Bad-Air Warning Raises Questions

Bad-Air Warning Raises Questions

Apr 04 - Deseret News (Salt Lake City)

Suggestions by physicians to clean up the Wasatch Front's polluted air are receiving largely positive reactions, but officials have many questions and Rocky Mountain Power doesn't like their proposal to ban new coal-fired power plants.

The doctors, operating under the name Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, met with Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. and other state experts on Friday, then held a press conference Monday to publicly state concerns and proposals.

Their position is that bad air along the Wasatch Front amounts to a health crisis that will only grow worse without bold steps. Among steps they propose are a ban on new coal-fired power plants because of mercury the plants release, improved mass transit to reduce vehicles on the road, requiring freeway drivers to slow to 55 miles per hour on smoggy days, and asking school bus drivers not to idle in school yards while waiting for students.

Michael Mower, spokesman for Huntsman, said the governor welcomes the report prepared by the doctors.

"He feels it highlights critically important facts about air quality in Utah," Mower noted in an e-mail. "Action needs to be taken to address Utah's air quality problems, and Gov. Huntsman looks forward to working with legislators, scientific and medical experts, business and community leaders and all Utahns to find solutions to this pressing issue."

The electricity provider for the vast majority of Utahns wasn't impressed with the proposed ban on more power plants.

"If policymakers determine that they do not want electricity generated from coal," said Rocky Mountain Power spokesman Dave Eskelsen, "we're going to have to get it somewhere else, and it would be a lot more expensive."

What about the physicians' position that some alternative methods of producing power are no more expensive than coal-burning generators?

Eskelsen said wind power with federal subsidies has come down to a "reasonable range" of dollars spent per kilowatt-hours produced.

But wind is available only about 30 percent of the time at the best sites, he said, and coal- and gas-burning plants produce power more than 85 percent of the time.

Also, the alternative methods don't give enough power to meet needs. A large wind turbine installation is about 100 megawatts and some proposals have been made to build wind projects that approach 300 megawatts capacity, he said.

"But your typical coal-fired power plants are somewhere between 500 and 900 megawatts per unit, and frequently there are several units constructed at each location."

Based on projected growth of demand, renewable energy and conservation "are not going to be able to supply the customer in the future," Eskelsen said.

"We will need all of the energy efficiency and other demand-side resources we can get, all of the renewable energy we can acquire," he added. "And we believe that we will still need electricity generation from coal and natural gas."

Dianne Nielson, executive director of the Utah Division of Environmental Quality who was present during the Friday briefing, said she appreciates the doctors coming forward and raising their concerns.

"They're really subject-matter experts in this area, and it's important to recognize their evaluation of the science. ... We'd like to work with them more. Some of the information might be worth discussing in terms of historic air-quality information we have in Utah."

She would like to work on helping Utahns understand the importance of pollution.

However, some of the issues are in the realm of the Environmental Protection Agency, such as requirements for new car-emission controls.

But cleaner cars and fuels won't make much difference as long as the number of motorists increases, she said.

If mass transit can carry more than the present 2 percent of people who would otherwise drive, "if we can double that, if we can triple that," pollution would be reduced, Nielson said.

Two new federal rules are improving power plant emissions, she added. As far as the doctors' call for a moratorium on new plants, she said she doesn't know what effect that would have either on Utahns or the energy that is transported outside the state, "but we're willing to talk to them."

Nile Easton, senior public information officer with the Utah Department of Transportation, said the question of imposing lower speed limits on bad air days requires a lot of technical analysis.

How would it be done on a day-to-day basis? he wondered.

"Would people actually slow down? I mean, right now average speeds are, during nonpeak hours, well into the 70s and the speed limit's 65.

"So would people actually drive that 55 miles an hour?" Easton wondered. "How would enforcement work? What would be the costs?"

E-mail: bau@desnews.com