WildEarth Guardians

Friday, March 2, 2012
EPA Caves into Coal in North Dakota

Final Clean Air Plan Rolls Back Emission Controls for Coal-fired Power Plants, Puts Politics First
Contact: Jeremy Nichols (303) 573-4898 x 1303

North Dakota—Buckling to pressure from the fossil fuel industry and the politicians they support, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today released a final clean air plan for the State of North Dakota that rolled back emission controls for some of the state’s largest and dirtiest coal-fired power plants.

“Sadly, the Environmental Protection Agency put politics ahead of public health and the environment,” said Jeremy Nichols, WildEarth Guardians’ Climate and Energy Program Director.  “Instead of sticking to the science and the need to ensure that the best emission controls were installed, the EPA approved a plan that will ultimately allow more air pollution.”

Last fall, the EPA proposed a plan under the Clean Air Act that partially approve and disapprove a North Dakota plan to retrofit the state’s coal-fired power plants in order to reduce haze pollution.  For the portions that the EPA proposed to disapprove, the Agency proposed its own federal plan to meet the Clean Air Act.

The EPA’s plan would have imposed requirements to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions using top-tier emission controls at four coal-fired power plants—Coal Creek, Leland Olds, Milton Young, and Antelope Valley, as well as approved a North Dakota proposal to further reduce emissions from three other coal-fired power plants—Stanton, Heskett, and Coyote.  These plants burn lignite, the dirtiest form of coal.

Today’s final decision by the EPA dramatically rolls back its plan to retrofit the Leland Olds and Milton Young coal-fired power plants.  The Agency initially proposed to require the installation of selective catalytic reduction, a top-tier control technology that even the State of North Dakota has said is feasible, to reduce haze forming nitrogen oxide emissions.  Today’s decision, however, abruptly abandons that plan and instead approves an industry proposal to use selective non-catalytic reduction, a second-tier control technology that will allow more than five times the amount of air pollution that would have otherwise been allowed.

Although under the EPA’s original proposal, these coal-fired power plants would have been required to meet a limit of 0.07 pounds per million Btus of heat input, today’s rule bumps that limit up to 0.35, five times higher.

“Plain and simple, the EPA’s plan means more air pollution from coal-fired power plants,” said Nichols.  “This is a huge setback that was clearly spurred by political concerns, not by science and not by environmental protection.”

In issuing its decision, the EPA pointed to opposition from the coal industry and a federal court decision from North Dakota issued last December that upheld a state determination that selective catalytic reduction would not be cost-effective.  That court decision, however, did not prevent EPA from requiring selective catalytic reduction to reduce haze or otherwise hold that the emission control technology was not feasible. 

A report by the Clean Air Task Force found that air pollution from coal-fired power plants in North Dakota every year put 207 people at risk of premature death, 321 at risk of heart attacks, and 3,500 at risk of asthma attacks, all at a cost of more than $1 billion.