The
      Adirondack Council
 

      
 News
      Release

RELEASED, Thursday, February 14, 2002

ALBANY, NY -- Gov. George Pataki today released tough, new power plant emissions standards for New York, fulfilling his promise to enact the toughest acid rain standards in the United States.

The Adirondack Council, which has been fighting acid rain since the late 1970s, said that if Pataki's new emissions standards were applied nationally, it would halt acid rain damage from coast to coast.

"Today, Governor Pataki lived up to his promise to set an example for the rest of the nation when it comes to emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides -- the two main chemicals that create acid rain -- as well as mercury contamination, a by-product of acid rain," said Adirondack Council Acting Executive Director Bernard C. Melewski. "If these same standards were applied nationally, acid rain would soon be nothing but a bad memory.

"The cuts will also reduce New York's contribution to global climate change by requiring companies to install more efficient combustion equipment," he said. "That will reduce both carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides. Both are greenhouse gases. At the same time, the cuts are likely to result in a reduction of 40 percent or more in mercury emissions from our power plants."

Pataki today told the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation that he wants the state's power plants to reduce their emissions of sulfur dioxide by an additional 50 percent beyond the requirements of the 1990 federal Clean Air Act amendments, or an additional 130,000 tons per year.

At the same time, power plants would be required to cut their emissions of nitrogen oxides by a total of 75 percent (compared with 1990), or an additional 20,000 tons annually. Those cuts would be year-round. The current federal program requires cuts from Eastern and Midwestern states only, and only in the summer, when smog is worst.

Pataki's new standards were based on the Acid Rain Control Act, a federal bill sponsored by U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton, and by House members John McHugh, R-Watertown, John Sweeney, R-Halfmoon, and Sherwood Boehlert, R-Utica.

"This really sets a new standard for federal action," Melewski said. "We know from recent discussions in Washington that utility companies across America say they are prepared to make similar emissions cuts. We know that the President is preparing acid rain legislation and the Senate is working on its own clean air package. If New York is willing to take this step on its own, then all Congress really has to do is level the playing field for everyone by making the cuts nationwide.

"New York is proving that these cuts are not only desirable, but affordable," Melewski said. "But New York can't prevent the destruction of the Adirondacks on its own. More than 90 percent of the sulfur-dioxide that falls on the Adirondacks comes from outside New York. About 80 percent of the nitrogen oxides are generated upwind of us as well. We can stop some of the localized damage around our plants. We can better protect our downwind neighbors in New England. But we can't save ourselves. We need national cooperation for that. Hopefully, the Governor's actions bring us a step closer to that."

The Adirondack Park is a six-million-acre reserve in upstate New York that contains the largest intact deciduous forest (mixed hardwoods) ecosystem in the world. It holds almost all of the ancient, never-logged forests remaining east of the Mississippi River and contains wildlife habitat found nowhere else in the United States.

Due to its location and its thin soils, the Adirondack Park has suffered the worst environmental damage from acid rain in America. It is the region where the problem was first documented in the United States. Prevailing winds carry coal-fired power plant emissions from the Ohio Valley into the Adirondack Mountains, where they fall as acid rain, acid snow, acid fog and dry acidic particles. The acidity alters soil chemistry, inhibits plant growth and releases heavy metals that are toxic to plants, animals and fish.

Reports conducted by a host of federal agencies have shown that more than 500 of the Park's 2,800 lakes and ponds have become too acidic to support their native life over the past 40 years. The same is true for 28 percent of the Park's 2,000 miles of navigable rivers, which are fed by 30,000 miles of brooks and streams. Each spring, the percentage of acidic rivers explodes to 58 percent as the winter's acidic snowpack melts over the course of a couple of weeks. This "spring shock" levels off again in the summer, but gets a little worse each year.

The Park's high-elevation spruce and fir and its spectacular maples, are disappearing at an alarming rate. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, similar damage to forests is worsening across the East Coast, as well as in the Colorado Rockies and the coastal mountains of California.

"With this action, Governor Pataki has done everything New York can possibly do to curb acid rain on its own," Melewski said. "Two years ago, he signed legislation that financially discourages New York power companies from selling leftover sulfur dioxide allowances to the Midwest.

"He has given his blessing to the Attorney General's aggressive campaign to sue New York power plants that appear to have violated the Clean Air Act. Today, he has cut our own emissions to the lowest rate in the nation. Now, it's time for Congress to show the same kind of political backbone."