NYT: North Carolina Asks EPA to Force Others to Clean Air

[DeepModem Mom]

North Carolina Asks E.P.A. to Force Others to Clean Air
By JENNIFER 8. LEE

Published: March 19, 2004


WASHINGTON, March 18 — In a move that opens a new front in the clean air wars, North Carolina has petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to crack down on pollution that it says is seeping across its borders from power plants in 13 other states....

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Traditionally, Northeastern states and California have led the legal battles for clean air. North Carolina's action is a reflection of pressure on state and local governments, which face economic repercussions if they are not in compliance with tough new ozone standards that take effect on April 15 under the federal Clean Air Act. States are considering such actions as cracking down on power plants, lowering speed limits and discouraging house painting during sweltering summer months in an effort to reduce the dangerous combination of ingredients that produce ozone. Those ingredients are heat, nitrogen oxides and the volatile organic compounds that are often found in consumer products like paint and barbecue fluid.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that more than half the nation's population will be living in areas that are in violation of the Clean Air Act after April 15. North Carolina, despite enacting one of the nation's strictest power plant pollution laws in 2002, says it will not be able to meet the new standards in part because of pollution wafting in from other states. Gov. Michael F. Easley and Mr. Cooper, both Democrats, sent warning letters over the past several months, urging neighboring states to adopt strict pollution controls.

In its petition, North Carolina is invoking a little-used but powerful section of the Clean Air Act that allows states to ask the environmental agency to address pollution from out-of-state sources. The section was last invoked in 1997, when eight Northeastern states petitioned the agency to reduce smog from the Midwest. In granting the requests of four of those states, the agency tightened pollution controls for smog nationwide....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/19/national/19ENVI.html

[patricia92243]

1. The answer is to get our Dem Governor out and put a pub in -then he won't

care about the problem - presto it has gone away!

[ramapo]

2. Why not just spend the money?

For a few measly billions (I don't recall the true estimates) all current operating plants could be retrofitted with the latest pollution scrubbing technology.

We have $100 Billion+ to blow up Iraq and put it back together. Seems like we could invest in our own country thereby providing jobs and a healthier environment (with a savings on medical costs) for everyone.

Too sensible...it'll never happen.

[LastDemocratInSC]

3. The NC mountains are becoming a disaster zone because of pollution

I live in Upstate South Carolina, at the base of the mountains. Acid rain and ozone have literally destroyed the forests in the highest elevations, those above 6,000 feet. One of the most dangerous things one can do is to go hiking at high elevations during ozone alerts - which are issued every day during the summer. Knoxville, to our west, has one of the highest rates of asthma per capita in the nation.

It wasn't always this way. These mountains catch all the pollution that is produced to the west. Coal-fired powerplants in the Ohio valley are a special problem. Some of my favorite places along the Blue Ridge Parkway look completely different than they did just a few years ago - the trees are just gone.

The economic impact of this is beginning to sink in, I hope. Tourism is a huge industry in the mountains and most don't want to visit an area that looks, in lots of areas, like a lite version of Mount Saint-Helens.