EPA Seeks Reduced Emissions at Four Corners Plant

by James Monteleone 
The Daily Times
31 August 2009
    

FRUITLAND—The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, working to improve regional air visibility, has requested reduction of nitrogen oxide emissions at the Four Corners Power Plant, a coal-fired facility that emits the nation's highest levels of the pollutant.

Regulators on Friday initiated a 30-day public comment period on the proposed plan to require the Arizona Pubic Service Co. facility to install the most efficient available technology to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide and particulate matter, pollutants believed to cause haze throughout the Four Corners region.

The action is being taken through the EPA Regional Haze Program, designated by Congress in 1999 to improve visibility in all national parks, national monuments and wilderness areas. The EPA has cited 16 protected locations within a 300 kilometer radius where air visibility is reportedly hindered by the Four Corners Power Plant, including the Grand Canyon, Arches National Park and Mesa Verde National Park.

"In the West, people are used to seeing vistas for long distances. It's been documented that over time, the visibility has been reduced," said Colleen McKaughan, associate director of the regional EPA Air Division.

Congress is concerned with the increased haze common at national parks and wilderness areas because "people go there specifically because they want to see the views," McKaughan said.

Many power plants across the country, such as the PNM San Juan Generating Station, already have considered such emission improvements, and are working with state regulators to develop and implement pollution-reducing technology.

Because the 2,040-megawatt APS Four Corners Power Plant is on the Navajo Nation, it is exempt from New Mexico jurisdiction. Navajo EPA has deferred regulation of the regional haze pollutants to the federal EPA.

A second APS plant, the Navajo Generating Station located on the Navajo Nation near Page, Ariz., also was requested to improve haze emissions under the EPA mandate. That site is the nation's fourth highest polluter of nitrogen oxide, behind the Four Corners facility, according to the EPA.

Retrofitting new environmental technology on the nearly 40-year-old power plant in Fruitland could be extremely expensive.

Weighing available op-tions for emissions reduction, the EPA recommends a combination of three different technologies that absorb increased levels of nitrogen oxide as coal particulate is burned in boilers.

The proposed projects are estimated to cost between $435 million and $917 million to install, depending on which technologies the EPA requires at the Four Corners Power Plant, according to APS.

The lowest cost technology is anticipated to cut nitrogen oxide emissions at least 30 percent. The high-end project could cut emissions of the chemical by more than 90 percent, according to an APS report detailing the EPA mandate. Maintaining the advanced technology, however, is estimated to cost more than $180 million each year of operation.

But unlike air quality standards affecting human health, visibility emissions are negotiated with the EPA with cost effectiveness taken into consideration by regulators.

APS suggested implementing a combination of the less-expensive, emissions-cutting technologies that will burn higher concentrations of nitrogen oxide concentrations, said Edward Fox, an APS vice president.

"We think we can get significant reductions from those two technologies," Fox said. "We may end up disagreeing with EPA on that."

Although the proposed emission cuts to improve regional air visibility was not a surprise requirement for the facility that provides electricity across Arizona, Utah and California, the continued expense for this and other proposed air quality regulation programs could test whether coal-generated power will continue to be an affordable energy source.

"You try to get a handle of how much can you invest on these units to consider all the environmental things that may be coming, to determine whether these units are economically viable," Fox said.

The expenses often are passed along to consumers as electricity rate-setting regulation allows. New operating costs also would cause a dramatic cut to Navajo Nation government royalties paid by the plant, a major source of income for the annual tribal government budget, Fox said.

"Here the economics decision has other implications," he said.

The EPA, weighing feedback and concerns expressed through the public comment forum, will take such economic impacts into consideration while drafting a final improvement proposal, McKaughan said. The comment period will run through Sept. 28.

Rob Smith, the Sierra Club southwest regional director, said the increased costs of cleaning pollutions created by a coal-fired power plant ideally will encourage energy suppliers to abandon the old technology in favor of cleaner generating systems, such as natural gas-fueled plants or renewable energies.

"It is the cost of doing business if you're going to insist on burning coal, part of the cost of business is cleaning up the mess," Smith said. "If it's cheaper to be doing something else, we should be doing something else."

  

    


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