LITTLE ROCK — Environmentalist groups rallied at the state Capitol Thursday in support of proposed new limits on mercury emissions by coal-fired power plants.
The new standards, proposed in March and set to be unveiled next week by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, would limit emissions of mercury, arsenic and other air toxins from coal-fired power plants under the Clean Air Act for the first time.
A utility spokesman said energy companies need more time to prepare for new emissions standards.
About 50 people attended the rally organized by the Sierra Club, including members of Occupy Little Rock and South Arkansas Fracking, a group opposed to hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” by the natural gas industry.
“We are showing today there is political will to make sure that the EPA protections are going to happen,” said Sierra Club representative Lev Guter.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Jennifer Smith of Maumelle brought her daughters Emily, 9, and Kylie, 11 to the rally at the Capitol.
“It’s important … for me to expose the kids at an early age, because what they are going to do in the future is going to affect the whole country,” Smith said.
Three coal-fired power plants are in operation generating electricity in Arkansas. Entergy Arkansas operates the Independence Power Plant near Newark and the White Bluff Power Plant in Redfield.
The Flint Creek plant in Gentry is owned jointly by Southwestern Electric Power Co. and the Arkansas Electric Cooperatives Corp. SWEPCO is building a 600-megawatt, $2 billion facility in Hempstead County.
“Independence spews out over 600 pounds of mercury every single year — they spewed that out last year, and White Bluff spewed out about 559 pounds,” Guter said. “To put that into perspective, 1 ounce of Mercury contaminates a 12-acre lake.”
Entergy spokeswoman Jill Smith said Thursday that the company’s plants comply with all existing standards and will comply with any new standards.
“Entergy is one of the cleanest utilities in the U.S.,” she said.
SWEPCO spokesman Peter Main said Thursday, “Our primary concern is that the compliance deadlines impose undue burdens and are unrealistic, and that the same objectives of cleaner air standards can be achieved with extended deadlines that will have less impact on our customers and on the economy as a whole.”
Michael Morris, CEO of American Electric Power, parent company of SWEPCO, said in June that jobs would be lost and customers would see rates go up if the EPA does not give energy companies more time to comply.
“Because of the unrealistic compliance timelines in the EPA proposals, we will have to prematurely shut down nearly 25 percent of our current coal-fueled generating capacity, cut hundreds of good power plant jobs, and invest billions of dollars in capital to retire, retrofit and replace coal-fueled power plants. The sudden increase in electricity rates and impacts on state economies will be significant at a time when people and states are still struggling,” Morris said in a news release at the time.
Some speakers at Thursday’s rally also took the opportunity to denounce hydraulic fracturing, a process in which water, sand and chemicals are injected under high pressure into a shale formation to create fractures and release natural gas.
Critics of the process claim it contaminates groundwater — a possibility the EPA formally acknowledged for the first time in a draft finding released Thursday — and that fracking may be to blame for earthquakes in parts of Central Arkansas, a claim state officials have not substantiated.