Smoke on the Mountains

Smoke on the Mountains

North Carolina points the finger at TVA

The pressure for TVA to clean up its power plants is growing, with the North Carolina state Senate asking President Bush to clean up the public utility's coal-fired electric power plants.

North Carolina is in the process of cleaning up its 14 coal-burning power plants, says Michael Shore of North Carolina's Environmental Defense Fund. But much of the pollution in the state is produced outside its borders.

"We know that we can't solve our air quality problems alone," Shore says. "We need the states that are upwind from us to clean up their plants." All 50 of the state's senators signed a letter to Bush, which says, "The time to correct this problem is now, and the primary culprit is the TVA system of power plants owned and operated by the federal government."

The move may be seen by some as a reverse of the Pigeon River clean-up dispute. Tennessee filed a lawsuit against North Carolina and Champion International Corp. to force the paper company to reduce waste water pumped into the river just before it flowed into Tennessee. Settlement in 1988, the case nevertheless created bad blood between the states, with some North Carolinians boycotting Tennessee products, including Jack Daniel's.

"Certainly there's a residual effect," says Stephen Smith of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, which has been pressuring TVA for years to cut emissions. "But if you put all that stuff aside, the reality is a number of folk are basically saying, 'We're going to clean up our air, and we want other people to clean up theirs.'"

"The underlying premise is accurate. North Carolina is getting hit by pollution outside of the state. How much of it is TVA is arguable," Smith adds.

Smith says that TVA does create a great deal of North Carolina's air pollution, but there are other power companies who are to blame as well. According to the Raleigh News & Observer, 80 percent of pollution in Western North Carolina comes from out of state, much of it created by TVA.

TVA spokeswoman Barbara Martocci says the utility has done a lot to clean up its emissions, cutting two main pollutants—nitrogen oxide by 40 percent since 1995 and sulfur dioxide by 65 percent since 1976. It plans to cut nitrogen emissions 75 percent (from '95 level) and sulfur emissions 80 percent (from the '76 level) by 2005, she says.

"We know our air emissions can cause regional problems...But air quality problems are not the sole concern of the utility industry. We need to look at other contributors," says Martocci, pointing to automobiles and other industries as culprits.

Shore says TVA is a target for symbolic reasons. "Something that's motivating to senators is that TVA is a government entity," Shore says.

The North Carolina Senate is not alone in pushing TVA to reduce emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency is negotiating with TVA to cut pollution, and the National Parks Conservation Association and the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit earlier this year claiming that TVA is violating the Clean Air Act.

—Joe Tarr