When Americans were environmentally naïve and before words such as acid rain, interstate air pollution and global warming entered common usage, industries were allowed to build smokestack plants pretty much where they chose, with deadly consequences surfacing years later.
Those dreadful old days are being relived as Jerome County prepares to approve Sempra Generation's 600-megawatt electric power generating plant that will burn low-sulfur Wyoming coal.
Few hurdles remain—an OK from the Jerome County Planning and Zoning Commission, the go-ahead from two of three county commissioners, and an air standards review by the state.
The lures for approval in a small county are tax revenues ($15 million in annual property taxes from the plant), and jobs (1,000 during construction, 125 to operate the plant).
But these hardly should be the bona fides for a major industrial facility whose smokestack emissions will be felt in one form or another throughout Central Idaho and beyond.
As such, the Idaho Legislature should have done its civic duty by discussing and enacting state Sen. Clint Stennett's bill to require state approval to site a coal-fired plant and involve various agencies whose jurisdictions include noise, water and air, environment and wildlife.
Laughably, the plant's builder-owner is creating a subsidiary, Idaho Valley, to conduct studies of the impact on the environment and surrounding area. Can that data be regarded as arms-length reliable?
Safeguarding air, water and a community's ambiance are critical concerns—especially for Idaho tourism—that Idaho lawmakers refused to acknowledge when they refused even to print Stennett's bill.
Wind data suggests that emissions from the plant nine miles southeast of Shoshone would drift over several adjoining counties, including Blaine County and the Wood River Valley.
It's no consolation that the plant's owner boasts that the operation will be 85 percent cleaner than technologies of 20 years ago? What, pray, would be in that other 15 percent?
Sen. Stennett suggests opponents or critics of the plant write Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, Jerome County officials and key members of the Legislature to protest the plant site.
Central Idaho, with its clear air and pristine lakes and streams, should not be sacrificed in exchange for a few jobs, a fatter public pocketbook, and electricity that likely will be exported to other states.
With the Legislature a no-show, only public-minded citizens may be able to stop a coal plant now.
