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WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday released the first national standards on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants — new pollution controls designed to curb those toxins by as much as 91 percent.
Widely anticipated by clean air advocates and medical professionals, the standards come as the result of a court-ordered deadline imposed on the regulatory agency after power plants were delisted from regulation six years ago.
Because the change will require 40 percent of the nation's coal-fired plants to install new pollution control technologies, according to the EPA, it is likely that many older plants will be shuttered in favor of making new capital investments.
A Utah facility impacted could be the Castlegate power plant in Price Canyon just outside of Helper in Carbon County.
In operation since 1954, the two-unit plant employs 66 workers and was identified by PacfiCorp as a probable candidate for closure in 2020 because of its age.
"We applaud federal authorities for acting to protect the most vulnerable members of society from the scourge of deadly coal power plant pollution." Cherise Udell, founder and president of Utah Moms for Clean Air
PacifiCorp spokeswoman Maria O'Mara said the new regulations may accelerate the time frame for closure.
The EPA says power plants have three years to come into compliance, and another year cushion for technological glitches.
That would put closure of the Castlegate plant as early as 2015.
The new safeguards, 20 years in the making, are anticipated to prevent as many as 11,000 premature deaths and 4,700 heart attacks a year. The EPA estimates children will grow up healthier as well, with 130,000 cases of childhood asthma symptoms prevented annually and about 6,300 fewer cases of acute bronchitis among children.
"We applaud federal authorities for acting to protect the most vulnerable members of society from the scourge of deadly coal power plant pollution," said Cherise Udell, founder and president of Utah Moms for Clean Air.
It was in 1990 that Congress mandated the EPA require the control of toxic air pollutants, including mercury. Despite a number of new regulations coming into play affecting other industries, power plants remain the largest remaining source of toxic emissions. The EPA estimates they are responsible for more than half of the mercury and more than 75 percent of the acid gas emissions in the United States.
Utah clean air advocates assert that over the last decade, the state's six coal-burning power plants have released into the air a combined 10.5 million pounds of hydrochloric acid, nearly 13,000 pounds of lead and more than 12,000 pounds of chromium, which is a cancer-causing agent.
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