$4.6b pollution deal should help Northeast breathe easier
For decades, the haze over Maine's Acadia National Park, the acid in Vermont's mountain lakes, and the choking summer air in downtown Boston have - in part - been blamed on power plants in the Midwest belching pollution our way.
A $4.6 billion settlement deal reached last week in federal court should help curtail that pollution and enable New Englanders to breathe a little easier.
Ohio-based American Electric Power, the nation's largest electricity producer, promised to dramatically reduce its sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions and to pay $24 million to eight East Coast states - including Massachusetts - to mitigate the harm it has caused.
"The court affirmed what we have known for years: that power plant emissions do not recognize state lines," Senator John Kerry said in a statement. "I hope that this settlement will begin to repair the damage to our communities, our health, and our natural resources, which have been seriously impacted by acid rain pollution over many years."
The idea that prevailing wind currents carry pollution eastward has been understood for some time.
"In the eastern US, the jet stream swings north and tends to draw pollution from the southwest to the northeast," said Gary Kleiman, the head of science and technology at the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management, or NESCAUM, a nonprofit association of air quality agencies. "It just so happens that two major source areas for pollution - the Ohio River Valley and Tennessee Valley - are to the south and west."
Pollution from the Midwest sources accounts for as much as 25 percent of sulfur and nitrogen emissions in certain locations in New England, according to computer models.
"Roughly 10 percent of the sulfate we observe in the region is coming from states like Pennsylvania and Ohio," Kleiman said. "But only about 2 percent is from Massachusetts."
Findings show that these percentages vary widely throughout New England. At Acadia National Park in 2002, for example, NESCAUM found that roughly 15 percent of sulfur particles came from the South and the Midwest. That percentage jumps to over 25 percent in the Lye Brook Wilderness in southern Vermont.
Sulfur and nitrogen oxides are key components in urban smog. When they react with water vapor and oxygen in the atmosphere, they can become acid rain. These gases can also be transformed to sulfates and nitrates - solid particles that contribute to atmospheric haze, respiratory problems, and impacts to rivers, lakes, and bays.
New Hampshire and Vermont's mountain lakes "are highly vulnerable to the effects of acid deposition due to their low buffering capacity and will continue to deteriorate unless upwind emissions are reduced," according to the complaint filed by the eight East Coast states, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
The cuts in nitrogen oxide emissions are expected to reduce smog and fine particles that contribute to cardiac and respiratory problems in the region. A 2003 report by the New England Asthma Regional Council found that Massachusetts' adult asthma rate was more than 2 percentage points higher than the national average.
Barbara Kwetz, director of air and waste planning for the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, says that these computer simulations strengthened the states' case against American Electric Power.
"It certainly buttressed the idea that these were significant impacts to our air," said Kwetz. "Though the case began in 1999, before NESCAUM had these modeling capabilities, it reaffirmed what we knew."
American Electric Power maintains that it followed the Clean Air Act's provisions when it increased the capacity of several of its coal-fired plants in the 1990s. But in last week's ruling, one of the largest environmental settlements in history, the company agreed to spend billions installing enhanced pollution control technology. It will also pay a $15 million civil penalty and $60 million to state and federal governments for mitigation.
The company pledged to cut its sulfur dioxide emissions from 16 coal-fired power plants by roughly 80 percent and nitrogen oxide emissions by 70 percent over the next 12 years - representing about 5 percent of all nitrogen and sulfur oxide emissions in the United States, according to the National Resources Defense Council, a Washington-based environmental group involved in the case.
The case may also trigger settlements by other major power companies, including
"It's possible that the settlement by the biggest guy on the block to the tune of $4.6 billion could cause them to reevaluate their cases," said John Walke of the defense council. If that happened, and the other companies were to cut their emissions in the same way, Walke predicts it could reduce sulfur and nitrogen oxide emissions by an additional 2 million tons per year.
Kwetz said her agency will use the funds to pursue "a long list of options" to reduce local emissions, curb energy demand, and improve air quality.
Among those options, she says, are reduction of diesel particulates from vehicles and lowering the sulfur content of heating fuel coming into the state.
"We're looking at anything we can do to control our own local sources," Kwetz said.
