The Environmental Protection Agency has eight months to decide what to do about one power plant’s contribution to haze in the sky over Northland wild areas.
The EPA has agreed in a court settlement to develop a specific plan by Feb. 27, 2015, on what actions, if any, to require of the Sherburne County Energy Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant owned by Xcel Energy, based in Minneapolis.
The so-called Sherco plant is the largest and, critics say, most polluting coal-fired plant in Minnesota and is blamed for spreading haze over Voyageurs and Isle Royale National Parks and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness - wild areas that receive special air pollution protections under federal law.
The National Park Service in 2009 determined that Sherco is indeed impairing visibility in Voyageurs National Park. When the EPA failed to act, several groups filed suit, including the National Parks Conservation Association, Sierra Club, Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, Voyageurs National Park Association and Fresh Energy.
The EPA’s pledge to act was included in a consent decree on the case filed Tuesday in federal court in Minneapolis.
Xcel has argued that the Sherco plant is not a major contributor to haze in the Northland and that expensive pollution control requirements would do little to solve the issue and would raise rates for customers.
It’s unclear what, if anything, the EPA may require Xcel to do at the plant. But environmental groups say the EPA needs to impose strong requirements to cut the pollutants that cause haze - namely nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxides.
“This is a major step toward clean air in Boundary Waters, Voyageurs and Isle Royale,” said Stephanie Kodish of the National Parks Conservation Association, in a statement. “At last, today we can say that EPA is going to act. Now we need to make sure that EPA’s action is as strong and meaningful as the Midwest deserves.”
