Hundreds of residents and students in Springdale and Cheswick have signed petitions asking RRI Energy to voluntarily agree to reduce the new lead emissions limit it's seeking in a new permit for its coal-fired power plant in Springdale.

A petition signed by 227 residents of the communities along the Allegheny River, and another signed by 233 students at Springdale High School, were given to a RRI representative at a community meeting hosted by the company Thursday evening.

RRI, formerly Reliant Energy, based in Houston, Texas, is seeking an Allegheny County Health Department permit to install stack scrubbers that will reduce emissions of soot and sulfur dioxide pollution by up to 98 percent at what is known as the Cheswick Power Plant even though it's located in neighboring Springdale.

But the permit's lead limit -- the result of three years of negotiations between RRI and the Health Department -- is four times higher than the limit originally proposed by the Health Department in 2007, when RRI first applied for the permit.

It's also more than four times higher than the lead emissions RRI reported to the federal Toxics Release Inventory in 2008.

The residents' petition asks the company to agree to limit lead emissions from the 637-megawatt power plant to a range comparable with that reported for 2008, when the TRI shows emissions of 460 pounds, instead of up to 1,810 pounds a year, the top limit in the permit under consideration by the health department.

Steve Davies, RRI director of waste management in Pittsburgh, said that public health would be unaffected even at the highest level allowed by the proposed permit.

"The key point, irrespective of the lead emissions for the power plant, is that [the county] is so far below the national ambient air quality standards for lead that this is not an issue," Mr. Davies said. "At the end of the day, it's of no human health consequence."

He said the TRI emissions data was calculated based on an accepted, standard formula and is not based on any lead emissions monitoring done at the power plant. He said the company doesn't know how much lead is actually emitted by the plant because it is not required to monitor lead emissions.

The Health Department has said it agreed to the higher limit after negotiating with RRI because lead levels in the county are low and even if the lead emissions from the Cheswick plant reach the maximum allowed in the permit the county would not violate the National Ambient Air Standard for lead of 0.15 micrograms per cubic meter.

The county measures lead levels at only one monitoring site, Avalon, 20 miles east and generally upwind of Springdale.

Rachel Fillippini, executive director of the Group Against Smog and Pollution which has spearheaded opposition to the lead emissions proposal, said she is optimistic RRI will listen to the residents' concerns.

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