New EPA air pollution rule could reduce smog along Lake Michigan

For years the mostly rural communities along the western shore of Lake Michigan have suffered from ozone and particle pollution that drifts up and over from Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin. At times the tiny tourist town of Frankfort in Benzie county rivaled San Diego as the place with the worst ozone pollution nationwide.

A newly proposed U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rule attempts to address this problem by forcing states to consider and reduce their pollution of downwind states.

EPA is seeking comments on plans to restrict state emissions of sulfur dioxide (S02) and nitrogen oxides (NOX) which contribute to the formation of health damaging fine particles and ground level ozone. These pollutants are associated health and lung illness and premature death as well as damage to forests and coastal waters and impaired visibility at national parks and wilderness areas.

The agency’s preferred plan involves setting a pollution limit for each of 31 regulated states and allowing each state to meet that goal by trading emissions among power plants. Another option proposed by the agency involves setting emissions limits for each power plant in a state.

According to EPA:

The proposed rule would yield more than $120 to $290 billion in annual health and welfare benefits in 2014, including the value of avoiding 14,000 to 36,000 premature deaths. This far outweighs the estimated annual costs of $2.8 billion.

EPA anticipates that power plants may use the following to achieve emission reductions:

• operate already installed control equipment more frequently,
• use low sulfur coal, or
• install control equipment such as low NOx burners, Selective Catalytic
Reduction, or scrubbers (Flue Gas Desulfurization).

Saulius Mikalonis at Mlive.com writes that the rule may cause power plants to switch to cleaner fuels.

More than likely, the proposed rule’s impact will fall the hardest on coal-fired power plants. It is quite likely that existing plants may switch to natural gas-fired boilers, which emit substantially less SO2 and NOx, allowing the plants to come into compliance quicker. The future of new coal-fired plants remains in doubt unless significant investments in pollution control technology accompanies the construction of those plants.