New EPA Regs May Impact Wyoming Coal

The nation's coal- and oil-fired power plants, will be forced to reduce their emissions orshut down, under a federal regulation released by the Environmental Protection Agency today/Wednesday. 

The Powder River Basin Resource Council’s Shannon Anderson doubts any Wyoming plant will go out of operation, but she says several need to clean their emissions.

“There’s a lot of power plants in Wyoming that don’t take the mercury and these heavy metals out the air before they commit the pollution, " says Anderson.  "So that means mercury is going into our streams, impacting our fish populations and our rivers.  Impacting our public health.”

But Marion Loomis with the Wyoming Mining Association says many plants in the state have already addressed a lot of these issues.

 “We’ll continue with our power plants, but as I say, each one of these new rules that come out are a new burden that we as consumers will have to bear, one way or another," says Loomis.

Loomis says  in the short term consumers should be ready to pay more.   He worries about what this will mean for the future of the coal industry.  Anderson says “this does not  mark the end of coal by any means.” But she said it

Is good news for the health of Wyoming citizens.