Contact:
Contact: Cesia Kearns, Conservation Organizer
Sierra Club North Star Chapter
Office: 612-659-9124
Cell: 612-310-2649
Email:
www.northstar.sierraclub.org
Sierra Club: Big Stone Coal Plant is Violating the Clean Air Act
Announces Legal Action Against Plants OwnersMINNEAPOLIS — Today, Sierra Club announced it is commencing legal action against the three co-owners of the Big Stone power plant in South Dakota for violating the federal Clean Air Act. The Sierra Club is taking the first step of filing a law suit in federal court in South Dakota by formally notifying the coal plant owners of the violations it has uncovered during a year-long investigation. In its 60-day Notice-of-Intent-to-Sue letter (pdf, 96k) Sierra Club outlines how the plant's owners over the past decade have repeatedly modified the 30-year old plant to keep it operating past its retirement date without ever installing modern pollution controls. The Big Stone coal-fired power plant is located along the eastern South Dakota border, a few miles from Ortonville, Minnesota. The prevailing winds blow the majority of Big Stone's pollution, including thousands of tons of soot, smog, mercury, and arsenic annually into Minnesota. Modern pollution controls would cut the Big Stone plant's emissions by over 90 percent.
The Sierra Club's Notice Letter details how the plant's owners between 1995 and 2005 undertook major modifications and life-extension projects at its existing plant without notifying state regulators, without obtaining a new permit, and without installing modern pollution controls. These changes not only extended the life of the aging coal plant, the changes also increased emissions of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and fine particulate matter - pollutants that contribute to serious health problems such as asthma, lung cancer and cardiac disease. The Sierra Club uncovered the violations during a year-long investigation into Otter Tail Power's plans to build another massive coal plant — the proposed Big Stone II project — and new transmission lines to carry the power across Minnesota. The controversial Big Stone II would further increase air pollution, particularly global warming pollution.
"Otter Tail Power and its partners' plans to double the size of a plant that has been polluting illegally for 11 years shows great disregard for public health and the environment," said Sierra Club volunteer Christopher Childs. "Like many Minnesotans, I'm concerned about damage to our children's health and our natural heritage. After all these years of illegal pollution, Otter Tail Power's plan for a new coal plant is the last thing Minnesotans need."
The Big Stone II proposal is mired in controversy. Most recently the project proponents conceded that coal prices have soared and the project's costs have sky-rocketed from $1.2 to $1.8 billion. Even these high cost projections ignore that regulation of global warming pollution is right around the corner and Big Stone II's costs will escalate even further. Other utility companies, like Xcel Energy, are starting to recognize they can no longer ignore global warming and are investing in wind-based alternatives as the most affordable option.
"Instead of increasing the Midwest's over-dependence on coal, Otter Tail Power and its partners should protect our air quality and rural economies by abandoning their plans to build another out-dated coal plant and instead harness our home-grown wind resources," said Cesia Kearns, Conservation Organizer for the Sierra Club. "A wind-based alternative to Big Stone II would increase our energy security by creating 172 permanent new jobs — nearly five times as many as the 35 jobs the utilities claim will be created by another coal plant burning out-of-state coal."
The Clean Air Act provides that citizens can file suit to protect their community when federal and state regulators are unwilling to enforce legal requirements. The Act provides broad authority for a court to order a violator to install pollution controls and pay penalties up to $27,500 per day of violation. The Sierra Club is beginning its legal action by giving Otter Tail Power 60 days notice (pdf, 96k) in order to give the company time to come forward with a proposal to promptly clean up Big Stone I and avoid the need for further litigation.
Ranked with data from the Environmental Protection Agency, Otter Tail Power's Big Stone I plant stands as the dirtiest coal plant in the country for smog emissions pollution, once Xcel Energy's Riverside coal plant finalizes the conversion to natural gas in 2009. This can be found at http://dirtykilowatts.org/Excel/DirtiestNOX2.xls. The Sierra Club is the nation's oldest, largest, and most influential grassroots environmental organization with 750,000 members nationwide, and over 24,000 members in Minnesota.