Otter keeping ban on coal-fired plants

BOISE – Gov. Butch Otter is sticking to a plan that keeps mercury-emitting coal power plants out of Idaho.

In recent remarks and a letter, the Republican has said former Gov. Jim Risch in August 2006 was right to opt out of a federal pollution trading program, without which Idaho is off-limits to coal-fired power plants like one that was proposed – then later abandoned – by a San Diego, Calif.-based utility owner.

“If everything stayed the same, I see no reason to change it,” Otter told reporters earlier this month when he named Paul Kjellander as the state’s first energy czar.

Otter said he doesn’t want to “close out any options” in case new pollution-control technology is developed to make coal-fired plants cleaner. For now, however, the governor wants to focus on getting a share of power from other states bringing electricity over planned transmission lines.

Otter also told Idaho university presidents earlier this month that Idaho should look to resurgent nuclear power, because he believes alternative sources such as solar or wind are too costly and unreliable to meet all the state’s future energy needs.

Underscoring his support for Risch’s decision barring coal-fired power plants, Otter told the chairwoman of the state’s Board of Environmental Quality in a letter this month that he was in no mood to change course.

Doing so would be politically dicey: In 2006, 8,500 residents, in particular in the region surrounding Twin Falls, signed a petition opposing a plan by California’s Sempra Energy to erect a $1.4 billion coal power plant in Jerome County.

“I believe it was the right decision at that time, and I believe it is still the appropriate course of action for the near future,” Otter told Joan Cloonan.

None of this, of course, means power that runs Idaho’s air conditioners and other electrical appliances doesn’t come from coal that spews mercury into the air when it’s burned: Idaho Power Co., the state’s biggest utility, owns a third of the Jim Bridger coal-fired power plant in neighboring Wyoming, close to some of the world’s richest coal deposits.

And the state isn’t without issues involving mercury that at high levels can damage the human nervous system, particularly in developing fetuses.

Monsanto’s Soda Springs phosphate processing plant gives off 600 to 800 pounds of the element annually. Gold mines in Nevada are likely sending the airborne element over the border with the prevailing winds. And just 100 miles west of Boise, the Ash Grove cement plant in Durkee, Ore., is also a mercury source.

Otter wants the state’s Department of Environmental Quality to expand work with surrounding states to reduce mercury pollution. Idaho should expand existing cooperation with Nevada and Utah over mercury emissions to include Oregon and Washington state, he said.

“The reduction of overall mercury in the state is affected by factors outside state borders,” Otter said in his letter to Cloonan. “I believe DEQ should continue its work on the mercury issue.”