Eighteen groups, including Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, sent a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency urging strong and immediate action to eliminate haze over wilderness areas such as Voyageurs National Park and Boundary Waters Wilderness Area.

The letter, dated May 20 and written by Stephanie Kodish, clean air counsel for the National Parks Conservation Association, said states are not doing enough to reach the legal requirement of the 1977 Clean Air Act of eliminating the haze over national parks by 2064. States are given the chance to do the job by developing State Implementation Plans. However, if the state plan is inadequate the EPA is required to step in and develop Federal Implementation Plans.

One of the examples Kodish cited was the plan approved last fall by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Under that plan, strongly criticized by MCEA, the air won’t reach the Clean Air standards until the year 2177, or 113 years too late.

“Eliminating haze and restoring visibility in our national parks and wilderness areas is essential to preserving and protecting their beauty,” said Mary Marrow, the MCEA attorney working on the issue. “Federal law requires the EPA and states to take concrete steps to ensure that visibility in areas such as the Voyageurs National Park and Boundary Waters Wilderness Area is restored by 2064. The EPA has a vital role in this process to ensure that all states, including Minnesota, do their part to clean up emissions from industrial sources.  The EPA must take this responsibility seriously and ensure that the Minnesota Haze State Implementation Plan requires taconite facilities and electric generating units in Minnesota reduce emissions which are impairing visibility, not only in Voyageurs National Park and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, but in other protected wilderness areas across the Midwest.”

Haze, which cuts visibility, and therefore the view, of places such as the Grand Canyon and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, is caused by sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and soot, primarily from coal-fired power plants. In Minnesota, taconite processing plants also are a source of the haze. The conservation groups noted that EPA should require industrial sources to use the most effective emissions control technology.

Kodish wrote that Selective Catalytic Reduction is a relatively new pollution control device that has been found to be cost-efficient and reduces nitrogen oxides by at least 90 percent. The device is now on 269 coal-fired power plants across the nation and the letter urges EPA to favor it as the pollution control equipment for reducing nitrogen oxides.

Last fall, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency set a nitrogen oxide standard for two of the huge Xcel Energy coal-fired power plants in Becker at a level twice as high as the limit of a Wyoming power plant, according to the letter. The reason: Wyoming officials recognized Selective Catalytic Reduction as a viable pollution control device and Minnesota did not, the letter states.

Under federal law, EPA is required to finalize state or federal implementation plans to reduce haze by Jan. 15, 2011.  MCEA and the other conservation groups ask the EPA to explain how it will meet the looming deadline in light of the significant work which remains to be done.