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Sierra Club files suit against Big Stone One plant BISMARCK, ND (NDPR) - A conservation group has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the Big Stone Power Plant in South Dakota has violated environmental regulation by failing to install modern pollution controls in the past decade.

The Sierra Club is asking a federal judge to order Otter Tail Power and other owners of Big Stone to install equipment that would reduce pollution from the plant near Milbank.

Sierra Club attorney Bruce Nilles says the suit alleges the plant does not have modern pollution controls -- and has been operating that way since 1995.

"The way the Clean Air Act has been set up since the late '70s is -- new power plants have to install modern pollution controls, and existing plants have to install modern pollution controls if they undertook major modifications," Nilles told reporters. "The owners of Big Stone have never installed modern pollution controls."

Nilles says the plant converted from lignite to sub-bituminous coal -- and made a number of changes to the plant. He also says Otter Tail replaced a huge section of the boiler in 1998, and added ethanol production in 2001 -- and in both cases did nothing about pollution control.

The conservation group says the utilities should not be allowed to build a second coal-fired plant at the site when they have not cleaned up the existing plant.

An Otter Tail official says the company has not yet seen the lawsuit.


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