EPA Plan Targets Power Plant Haze : Pollution: Agency will propose 70% cut in Arizona generating station’s contaminants, which have been linked to limiting visibility in winter at Grand Canyon.

After a battle lasting years, the Environmental Protection Agency today will propose a 70% reduction in pollution from a giant power station linked to winter haze that often obscures the scenic vistas of the Grand Canyon, Administration sources said Thursday.

The decision, regarded as a landmark that will influence pollution controls on future power plants across the Southwest, comes after a struggle that has long divided federal agencies, stirred debate among scientists and aroused environmentalists concerned over air pollution’s effect on visibility in the Grand Canyon and other national parks.

Administration sources, who declined to be identified by name, said the proposed regulation will give owners of the controversial Navajo Generating Station at Page, Ariz., four years to phase in the required controls, beginning in 1995.

Although some EPA officials had argued for a reduction of 90% of the plant’s emissions of sulfur oxides, Administration sources contended Thursday that the compromise proposal shows firm determination to carry out the intent of the 1990 clean air act.

A public hearing has been scheduled for Phoenix on March 18. Arguments will be made then for 90% controls, as well as for 50% controls, and for seasonal instead of the year-round controls in the proposed regulation.

But barring a reversal of the environmental agency, the decision being announced today will become final in about 60 days.

Emission controls on the 2,250-megawatt plant have been debated since its construction. The Grand Canyon haze issue turned the arguments into an embarrassment and an exceedingly touchy issue for federal officials.

The Bureau of Reclamation of the U.S. Department of the Interior is one of the principal owners of the Salt River Project, which owns the station. Evidence linking the winter haze in the canyon to the power plant was developed from a study conducted by the National Park Service, another agency of the Interior Department.

The requirement to install pollution controls on the giant plant will be felt by customers of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which owns 21% of the utility and draws 13% of its electrical supply from the station.

The cost and the impact of the controls--debated for months between the EPA, the Energy Department and the White House Office of Management and Budget--remained a source of sharp disagreement as word of the decision circulated Thursday.

Administration officials estimated the cost of the controls at $79.5 million to $145 million a year. They also suggested that incentives in the 1990 Clean Air Act might make it financially attractive for the utility to install advanced pollution control technology and to reach a 90% reduction in emissions.

Robert Yunhke, a senior attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund, who filed suit against the EPA eight years ago to force it to establish emission controls on the plant, estimated that the 70% proposal will cost the typical customer $1.57 per month on an electrical bill.

Controls producing emission reductions of 90% could be achieved, he said, with additional cost of only eight cents per month.

“The difference between 70% and 90% controls,” he said, “is 14,000 tons of sulfur dioxide. Nowhere else could we get a 14,000-ton reduction so cheaply. If we don’t take advantage of opportunities, air quality is going to continue to get worse instead of better.”

Officials of the Salt River Project, who have insisted that the Navajo plant contributes little to the Grand Canyon haze problem, took immediate issue with the proposed controls.

Installing so-called scrubbers to remove the sulfur from Navajo’s exhaust, D. Michael Rappaport, an assistant general manager, estimated, will cost $300 million to $450 million, with operating costs mounting to as much as $2.4 billion over the lifetime of the plant.

The action, “lacks both scientific and legal justification” and “will do virtually nothing to improve visibility for visitors at the Grand Canyon,” he said.

But in a letter to President Bush this week, representatives from six environmental groups urged the use of the “best available retrofit technology” to abate pollution from Navajo and other plants contributing to haze in scenic areas. Besides the Grand Canyon, they noted, seven other areas in the “golden circle of parks” should receive “the full measure of protection the law allows.”

Today’s announcement by the EPA meets a deadline set by U.S. District Court in Northern California as the result of a lawsuit filed by the Environmental Defense Fund in 1982.

Although utility officials cite a $12-million, company-sponsored study as evidence that the plant has little to do with haze in the canyon, the Administration said the effects of the controls will be obvious.

By government calculations, officials said, a 70% reduction will result in seven days of very apparent improvement in canyon visibility during each winter season with 42 days of quite noticeable change, and 88 days of perceptible change.