Arizona Business Group Fights Utah Coal Pollution
Today, a coalition of 50 Arizona businesses sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), urging protection for Grand Canyon National Park and Arizona’s public health and $11 billion outdoor-recreation economy from haze-causing coal pollution emitted by two Utah coal-fired power plants.
The Arizona coalition joins business groups in Colorado and Utah in calling for pollution reductions at Utah’s Hunter and Huntington coal-fired power plants, which are known to threaten a vast swath of Western land that includes nine national parks and wilderness areas, countless communities and families, and the regional economy.
Citing the importance of Grand Canyon National Park as an economic driver and cultural foundation for Arizona, the coalition called on EPA Region 8 Administrator Shaun McGrath to require Utah’s Hunter and Huntington coal-fired power plants to reduce the dangerous coal pollution, which contains nitrogen oxides and fine particulate matter. Both plants are owned by Rocky Mountain Power, a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s PacifiCorp.
Pollution mapping has demonstrated that the haze-causing emissions from Rocky Mountain Power’s Hunter and Huntington coal-fired power plants reach well beyond Utah’s borders, threatening air quality and shrouding some of our most spectacular Western landscapes, including the Grand Canyon and seven other national parks in Utah and Colorado.
