State's secret deal with coal plant sparks
outcry
Apr 7 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Warren Cornwall Seattle Times
Gov. Chris Gregoire's administration and owners of the state's only
coal-fired power plant have secretly agreed to new air-pollution limits for
the facility, sparking objections from a federal official and
environmentalists.
The tentative deal, reached in closed-door talks between Canada-based
TransAlta and officials from the Governor's Office and the state Ecology
Department, governs how much toxic mercury and smog-causing nitrogen oxides
can puff from the massive 470-foot smokestack at the Centralia plant.
The confidential deal-making is an unusual approach to regulations usually
crafted through a public process that makes more documents and agency
deliberations open for public scrutiny.
The result, say critics, is a deal brokered out of public view that demands
too little of the power plant, allowing it to continue adding smog that
obscures some of the region's most treasured views, including Mount Rainier.
"We have some major concerns about this," said the National Park Service's
Don Shepherd, who reviews regulations for factories that pollute air near
national parks.
The public will have a chance to weigh in at a yet-to-be-scheduled public
hearing, which the governor demanded before any deal is signed, said Keith
Phillips, her environmental-policy adviser.
Phillips said the governor decided to pursue the closed-door talks in late
2007 because a confluence of events raised questions about the coal plant's
future.
TransAlta had shut its neighboring coal mine, throwing hundreds out of work.
The plant faced new air-pollution regulations. And a push to cut
global-warming pollution triggered interest in what could be done at the
plant, the state's biggest single source of greenhouse gases.
The final result, he said, is that TransAlta has promised to reduce
nitrogen-oxide pollution by using cleaner-burning coal from the Rocky
Mountains, and will voluntarily cut mercury emissions in half by 2012.
"Getting a voluntary 50 percent reduction in mercury in the near term from
the plant wasn't anything that we wanted to pass up," Phillips said.
The deal gives TransAlta more certainty about its future, while cutting
pollution, said company spokeswoman Marcy McAuley. The agreement is
"something that works for government, works for Washington citizens and
works for TransAlta," McAuley said.
But environmentalists question how much the state really got. TransAlta had
already said it would use the cleaner coal when it closed its Centralia
mine. Other states are forcing power plants to catch 90 percent of their
mercury.
"I think the state got snookered," said Janette Brimmer, an attorney with
the environmental-law group Earthjustice.
At the National Park Service, Shepherd said costly equipment used at new
power plants could be installed at Centralia to further cut smog-causing
nitrogen oxide. "As proposed, the TransAlta plant would continue to cause
the greatest visibility impact on our national parks and wilderness areas of
any coal-fired power plant across the United States," he said.
The state didn't push for that extra equipment because the cost outweighed
the benefits, said Sarah Rees, a manager of Ecology's air program.
Because the deal was reached under confidential mediation, the state says it
will shield a number of documents that would normally be made public.
Rees declined to release a draft of the agreement, saying it was still
confidential. Messages between TransAlta and the state during the mediation
would also be shielded, unless all parties agreed to their release, said
Laura Watson, an assistant state attorney general.
Phillips, in the Governor's Office, said there will be a public hearing
about the whole agreement, although state law would require it only for the
nitrogen-oxide issue: "We don't make decisions in private without the public
getting a chance to comment.".
The approach to reducing nitrogen oxide requires approval of the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency.
But environmentalists said public comment now appeared to be a last-minute
gesture on a done deal.
"I can't believe they totally shut the public out of the process. I know
it's burdensome and time-consuming, but it's important," said Mark Riskedahl,
head of the Northwest Environmental Defense Center in Portland.
Warren Cornwall: 206-464-2311 or
wcornwall@seattletimes.com
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