Groups charge haze plan 'lets polluters off the hook'

摘要

This story was updated at 3:43 p.m. EDT. Environmental groups are panning an Arkansas regional haze reduction plan that they say is far weaker than the 2016 federal strategy it's intended to replace. The 2016 strategy would require two coal-fired power plants owned by Entergy Corp. to install sulfur dioxide scrubbers to "improve air quality and visibility," Glen Hooks, director of the Sierra Club's Arkansas chapter, said in a news release late yesterday. The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality's replacement instead "lets polluters off the hook by requiring virtually no action," Hooks said. State regulators submitted the plan to EPA for approval today, Donnally Davis, a spokeswoman for the Arkansas agency, confirmed in an email this afternoon. They are confident, she said, that it will ensure that visibility improvements in affected federal wilderness areas continue "at a greater pace" than currently called for under the regional haze program. But in an email, Stephanie Kodish, clean air program director for the National Parks Conservation Association, said the state plan only requires the White Bluff and Independence plants to burn low-sulfur coal.