A critical issue for EAST and future tokamak machines such as ITER and China Fusion Engineering Testing Reactor is the handling of excessive heat load on the divertor target plates. As an effective means of actively reducing and controlling the power fluxes to the target plates, localized impurity (N, Ne, and Ar) gas puffing from the lower dome is investigated by using SOLPS5.0 for an L-mode discharge on EAST with double null configuration. The radiative efficiency and distribution of different impurities are compared. The effect of N, Ne, and Ar seeding on target power load, the power entering into scrape-off layer (SOL), P-sep, and their concentration in SOL along the poloidal length and edge effective ion charge number (Z(eff)) which are closely related to core plasma performance are presented. The simulation results indicate that N, Ne, and Ar seeding can effectively reduce the peak heat load and electron temperature at divertor targets similarly. N seeding can reach the highest radiative loss fraction and both N and Ar strongly radiate power in the divertor region, while the radiative power inside the separatrix for Ar seeding is also significant. Ne radiates power mainly around the separatrix and X-point. Ne and Ar impurities' puffing results in a faster decrease of P-sep than N seeding case; the reduction of P-sep can eventually degrade the core performance of fusion plasma. Additionally, seeding with Ne has a totally larger concentration at the outer midplane and edge Z(eff) than those in N and Ar seeding cases; it suggests that N and Ar impurities are more acceptable than Ne in terms of fuel dilution for this discharge. Published by AIP Publishing.