The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency passed new regulations aimed at reducing haze over northern Minnesota, including Voyageurs National Park and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The MPCA board voted 7-1 in favor of the new rules.
Managers of Voyageurs National and the Boundary Waters Canoe Are Wilderness, however, had lobbied for tighter restrictions on area taconite plants and the state’s coal-burning power plants which account for much of the haze.
(See our previous story HERE.)
John Myers of the Duluth News-Tribune has a complete report HERE.
The regulations, implemented under the Federal Clean Air Act, are the first step in an attempt to cut 30,000 tons of the haze-causing emissions annually and to insure that air over national parks and wilderness areas be haze-free by 2064.
Photo: Haze over the BWCAW.