Latest Haze Agreement Crowns Certainty for Clean Air, Clean Energy in West

WildEarth Guardians' Applauds Settlement that Builds on, Completes Prior Success in Safeguarding Public Health, the Environment

Denver—WildEarth Guardians is applauding a settlement agreement reached with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that will ensure 43 states are completely on track to protect wild places, public health, and air quality nationwide by limiting haze pollution.

As a result of WildEarth Guardians’ efforts, the EPA has already agreed to ensure that 10 western states—California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming—have regional haze plans in place.  The latest agreement ensures that Arizona, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, South Dakota Washington are also on track, as well as ensures that complete haze plans are adopted in Idaho, New Mexico, and Oklahoma.

“This is a crowning moment for clean air, especially in the American West,” said Jeremy Nichols, Climate and Energy Program Director for WildEarth Guardians.  “With haze pollution fouling our most cherished landscapes, we need to ensure that all states are on track to significantly reduce air pollution.”

The latest agreement, which was entered into between the EPA and several western environmental and public health groups, including the San Juan Citizens Alliance, Grand Canyon Trust, Powder River Basin Resource Council, Plains Justice, and the Montana Environmental Information Center, ensures the oldest and dirtiest coal-fired power plants throughout the west will be cleaned up, retired, or repowered to comply with the Clean Air Act.  Coupled with WildEarth Guardians’ previous efforts, the latest agreement ensures that at least 31 coal-fired power plants totaling more than 35,000 megawatts on the path to be cleaned up, repowered, or retired altogether.

Under a Clean Air Act program aimed at reducing regional haze pollution in National Parks and Wilderness Areas, states are required to adopt comprehensive clean air plans that must be approved by the EPA.  These regional haze plans required states to retrofit their oldest and dirtiest coal-fired power plants with up-to-date air pollution controls, otherwise called “best available retrofit technology, and to cut air pollution from other sources, including cement kilns, oil and gas drilling operations, and newer coal-fired power plants to progress toward clearing the air. 

Unfortunately, states have been too slow to meet the Clean Air Act.  In January of 2009, the EPA found that virtually every state in the country had failed to submit regional haze plans.  This finding triggered a two-year clock during which the EPA was required to develop federal regional haze plans if states failed to have their own plans approved by the EPA.

As a result, some of the American West’s most treasured landscapes, including Grand Canyon National Park, Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, and more have become choked with haze.  As air quality in these pristine landscapes has suffered, so too has air quality throughout the region.

WildEarth Guardians already reached agreement with the EPA over the agency’s failure to develop federal regional haze plans for California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming, as required by the Clean Air Act, establishing deadlines for the agency to act.  In some cases, for example Oregon, the EPA has already followed through, approving a plan to retire the state’s only coal-fired power plant.

The latest agreement, which was lodged yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the District of D.C., ensures EPA completes the job, setting dates for the agency to adopt haze plans for Arizona, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, South Dakota, and Washington.  Under the agreement, the EPA will finalize either a federal regional haze plan or approve a state regional haze plan under the following schedule:

 

State

Proposed approval of state or federal plan

Final approval of state or federal plan

Arizona

May 15, 2012

November 15, 2012

Kansas

(already proposed)

December 15, 2011

Nebraska

February 15, 2012

June 15, 2012

Nevada

(already proposed)

December 13, 2011

South Dakota

November 29, 2011

March 29, 2012

Washington

May 15, 2012

November 15, 2012

 

Once finalized, these plans will finally spur widespread cuts in air pollution, with the most immediate benefits occurring as a result of the installation of best available retrofit technology on coal-fired power plants.  The settlement ensures that all of the West’s oldest and dirtiest coal-fired power plants are cleaned up, repowered, or retired altogether.  For example, the agreement will ensure that Washington’s TransAlta coal-fired power plant in Centralia is finally retired.

“While we support cleaning up our coal-fired power plants, the fact is that we have cleaner, more affordable ways of generating energy,” said Nichols.  “In Colorado, Oregon, and Washington, the trend has been to replace coal with clean energy.  This latest agreement ensures that those states and others are poised to make a meaningful transition away from coal in order to protect clean air and public health.”

The settlement will be subject to public notice and an opportunity to comment before being signed off on by a judge.

See our map showing the coal-fired power plants that WildEarth Guardians is working to directly confront, http://climatewest.org/coal-fired-power-plants-that-wildearth-guardians-is-targeting/.


 

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