Dear Senator Tester, Senator Daines, Representative Zinke, and Representative Rosendale,
As a Montanan, I ask you to support strong air quality standards for coal-fired power plants.
The EPA is updating their Mercury and Air Toxics Standard (MATS)
to reflect more than a decade of advances in pollution control. Prior to
EPA’s 2012 adoption of MATS, coal-fired power plants were the largest
industrial source of mercury and air toxins in the nation.
We have a right to clean air. If every other coal plant of this
kind in the country can install basic air quality protections, so can
the owners of the Colstrip plant. The EPA should make sure this coal
plant is up to the same standards as every other coal plant in the U.S.
by requiring industry-standard pollution prevention measures.
The Colstrip coal-fired power plant is by far Montana’s top toxic
air polluter. In fact, it has the highest toxic air emissions rate of
any coal-fired power plant in the nation. This is because the owners
(Talen Montana, Puget Sound Energy Inc., Portland General Electric
Company, Avista Corporation, PacifiCorp and NorthWestern Energy) haven’t
invested in industry-standard pollution controls to protect their
workers and nearby communities, allowing more of these toxins to enter
our air and jeopardize our health and our children’s health. Requiring
modern pollution control technology is just common sense.
The state of Montana currently regulates emissions of mercury,
but the MATS rule is the best way to protect us from lead, arsenic, and
many other toxic air pollutants. The Colstrip plant owners have the
means to make updates in line with a strong MATS rule.
There are 170 tangentially-fired coal fired power plants in the
country with the same technology as the Colstrip plant. All of those,
except the Colstrip plant, have Electrostatic Precipitators (ESP), a
Fabric Filter Baghouse (FFB), or both to control particulate pollution.
The Colstrip plant is the only coal plant with a wet scrubber system
that does not have either an ESP or FFB.
In the 20 years since Montana’s other coal plant installed a FFB,
the Colstrip plant owners have not invested in this health-based
technology. Montanans shouldn’t have to subsidize this plant with our
lungs and lives.
Please join us in supporting strong EPA MATS air quality standards that bring Montana in line with the rest of America.
