Power Plants Ordered To Cut Haze Across Utah Parks

The federal Environmental Protection Agency is requiring two large, coal-fired power plants in east-central Utah to improve pollution control equipment to reduce haze that drifts over southern Utah national parks and wilderness areas.

cbsnews.com has this news article about the requirements. Here are excerpts.

PacifiCorp said it was already upgrading pollution controls at the Hunter and Huntington power plants and planned more improvements by 2014 that would bring them into compliance with the new requirements.

The EPA says haze has cut views across wild areas of southern Utah to about 60 miles, or about half of preindustrial levels. Power plants are considered major culprits for haze but "on the worst days, wildfires and dust storms" cause most of the problems, Bird said.

Bird said that the EPA approved other parts of Utah's haze-reduction plan Monday, including efforts to reduce wildfires that "will be harder to address."

Utah is supposed to work on reducing fuels for wildfires — dead and dry tinder.

In a separate action also announced Monday, the EPA approved Utah's 2008 plan to reduce ozone, the main ingredient in smog, Bird said.