Agency weighs views on proposal to meet haze-reduction rule

The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality finished accepting comments last week on its proposed method of implementing a federal air rule that has been debated by environmental groups and utilities.

Two Sierra Club representatives attended a public hearing on the changes Aug. 14, both submitting oral comments to the department in a hearing that lasted about 10 minutes. No one else made oral comments.

"The Natural State is a treasure that must not be taken for granted," Rachel Hendrix, a Sierra Club member, told department officials as she warned of smog, acid rain and health effects of nitrogen oxide emissions.

Hendrix, like others who submitted written comments, called for the department to institute emissions controls at specific power plants, rather than allowing utilities to trade emissions credits among one another.

The department received 15 comments on its proposed method for complying.

Comments in favor of that method came from utilities, a utility group and a utility consumer group, citing the greater ease and flexibility of instituting the state's plan versus the federal one already in effect. Many noted that Arkansas is already meeting the requirements of the first phase of the rule.

The Regional Haze Rule requires Arkansas to take measures to improve visibility at national wilderness areas, typically by reducing nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants. The state submitted a draft plan for nitrogen oxide emissions, which can only be considered for implementation if the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency withdraws the current federal plan.

The state will submit a second part to its plan that will address sulfur dioxide emissions -- the emissions that led the EPA to call for controls on specific coal plants that utilities said would cost them at least $2 billion. The EPA estimated a cost of less than $500 million.

The difference between the state plan and the federal one is that the federal one requires emissions controls on specific power plants, while the state plan allows the utilities in Arkansas to trade emissions allowances and credits during the summer, when air quality tends to be worse. The federal plan uses the EPA's Best Available Retrofit Technology analyses to determine caps for each plant. The state's method would drop those analyses in favor of the EPA's Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which calls for lower future caps on emissions. The state is already subject to that rule during the summer months.

The Regional Haze Rule concerns visibility only, but some have noted its potential to affect other things.

Glen Hooks, executive director of the Sierra Club's Arkansas chapter, noted that nitrogen oxide contributes to ground-level ozone, which can be hazardous to health.

The Sierra Club, along with Earthjustice and the National Parks Conservation Association, opposes the state's plan because it allows a utility to keep emissions the same at certain Arkansas power plants while instead reducing emissions elsewhere.

"Why should Arkansans have to suffer the effects of pollution to our bodies, our air and our parks while a utility gets to focus its cleanup efforts elsewhere?" Hooks said.

The U.S. Forest Service additionally raised concerns that the state's plan was insufficient, including by not factoring in Missouri's wilderness areas. The service suggested instituting year-round nitrogen oxide limits, rather than addressing them only during the ozone season, which runs from May 1 until Sept. 30.

Other groups, including utilities, have favored the state's plan.

"The Proposed Revisions, if finalized, would provide compliance flexibility and reduce the significant regulatory burden on the electricity sector, while still ensuring that visibility is as good as or better than it would be if source-specific [nitrogen oxide] emission limits were required," Entergy attorney Kelly McQueen wrote in the company's comments.

Chad Wood, an attorney for the Energy and Environmental Alliance of Arkansas utility group, echoed McQueen.

"Forcing sources that already must comply with the ozone-season [nitrogen oxide] trading program under [the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule] to invest in costly [retrofit technology] and reasonable progress controls is duplicative and unduly burdensome, and ultimately unnecessary to achieve visibility improvements," Wood wrote.

Metro on 08/21/2017

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