWER magazine was High Desert's "pioneering approach" to the air permitting of the California project. ENSR International, an environmental and energy development services firm, was key to implementing the successful air permitting strategy.

ENSR's innovative work with High Desert involved obtaining approvals for using VOC emission reduction credits in California's South Coast Air Basin to offset the project's NOx emissions in the Mojave Desert Air Basin. Emission reduction credits ensure that air quality continues to improve while new power sources are developed for the region. Since utility deregulation began in the mid-1990s, ENSR has supported the environmental permitting of more than 150 proposed new power plants for over 25 independent power producers in 30 US states and 8 countries.

Eldon Heaston, Deputy Air Pollution Control Officer of the Mojave Desert Air Quality Management District praised ENSR's contribution, stating, "[We] appreciated ENSR's excellent science that contributed to a solution that worked not only for High Desert, but all of the New Source Review projects that follow."

The High Desert power plant is located in Victorville, CA, 120 miles northwest of Los Angeles. The state-of-the-art 830-megawatt, natural gas-fired facility, which began operating in April 2003, was one of the first major power plants built in Southern California in over a decade. A model of partnering with community, and state and local agencies, High Desert has been credited with helping support the economic redevelopment of the region, while producing needed power in Southern California and operating with greater efficiency, less fuel, and significantly reduced air emissions.

"No single group could make a project of this size and scope successful," said Steve Gross, west region vice president for Constellation Generation Group. "Throughout the development and construction, and now operating phase of the plant, we've been well aware and appreciative of the contributions that businesses including ENSR have made to the success of High Desert."

"Such interpollutant, interbasin trading had never been approved before, and required getting approvals from the local air district, California Energy Commission, Air Resources Board, and EPA Region 9 -- some would have said an impossible feat," commented Sara Head, ENSR Regional Program Manager who lead the air permitting efforts for High Desert. "We were able to demonstrate that regional air quality will improve with this new energy source." ENSR has worked with Constellation and California regulatory agencies since 1999 to certify that this plant would provide a clean, cost-effective source of energy.

ENSR International serves industrial and government agency clients with environmental and energy development solutions from 70 worldwide offices. For more information about ENSR visit www.ensr.com