On August 23, a broad coalition of groups gathered to deliver a message to Rocky Mountain Power: it’s time to clean up the air in our national parks. Clean air, public health and national park advocates spoke about the need for the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recently approved plan to reduce coal pollution in beloved national parks such as Arches, Canyonlands and Grand Canyon. The event also highlighted a Sierra-Club funded billboard asking the utility not to sue to stop the EPA’s plan, as well as a significant ad buy on streaming music service Pandora, targeting Utah residents, and ended with the delivery of approximately 50,000 petition signatures to Rocky Mountain Power headquarters.
“Utahns have waited long enough for clean air in their national parks – Rocky Mountain Power must not delay this process even further by suing to stop EPA’s regional haze plan,” said Lindsay Beebe, organizing representative with the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign. “Thousands of Utahns, hundreds of businesses, and countless others from across our country have united to say that our parks deserve nothing less than strong and fair protection from coal pollution. Rocky Mountain Power’s decision to challenge the EPA’s plan to reduce haze pollution is out-of-touch with the needs and values of their customers, who want clean, healthy air in their national parks.”
Under the federal Clean Air Act’s “Regional Haze Rule,” federal and state agencies are required to work together to cut human-caused air pollution in national parks and wilderness areas until the air is restored to its natural state. Utah is among the last states in the country to have a final plan in place to cut harmful emissions from power plants that pollute the air we breathe and obscure national park vistas.
“Instead of taking a leadership role in preserving the long-term health and welfare of our state and country, Rocky Mountain Power has chosen to follow a position of short-term profits” said former National Park Service Deputy Regional Director Phil Brueck. “Where they could have forged an example for other corporations in showing concern for the health of some of our country’s greatest assets and paying for reduced emissions, they have chosen to just be another large corporation more concerned with the bottom line than the quality of life.”
“Cleaning up the air around our national parks is the type of preventative medicine that Utahn’s and our neighbors need,” said Denni Cawley, Executive Director of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment. “Coal power plants release a vast array of pollutants, like particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides, and mercury, all of which have serious public health consequences. Everyone who lives in the West will benefit from better health and a longer life span if these coal power plants are replaced with clean energy.”
In June EPA adopted a plan that calls for a 76 percent reduction in haze-causing and health-harming nitrogen oxide pollution from four units at the Hunter and Huntington facilities. These plants will now be required to reduce emissions using industry-standard technology called selective catalytic reduction that is in place at more than 250 similar facilities across the country to limit nitrogen oxide pollution. Rocky Mountain Power, however, recently announced their intent to challenge the EPA’s recently announced safeguards, holding back progress toward clean and healthy air. The utility has until September 6 to file a challenge to EPA’s plan.
“Every day that Rocky Mountain Power fails to install modern pollution controls on its coal fleet, its dangerous emissions continue to cloud our skies and sicken our families,” said HEAL Utah’s Executive Director Matt Pacenza. “Now’s the time for the utility to clean up its act, not to keep wasting its customers’ money on a pointless legal battle.”
The Hunter and Huntington plants are responsible for nearly 40 percent of all nitrogen oxide emissions from Utah’s electric sector, according to EPA emissions data. Monitoring studies have also shown visibility at Arches and Canyonlands national parks is diminished by human-caused haze 83 percent of the time relative to the annual average level of natural haze.
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