Arkansas utilities will buy lower sulfur energy sources so that their plants emit less of the sulfur dioxide pollutant as they seek to comply with new state environmental administrative orders.
State environmental regulators have told three coal-fired plants and three natural gas facilities to change their energy sources. Its administrative orders have also been submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in a plan to implement the federal Regional Haze Rule to improve visibility in national wilderness and wildlife areas.
If approved, the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality’s plan would save utilities hundreds of millions of dollars compared with the previously approved federal plan. The state plan seeks to replace the federal plan, which is being litigated and the biggest parts of which have been stayed by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The EPA has already approved the first half of the state’s plan, which addresses nitrogen oxide emissions reductions at power plants. Utilities have largely complied already with the federal plan on nitrogen oxide emissions, which cost much less to implement than the plan on sulfur dioxide.
The EPA must issue a draft decision to approve or disapprove of the state’s plan, accept public comments on the decision, and then make a final decision.
While utilities support the state’s plan, environmental groups have argued that it doesn’t go far enough to reduce air pollutants.
The Sierra Club issued a news release this week, along with representatives of Earthjustice and the National Parks Conservation Service, criticizing the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality’s final plan.
“Failing to require common sense controls on the aging White Bluff and Independence [coal-fired] plants will ensure that the plants remain among the largest sources of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide pollution in the nation,” the news release said.
The state plan falls short of the previous federal plan and doesn’t adequately protect public health and parks, Charles McPhedran, an attorney for Earthjustice, said in the release.
Utilities and the state have contended that the federal plan overstepped what was allowed under law and that greater controls weren’t required because the state was already meeting its 2018 goal for visibility and was on pace to meet its final goal in 2064.
The state’s proposal applies to the first planning period of the Regional Haze Rule, which is authorized under the federal Clean Air Act. The first planning period covers 2008-18. Arkansas has another state implementation plan that is due to the EPA in 2021.
Chuck Barlow, vice president for environmental strategy and policy at Entergy, called the state’s plan “rational.”
“What the state is doing here is what is required under the regional haze program,” Barlow said. “Of course they are limited in what they can do by what the law allows.”
Environmental groups argued that inclusion of more requirements is within the scope of the 2018 plan for Regional Haze Rules because the requirements are reasonable measures to reduce pollution.
Barlow added that Entergy has been investing in lower-emitting natural gas and renewable energy, such as wind and solar, which have declined in price in recent years. The company recently announced that it planned 1,000 more megawatts of renewable energy in the next few years across the South, though it revealed no specific projects.
The company has already been approved to open a 100-megawatt solar facility in Chicot County that would be able to serve 16,000 customers by 2020.
The Regional Haze Rule addresses only visibility, but environmental groups frequently note the potential health effects of reducing air release of sulfur dioxide, which can cause respiratory problems.
In its response to public comment, the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality said it “acknowledges data providing evidence that the Clean Air Act has saved lives.”
The Clean Air Task Force estimated that 90 deaths, 60 hospitalizations and 112 heart attacks were related to air particulates — including sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide — in Arkansas in 2012. Former President Barack Obama’s administration warned of thousands of deaths from poor air quality if the country did not act on climate change.
Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality officials did not grant an interview request for this article but provided the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette with its decision documents and an explanation of how the plan would work.
Under the state’s orders, Entergy Arkansas will replace its coal energy source with lower-sulfur coal at a cost of $1.6 million to $1.7 million per year on each unit of its two coal-fired plants, a total of four units and more than $6.5 million. Under the federal plan, the plants would have needed emissions-reducing scrubbers — for flu gas desulfurization — at a cost of about $1 billion to each plant.
With a sulfur content of 0.6 pounds per million British thermal units, coal would reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by 8.8 percent from baseline levels at Entergy Arkansas’ White Bluff plant near Red-field, according to the department’s plan. The plant is now permitted to emit 1.2 pounds of sulfur dioxide per million Btu over a three-hour average.
The department estimated that the change will result in deciview improvement — the unit by which haze is measured — over the 2001-03 baseline levels at the four national wildlife and wilderness areas, ranging from 0.113 deciviews at Caney Creek Wilderness Area in Arkansas to 0.152 deciviews at Hercules Glades Wilderness Area in Missouri.
Entergy must stop using coal as an energy source at the White Bluff plant by 2028, which the company announced in 2015 that it intends to do. The utility has focused its investments in recent years on natural gas and renewable energy, for which prices have dropped.
Entergy Arkansas’ coal-fired plants are used considerably less nowadays. After running at 70 percent to 80 percent of capacity for decades, the plants ran at 43 percent to 68 percent in 2017, according to the utility.
Southwestern Electric Power Co.’s Flint Creek coal-fired plant has already implemented the federal recommendations of emissions-reducing scrubbers, making it the first* coal-fired plant in Arkansas with the technology. The scrubbers were a part of the plant’s effort to comply with other federal regulations.
The White Bluff plant emits 24,346 tons of sulfur dioxide per year, and Independence plant emits 22,531 tons of sulfur dioxide per year. In contrast, the smaller and newer Flint Creek plant emits 1,500 tons of sulfur dioxide per year.
Entergy Arkansas’ natural gas plant at Lake Catherine is to stop using fuel oil.
The Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp.’s two natural gas plants are to switch to lower sulfur fuel oil.
As it stands at both utilities, these plants are used only during peak electricity demand times and run almost exclusively on natural gas.
Fuel oil is used as a backup energy source during only the highest demand times. For the Cooperatives’ two plants, that’s about 1 percent out of the year, said Stephen Cain, environmental compliance manager with the Cooperatives.
The Lake Catherine plant has been using only natural gas for a few years, mostly for economic reasons, Barlow said. Natural gas is cheaper than fuel oil, and it comes through a pipeline, so it doesn’t need to be shipped and restocked, Cain said.
Switching from 1.81 percent sulfur fuel oil to 0.5 percent sulfur fuel oil would cost the Cooperatives about $2,559 per ton at its Carl E. Bailey plant, according to the department’s plan.
At the Cooperatives’ John L. McClellan natural gas plant, switching to 0.5 percent sulfur fuel oil would cost $4,553 per ton, according to the department’s plan.
The changes would address visibility at four national wilderness and wildlife areas, two in Arkansas and two in Missouri. The state determined that no additional measures must be taken to help the Hercules Glades Wilderness Area and Mingo National Wildlife Refuge in Missouri achieve visibility goals. The sites are already meeting their “Reasonable Progress Goals” for 2018, the department said.
On its 20 percent worst days, the Hercules Glades site is at about 20 deciviews. That’s less than its goal of just above 23 deciviews. The Min-go National Wildlife Refuge is hovering around 22 deciviews, below its goal of about 24 deciviews. Both areas have 2064 ultimate goals of about 11 deciviews.
The Missouri Department of Natural Resources did not comment on Arkansas’ proposed plan after Arkansas sent a letter to Missouri about it, the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality noted in its response to comments.
In 2002, Caney Creek Wilderness area’s visibility was 17.81 deciviews. The Upper Buffalo Wilderness Area’s was 20.46 deciviews. Those numbers are derived from calculations of the worst 20 percent of days.
In 2018, visibility at the sites was 16.96 deciviews and 19.71 deciviews, respectively.
About three-quarters of the visibility impairment comes from out-of-state sources, the department said. The 2018 goals for the sites are 22.47 deciviews and 22.51 deciviews, respectively. The 2064 goals are 11.53 deciviews and 11.57 deciviews, respectively.
*CORRECTION: Southwestern Electric Power Company’s Flint Creek coal plant near Gentry is the first coal plant to install emissions-reducing scrubbers after construction. A previous version of this story incorrectly reported that it was the only coal plant to have the scrubbers, but the utility’s John W. Turk coal plant in southwest Arkansas and Plum Point Energy Station in Osceola also have the scrubbers. The Flint Creek plant’s sulfur dioxide emissions are now about 1,500 tons per year. A previousversion story also cited an outdated statistic on the amount of annual emissions.