15 Jan 9 Things You Need to Know About The EPA’s Plans for Haze

1. Haze is a form of air pollution and it’s causing some serious damage to our National Parks.

According to the EPA, “haze is caused when sunlight encounters tiny pollution particles in the air. Some light is absorbed by particles. Other light is scattered away before it reaches an observer. More pollutants mean more absorption and scattering of light, which reduce the clarity and color of what we see.”

In America’s western national parks, haze has reduced visual range from the natural 140 miles to 35 – 90 miles. 

2. Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA must work to improve visibility at certain national parks and wilderness areas. 

In 1977 Congress identified 158 national parks and wilderness areas to receive the most stringent protections from the air pollution that causes haze. These are known as Class 1 areas. Texas has two Class 1 areas – Big Bend and Guadalupe Mountains national parks. 

Known as the Regional Haze Rule, Congress directed the states, in coordination with the EPA, to develop and implement air quality protection plans to reduce haze. 

3. Texas submitted its own air quality protection plan to the EPA in 2009. It wasn’t good. 

Texas’ plan did not call for any actual steps to be taken to reduce haze pollution at its national parks. In fact, its plan (submitted by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality/TCEQ) would not have cleared the air at Big Bend National Park for many years. This is in direct conflict with the EPA’s own goals to return the country’s national parks to their natural visibility levels by 2064.

4. Because of the lack-luster nature of Texas’ haze plan, the EPA has stepped in with its own plan to replace parts of it. TCEQ is not happy about that.

The EPA held a public hearing in Austin on Jan. 13th to get public feedback on this new haze plan and will continue to accept public comment online until April 20th.

Steve Hagle, deputy director at the TCEQ Office of Air, attended the public meeting in Austin and defended TCEQ’s haze plan. First, he said that, “TCEQ shares the common goal of clear vistas at the nation’s national parks and wilderness areas.” But, he contested that TCEQ's original haze plan would achieve that common goal. He said that the TCEQ plan meets all of the Clean Air Act’s requirements and that visibility in Texas’ national parks has already improved. The EPA disputes all of these claims.

Hagle, on behalf of TCEQ, said that the EPA should drop their own plan, since it, “imposes significant costs with no perceptible benefit,” and instead adopt TCEQ’s original haze plan.

TCEQ will continue to fight the EPA's decision in the upcoming months.

5. Many of the tiny pollution particles that cause haze come from coal-fired power plants. 

Coal-fired power plants emit sulfur dioxide or SO2, which gets into the air and contributes to haze. Texas coal-fired power plants emit more SO2 than Arkansas and Oklahoma combined, according to the Sierra Club.

6. The pollution from Texas’ coal-fired power plants affects Oklahoma as well.

Oklahoma’s Wichita Mountains are also negatively affected by haze from Texas coal-fired power plants, which is why the EPA plan will seek to clean up the air across the border in Oklahoma as well.

7. The EPA’s haze plan will result in the reduction of over 230,000 tons of SO2 per year, but will not affect every coal plant in the state. 

The EPA has identified 15 coal-fired power plants in Texas that are emitting SO2 that is traveling to national parks and causing haze pollution. For these plants, the EPA is proposing SO2 emission limits that will require seven plants to get new SO2 scrubbers, seven plants to upgrade their scrubbers, and one plant to conduct maintenance on its scrubber. Plants requiring scrubber upgrades will have 3 years to comply and plants requiring new scrubbers will have 5 years. 

There are more than 15 SO2 polluting coal plants in the state, but only these 15 have been singled out by the EPA. That is because these are the only 15 that are emitting SO2 that is traveling to Class 1 protected areas. Several people at the EPA’s public hearing complained that one of Texas’ most notoriously dirty coal plants, WA Parish, is not on the EPA’s list, but, as Adrian Shelley (Executive Director of Air Alliance Houston) said, the “rule is about protecting visibility in those national parks and wilderness areas.” WA Parish, Shelley said, is very far from those areas and therefore is “beyond the scope of this rulemaking.” 

8. There are public health benefits from reducing SO2 emissions, but that is not the goal of the Regional Haze Rule.

SO2 is toxic and can cause respiratory problems like difficulty breathing and increased asthma symptoms. Reducing SO2 emissions can prevent premature deaths, heart attacks, and lost school and work days, Shelley said. But, he also made sure to say that these public health benefits are just, "co-benefits, not the objection of this rule making.”

The goal of the Regional Haze Rule is just to improve visibility at our nation’s national parks.

9. Have any thoughts about the Regional Haze Rule? Submit them to the EPA by April 20th.