Dear HCN,
As the former Colorado
Plateau regional representative over a 10-year period (1974-1984)
of Friends of the Earth, I applaud the efforts of the Grand Canyon
Trust to involve local residents in resolving the region’s
environmental issues (HCN, 4/4/94). Not every regional controversy,
of course, such as the once-proposed massive coal strip mine to be
sited below the overlooks of Bryce Canyon National Park, can be
successfully resolved through consensus.
It may
be instructive to add a historical perspective to the Grand Canyon
Trust’s “negotiating a settlement with the Navajo Power Plant to
slash sulfur dioxide emissions by 90 percent by 1999.”
If I am to believe the letter in my files from
the congressional staffer most intimately involved with this
subject, the issue of visibility impairment caused by coal-fired
power plants in the Colorado Plateau initially came to the
attention of federal regulators in 1975, when they saw a slide
presentation I’d developed, “Visibility Degradation in the
Southwestern Parklands.” It focused on the impacts to regional
visibility caused by the Navajo Power
Plant.
Seven years later, a TV audience of
millions watched a PBS documentary, “The Regulators, Our Invisible
Government,” which traced the history of the 1977 Clean Air Act
Amendments by following the development of the visibility issue
through the legislative and federal regulatory
processes.
While that film made for good
television by enhancing my role of photographic documentarian to
“former park ranger goes to Washington on a mission from God to
save the national parks,” the show overlooked the most important
aspect of the whole story. It was Friends of the Earth’s clean air
lobbyist, Rafe Pomerance, who conceived of and wrote a visibility
protection amendment. He also arranged for me to speak to key
Washington, D.C., audiences on behalf of the canyon country as he
steered the amendment through Congress and later led the charge to
block efforts to undermine it during the regulatory
process.
The Visibility Protection Amendment
(Section 169A) of the Clean Air Act of 1977 and its subsequent
regulations were specifically written to reduce sulfur dioxide
emissions at the Navajo Power Plant. Any later accomplishment
towards that end owes an enormous debt of gratitude to the vision
and leadership of Rafe Pomerance in providing the legal foundation
for that opportunity. The installation of sulfur dioxide controls
at the Navajo Power Plant represents to me, at least, dramatic
affirmation that the environmental movement functions most
effectively when local grass-roots activists and career
professionals work together in an atmosphere based on common
concerns, mutual respect and shared
authority.
Gordon
Anderson
Manitou Springs,
Colorado
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Don’t forget Friends of the Earth.
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