The co-chairs of the N.C. Senate Select Subcommittee on Mountain Air Quality fear that a clean smokestacks bill proposed by the N.C. Clean Air Coalition (NCCAC) might detract from their efforts to clean up Western North Carolina skies.

The state plan was announced about a week before the Clean Smokestacks Act of 2001, a similar bill, was introduced in Washington.

Sen. Dan Robinson (D-Sylva), the co-chair of the legislative subcommittee in the General Assembly, said that investigations of the subcommittee showed that nearly 80 percent of the pollution in WNC may be attributed to out of state power plants operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority. He said the Senate Select Subcommittee was appointed “to put Western North Carolina first.”

“I would have to say the problem in Western North Carolina is so acute that it requires special attention as soon as possible,” Robinson said. Robinson is concerned that the goals and objectives of the committee may not be compatible with those of the NCCAC, and that the General Assembly might not be able to address both effectively.

Michael Shore, southeast air quality manager for N.C. Environmental Defense, thinks that politics may play a part in the inability to address both issues.

“The utilities in this state are among the largest contributors to members of the General Assembly. They hold a lot of sway,” Shore said. Shore also takes issue with the idea that N.C. utilities are not part of the air quality problem that plagues the mountains.

“The idea that the power companies in the state don’t contribute to pollution problems in the mountains is a total myth. It is, really, a myth that needs to be dispelled,” he said.

Sen. Charles Carter (D-Asheville), another of the subcommittee’s co-chairs, said that the subcommittee was created to address mountain air quality, and that the clean smokestack plan would have little effect on pollution in WNC.

“You could remove all the energy plants in the state and it wouldn’t reduce bad air in the mountains,” Carter said.

Nancy Thompson, community relations manager for Carolina Power and Light, said CP&L has been working diligently to reduce pollution. She said state plants had cut nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions by nearly 50 percent since 1995 and were on schedule to reduce them by 73 percent by 2004. She feels the clean smokestacks plan is entirely too costly and prohibitive.

“No state has legislation as costly or restrictive as the clean smokestack plan,” Thompson said.
Thompson also questions some of the figures put forth by the NCCAC and complained that they requested no input from the utilities. She said that $428 million price tag environmentalists had put on compliance with the clean smokestacks plan was “totally unrealistic.” She said that CP&L estimates were five times that amount.

Thompson said that CP&L was studying new cost effective technologies. She said teams had been to Sweden and Poland to study new technology. Smokestack scrubbers, endorsed by proponents of clean smokestacks legislation, could cost as much as $50 to $100 million dollars per boiler, and selective catalytic reducers (SCR) were around $30 to $50 million per boiler.

CP&L installed new technology, called lean gas reburn, at one of its Asheville plants last year and saw a 66-percent reduction in emissions. Thompson said that CP&L was dedicated to finding and implementing cost-effective pollution control. Shore says that while TVA has committed to installing NOx reduction technology in nine of 11 plants, North Carolina has only committed to three out of 14.
“It’s easy to be concerned about TVA’s facilities,” Shore said, “but it is important for us to make sure we are cleaning up our own backyard. There is a gap between what needs to be done in North Carolina and what is being done.”

 

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