Aug 20 - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - Scott Streater Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas

Six proposed power plants have raised concerns that tons of ozone-forming pollution will drift into the Dallas-Fort Worth region, undermining regional efforts to clean the air.

The new plants, proposed for sites within 250 miles south and southwest of the Metroplex, come as the nine-county region races to meet federal ozone standards by 2010.

Regional leaders and environmentalists warn that if the plants are built, the region might have to take drastic steps to reduce pollution, including closing drive-through windows at banks and fast-food restaurants, and limiting the time of day when motorists can refuel their cars during ozone season.

"Everything we've done will be negated if these power plants go into place," said Tom "Smitty" Smith, director of the Texas chapter of Public Citizen, an Austin-based advocacy group.

Energy industry observers say modern power plants are much cleaner than older ones.

"There's no doubt that newly constructed power plants are going to have a good deal of state-of-the-art equipment in them," said Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a national group of power-producing companies that works on air quality enforcement issues.

State regulators -- who have not approved the plants -- cautioned Friday they do not yet know how much power-plant pollution would blow into the Fort Worth/Dallas area.

But they do know the six plants, collectively, would emit 14,858 tons per year of nitrogen oxides, the chief manmade component of ground-level ozone.

Regional leaders who gathered Friday at a meeting of the North Texas Clean Air Steering Committee discussed steps to slow the progress of the proposals.

Walt Humann, a member of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce's board of directors, suggested that regional leaders and top power company executives meet to discuss the pollution concerns.

Others expressed frustration with environmental laws that would allow power plants that impact local air quality to be built outside Dallas/Fort Worth.

"The fact a company can go a half-inch outside an non-attainment area has got to be reconciled as quickly as possible with reality," said Mike Eastland, executive director of the North Central Texas Council of Governments, a regional planning group.

Studies have shown that Dallas/Fort Worth is affected by pollution blown into the area from the Houston/Galveston area, about 250 miles to the southeast. Statewide air patterns indicate the new power plants could be a problem, since winds blowing through Dallas/Fort Worth often come out of the south.

Pollution blown in from as far away as Ohio contributed to a streak of bad ozone days in the Metroplex late last month.

U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ennis, has championed legislation the past two years that would allow the federal government to push back ozone-compliance deadlines in areas that are affected by pollution blown in from other places.

Lawmakers last month rejected Barton's request to include such a provision in recently approved energy legislation, although Barton has said he will continue to push the proposal.

David Schanbacher, the chief engineer of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, said the state can mandate pollution controls on each plant to protect regions that do not comply with federal air-quality standards.

But Smith said that will not prevent the Dallas/Fort Worth area from being affected.

"The citizens in the Dallas/Fort Worth area are going to have to make extraordinary efforts to reduce their air pollution," he said.