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Coal, utility reps: EPA plan isn’t right for ND

The plan would overrule North Dakota on the regional haze issue and cost utility companies that own the plants millions of dollars to install federally required equipment which might not work.

Minot Daily News - October 7, 2011
Eloise Ogden

Find the story at www.MinotDailyNews.com.

Electric consumers in the region would face significant rate increases if the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency goes ahead with a plan the agency says will improve the visibility in the nation’s parks and wilderness areas, say North Dakota coal and utility officials.

The plan would overrule North Dakota on the regional haze issue and cost utility companies that own the plants millions of dollars to install federally required equipment which might not work, said Steve Van Dyke, vice president of communications for the Lignite Energy Council, and Mary Klecker-Green, supervisor of public and member communications/external relations and communications for Basin Electric Power Cooperative.

“What we have going on right now is the EPA basically trying to take over what historically and actually congressionally mandated is the territory of the North Dakota Department of Health,” said Van Dyke.

Van Dyke and Klecker-Green, both of Bismarck, told The Minot Daily News last week the EPA wants two coal-burning power plants in North Dakota to use pollution control technology. They said the technology is costly and may not work.

The plants are the Leland Olds Station near Stanton, owned and operated by Basin Electric Cooperative in Bismarck; and the Milton R. Young Station near Center owned and operated by Minnkota Power Co-operative in Grand Forks. The plants use North Dakota lignite coal.

The EPA’s plan is part of a federal rule to cut down on nitrogen oxide over areas including Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota.

Van Dyke said the regional haze issue is being touted as a health issue. “It has nothing to do with health and everything to do with visibility,” he said.

Carl Daly, director of the EPA’s regional air quality program in Denver, told The Associated Press last month the pollution-control technology the EPA wants is more efficient and would remove more pollutants. He said the equipment would cost the plants between $260 million and $340 million to install.

Dave Glatt, chief of the state Department of Health’s Environmental Health Section, told the AP the technology favored by state regulators is more suited to western North Dakota’s lignite coal and will cost about $50 million.

A study by the state Health Department reported that even if all the coal plants in the state were shut down, the EPA’s visibility goals could not be met because the problem is caused by sources outside North Dakota.

Klecker-Green said under the Clean Air Act, the state developed a plan to improve visibility. She said the state plan takes into account the unique nature of lignite and developed a solid technical plan that works and investments have been made.

Then on Sept. 1, Van Dyke said, the EPA released its proposed Federal Implementation Plan and said that North Dakota didn’t go far enough when it comes to reducing nitrogen oxides from the two plants.

“That instead, for instance, the Young Station has invested money in a technology SNCR Selective NonCatalytic Reduction Technology.

Instead of using that, which has been proven to work on lignite, the EPA is saying ‘we have a one-size fits all technology and that technology is Selective Catalytic Reduction SCR,” Van Dyke said.

“What we as an industry are saying in supporting the Department of Health is the Department of Health did everything it was supposed to do in coming up with its plan they held the hearings, they did the investigations on what technologies work with lignite and the EPA is just applying a one-size fits all technology,” Van Dyke said.

North Dakota is one of 12 Clean Air states judged by the EPA, Van Dyke said. As long as the EPA has been looking at health standards, he said North Dakota has been a Clean Air state.

“The counties in question where these plants are ranked are among the top 25 cleanest counties in the United States by the American Lung Association,” Klecker-Green added.

“The plan the EPA is proposing for SCR (Selective Catalytic Reduction) technology would cost more than $700 million to implement on top of the already $700 million expended by the industry,” Klecker-Green said. She said the visibility difference and the benefit derived from that technology assuming it works the way it should is not discernible to the human eye.

“Do our electric consumers really need to bear the cost above and beyond the state’s plan for something that has no visible benefit? That’s a real concern that we have,” she said.

“As an industry and co-ops we have a strong environmental record,” Klecker-Green said. “Our commitment to the environment and in clean air has been proven and our reclamation practices, so this is not about environmental commitment, this is about what is right for our electric consumers in striking the right balance between a reasonable approach and one that isn’t.”

“Under the Clean Air Act the states were given the disgression to develop their implementation plans because of their local knowledge and wisdom here within. Now the EPA is usurping state’s rights, and like Steve said, imposing this one size fits all approach that does not make sense for North Dakota because of the unique nature of lignite,” Klecker-Green said.

“The Lignite Industry is very important not only to North Dakota but regionally. Basin (Electric) serves customers not only in North Dakota but the surrounding states and actually all the way down to New Mexico,” Van Dyke said.

Klecker-Green said Basin Electric has 2.8 million customers in nine states stretching from Canada to the Mexican border.
Van Dyke said if the EPA does not withdraw its plan, the N.D. Department of Health appropriation budget that was passed by the
Legislature included $1 million for the state to sue EPA.

“It’s one of those things where the state has said, ‘We’re going to protect our state’s rights,’ Van Dyke said.

“I would guess come February or March, if the EPA goes forward with this, then we’ll see legal action taken by the attorney general on behalf of the Department of Health,” Van Dyke added.

Klecker-Green said the EPA serves an important function and does a tremendous amount of good. “But right now what they are doing and their attacks on coal and how they are going about it is problematic not just problematic for the industry but the nation, because it is the electric consumers who are going to bear the costs of this and again, for what benefit?

Van Dyke said last week the U.S. House passed legislation called the TRAIN Act, which would require the EPA to do a cost-benefit analysis on their regulations, which is not being done now nor has been done in the past. TRAIN stands for Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation.

“This is a pocketbook issue,” Van Dyke said. “Eighty-two percent of the electricity in North Dakota comes from lignite, but if you just step back and look at the electric grid in the United States, coal is the backbone of the electric grid.”

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