The health of Albertans and the environment will be jeopardized by inadequate new air pollution standards for the province’s next wave of coal-burning power plants, say environmental and landowner groups.

But the Alberta government says the new standards, announced last week, are tough and put the province on par with other places in North America.

The province brought in the new standards without any public consultation, including with landowners at Lake Wabamun west of Edmonton who say they’ve been adversely affected by existing coal-fired generation operations there.

Alberta Environment, however, did seek input from the companies that plan to build the new coal-plants, including TransAlta and EPCOR.

Larry MacDougal, Business Edge
Natural gas-fuelled plants, such as the one near Cochrane above, are considered by environmentalists to be cleaner than the coal-fired facilities being brought on line.

New plants in the works include TransAlta’s $1.8-billion expansion of its Keephills facility to generate another 900 megawatts. EPCOR has announced a $500-million, 400-megawatt expansion of its Genesee plant.

Both these expansions will be in the Lake Wabamun region, about 50 kilometres west of Edmonton.

Fording Coal and ENMAX also are planning a new 400-megawatt coal-fired generation plant southeast of Calgary.

Even with the more stringent standards, the new coal-plants won’t be anywhere near as clean as power produced by natural gas-fuelled generators, says Tom Marr-Laing of the Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based environmental policy and research group.

“Our argument is that they (government and utility companies) should build coal-plants that give us the same environmental and human health impacts” that result from cleaner-burning gas-fired facilities, Marr-Laing says. “And that’s not what is being proposed with these standards.”

Alberta Environment spokesman Mark Cooper says it was necessary to bring in the new standards quickly, so Albertans would have access to more and affordable electricity as soon as possible.

The department based the standards not on what industry wanted, but on an independent study by scientists at the Alberta Research Council, Cooper adds. “The idea here is, do what we best can do right now (to reduce emissions).”

The new standards don’t apply to aging coal-fired plants, such as TransAlta’s Wabamun and Sundance facilities, both located on the shores of Lake Wabamun.

Those plants, and the coal-mining operations that supply them, have polluted the air, dramatically lowered the lake levels, and destroyed the watershed that once replenished the lake, says Linda Duncan, spokeswoman for the Lake Wabamun Enhancement and Protection Association, which represents about 400 lakeside dwellers.

The provincial government has failed to implement a watershed management plan for the lake, which all stakeholders in the area supported in the spring of 1999, Duncan says.

“We know we’re not going to shut down electric power generation in Alberta,” she says.