Requests surge for power plants near U.S. parks

WASHINGTON — In the past four years, power companies have deluged regulators with applications to build power plants in locations that could affect air quality and visibility in national parks or wilderness areas, according to federal statistics compiled by the Natural Resources News Service, a nonpartisan organization.

Since 2000, the number of permits sought for plants within 62 miles of park boundaries has quadrupled compared with the previous five years, and 33 of the 280 proposed plants would be coal-fired. Both trends that have sparked concern among federal and state officials that the energy boom could harm already-reduced visibility.

Between 1995 and 1999, utilities built just 10 coal plants nationwide, none within that distance of a national park or wilderness.

The trend is particularly pronounced near some popular tourist meccas in the West, where Park Service and state officials say visibility-obscuring haze is on the rise.

Several recent studies indicate that while visibility is improving in many parks on the east and west coasts, the overall number of low-visibility days is increasing. A federal report found that as of 1999, on the 20 percent of days when skies are haziest, "most parks show at least some degradation or worsening of conditions, especially in the Southwestern U.S.," compared with 1900. A Park Service report last year concluded that, "poor air quality currently impairs visibility in every national park and most, if not all, wilderness areas."

"The interior West is witnessing the biggest resurgence in coal-fired power plants in a generation," said Vickie Patton, a senior attorney for the advocacy group Environmental Defense, "and these power plants will release air pollution that threatens human health, mars scenic vistas in premier national parks and adds staggering amounts of climate-disturbing greenhouse gases to the atmosphere."

Interior Department officials, however, said they have been working with utilities and state agencies to ensure that energy development will not harm the environment.

"We can have our power and clean air too," said Paul Hoffman, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks. "It is not our job to stop power plants, it's to ensure if they're built they don't have adverse impacts."

New power plants tend to be cleaner than older ones, and Hoffman said this would help improve park visibility in the long run.