Clear skies in 268 years
New federal air pollution regulations signed into law Aug. 15 are intended to reduce haze in Montana’s skies, but the payback for Glacier National Park could take 268 years.
The goal of the Environmental Protection Agency rule is to restore atmospheric visibility to natural conditions in national parks and wilderness areas from Idaho to North Dakota by 2064.
The EPA rule, which has been criticized by industry representatives as well as conservationists, calls for $85 million in upgrades at the Colstrip coal power plant in southeastern Montana, the Ash Grove cement plant near Montana City and the Holcim cement plant near Three Forks within the next five years.
The total costs to the three plants would top $270 million over the next 20 years, including operating expenses. An estimated 6,500 tons of nitrogen oxides and 8,600 tons of sulfur dioxide will be reduced annually as a result of the plan, according to the EPA.
Haze is blamed for reducing natural atmospheric visibility by half in the West. Other states developed their own haze-reduction plans, but Montana chose to let the federal government take the lead.
The EPA’s action in Montana comes after WildEarth Guardians and others sued the agency to follow up on preliminary haze regulations adopted in 1999. Any legal challenge to the EPA’s new rule must be filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals within 60 days of its publication in the Federal Register.
Industry representatives say the EPA significantly underestimated the costs of compliance and overestimated the benefits. PPL Montana, which operates the Colstrip facility, claims installing the required pollution control equipment would cost $190 million — more than double the EPA’s estimate.
The Colstrip facility in southeast Montana is the second largest coal-fired power plant west of the Mississippi River. It consumes more than 10 million tons of coal a year and can generate about 2,200 megawatts of electricity.
Conservationists have also criticized the EPA rule, saying it will take hundreds of years for some sites to reach the EPA goal. According to the EPA, it will take 161 years before natural visibility is restored to Yellowstone National Park and 437 years for the Medicine Lake Wilderness in northeast Montana.
The EPA says achieving natural visibility by 2064 was not a realistic goal, and more expensive pollution control upgrades were not justified.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Energy Information Agency reports that carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. are at a 20-year low. Carbon dioxide emissions are considered a primary cause of climate change as it traps heat in the atmosphere.
Researchers at the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University attribute the lower carbon dioxide emissions to market factors and in particular the switch from coal to natural gas by the electrical power industry. Coal-powered plants produced about half of U.S. electricity in 2005. That figure is closer to 34 percent now, the lowest since record-keeping began 40 years ago.