DEQ News Release
Return to News Release List
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
August 10, 2018
ADEQ Submits Regional Haze State Plan to EPA
NORTH LITTLE ROCK—The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) has signed agreements with key utility partners and submitted those agreements as part of the Arkansas state plan for Regional Haze to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The execution of the agreements, which were signed with Entergy Arkansas, Inc., Southwestern Electric Power Company, and Arkansas Electric Cooperatives Corporation, is a key step in resolving the issues surrounding Arkansas’s challenge to EPA’s 2016 federal haze plan. “This is an important step in our work with EPA to apply a state-first approach to the Regional Haze Program that benefits all Arkansans,” said ADEQ Director Becky W. Keogh.
The Regional Haze Program seeks to address the combined visibility effects of various pollution sources over a wide geographic region with the goal of achieving natural visibility conditions at designated national parks and wilderness areas. If approved by EPA, the state plan would save roughly two billion dollars in costs to Arkansas ratepayers as compared with the federal haze plan, while also achieving the state’s goals for improving visibility for this ten-year period. As part of the state plan, Entergy Arkansas, Inc. has agreed to use low sulfur coal at its two largest facilities: Entergy Independence and Entergy White Bluff.
CONTACT: press@adeq.state.ar.us or 501.682.0916
###
August 10, 2018
ADEQ Submits Regional Haze State Plan to EPA
NORTH LITTLE ROCK—The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) has signed agreements with key utility partners and submitted those agreements as part of the Arkansas state plan for Regional Haze to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The execution of the agreements, which were signed with Entergy Arkansas, Inc., Southwestern Electric Power Company, and Arkansas Electric Cooperatives Corporation, is a key step in resolving the issues surrounding Arkansas’s challenge to EPA’s 2016 federal haze plan. “This is an important step in our work with EPA to apply a state-first approach to the Regional Haze Program that benefits all Arkansans,” said ADEQ Director Becky W. Keogh.
The Regional Haze Program seeks to address the combined visibility effects of various pollution sources over a wide geographic region with the goal of achieving natural visibility conditions at designated national parks and wilderness areas. If approved by EPA, the state plan would save roughly two billion dollars in costs to Arkansas ratepayers as compared with the federal haze plan, while also achieving the state’s goals for improving visibility for this ten-year period. As part of the state plan, Entergy Arkansas, Inc. has agreed to use low sulfur coal at its two largest facilities: Entergy Independence and Entergy White Bluff.
CONTACT: press@adeq.state.ar.us or 501.682.0916
###