With a stroke of Gov. Olene Walker's pen, Utah will become the first state to have a plan to reduce haze in national parks.
Today, Walker plans to submit to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) a landmark air pollution plan that's intended to protect scenic vistas in such areas as Canyonlands, Zion and Grand Canyon national parks by establishing a cap on haze-forming air pollution from Western power plants and industrial sources.
"This is a celebration for all states and tribes in the West that we've made another major accomplishment," said Dianne Nielson, director of the Utah Department of Environmental Quality.
The plan, 12 years in the making, is part of a multistate effort known as the Western Regional Air Partnership (WRAP) — made up of states, tribes and federal agencies — that primarily focuses on strategies for reducing sulfur dioxide, mostly from coal-fired industrial plants, the primary producers of haze. Automobiles, forest fires and dust from roads also contribute to haze.
The EPA approved the WRAP agreement in May, and the Utah implementation plan is expected to be received with open arms by EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt, Utah's former governor who chaired the Grand Canyon Visibility Transport Commission in 1991 that set the template for the plans.
WRAP drew on the commission's work to develop ways to help states take control and solve their own pollution problems.
"We recognized all the way through this process that not any one state could address the problem of regional haze," Nielson said. "We needed to deal with it on a regional level but allow individual states to develop plans that work best for them."
Environmentalists have applauded the WRAP agreement as a move in the right direction. But they have reserved judgment on whether it will actually work until individual states take action.
States that voluntarily participate must submit a proposal for achieving regional goals by Dec. 31. While Utah, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, California and Wyoming have agreed to implement the strategy, Colorado has opted out and therefore must develop a plan to meet the national standard targeted for 2007.
The program calls for reducing the annual sulfur-dioxide emissions by setting a cap. The pollution cap is based on lowering sulfur dioxide by 85 percent from uncontrolled Western power plants. The pollution cap would affect new power plants at a time when thousands of megawatts of new fossil-fuel electrical generation are proposed across the West.
If a region exceeds the annual goal, it allows for a sulfur dioxide market trading program to take effect. So, plants with low emissions can sell their credits for emissions reductions to other plants exceeding limits.
Nielson is proud of the work.
"The fact that we have done this to reduce haze throughout the West, particularly in national parks," she added, "is a major accomplishment."
E-mail: donna@desnews.com