The air quality in the Smoky Mountains, Linville Gorge and other rough-cut jewels of Western North Carolina would be severely harmed by a major expansion of Duke Energy's Cliffside power plant, and state regulators are moving too fast to permit it, federal park and environmental officials say.

Representatives of the National Park Service and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency say an ongoing federal lawsuit involving Duke could mean the state is using an inaccurate calculation to set emissions limits for the new Cliffside unit in Rutherford County. National park officials say the state needs to take that into consideration and delay a final permit decision.

"We are especially concerned that your agency has proceeded to process this application with no apparent consideration given to the outstanding federal enforcement action that could considerably alter the scope of the permit analysis and its conclusions," John Bunyak, chief of permit review for the National Park Service, said in a letter to state air regulators.

"The real-world effect ... would be severe impacts upon air quality and air quality related values at Great Smoky Mountains National Park," Bunyak said.

State air regulators are considering a Duke Energy request to build a $1.8 billion coal burning plant at Cliffside Steam Station, about 80 miles southeast of the park.

The project is moving ahead while more than a dozen proposed coal plants from Florida to Alaska have been canceled or rejected this year. The plants are major producers of greenhouse gases, and proposed federal regulation of carbon dioxide cloud their future operating costs.

Tom Mather, a spokesman for the state Division of Air Quality, said state regulators could make a decision soon on the permit. Duke would like to have the plant operating as soon as 2011.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has a pending lawsuit against Duke, contending the utility illegally made major modifications to eight plants, including Cliffside, without updating pollution controls. If the EPA wins, it would likely mean the new Cliffside addition would have to meet more stringent emissions requirements than the state is currently proposing.

"We can't assume what way that lawsuit will go," Mather said. "It may be if the permit were issued, a court decision could come down and change all that. That is all theoretical."

In a Dec. 4 letter, the Sierra Club and the National Parks Conservation Association urged Gov. Mike Easley's administration to reject Duke's permit application or -- at a minimum -- require an analysis of Cliffside's effects on the Smoky Mountains and nearby wilderness areas.

The governor's office said it had received the letter and was still formulating a response.

Don Barger, southeast regional director of the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit group, said permitting a power plant is a decision that lasts for 50 to 60 years.

"Because of the way the state Division of Air Quality has processed that permit, they have essentially avoided the normal process of trying to determine and mitigate any impacts that a facility would have on the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and wilderness areas," Barger said. "That essential piece of the Clean Air Act has been sidestepped."

Duke's exemption

State air regulators are allowing Duke Energy to avoid proving that the plant's emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, pollutants that contribute to respiratory problems, haze, acid rain and fine soot, won't worsen visibility and foul creeks in the Great Smokies and wilderness areas such as Linville Gorge.

State regulators made that decision on the calculation that the utility will shut down four 1940s-era power generators at Cliffside, and add pollution controls to a fifth unit at the site. They say shutting down the older plants would largely offset pollution from the new, larger unit.

"More than two times the electricity from the current plant will be generated," said Marilyn Lineberger, a spokeswoman for Duke Energy. "Yet it will emit much fewer emissions."

But the state's emissions calculation for Cliffside may itself go up in smoke if the federal court finds that Duke illegally modified the plant and others, as the EPA alleges. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the EPA's favor on an important technical issue in the case this year and returned the case to federal district court for further proceedings.

"There is some risk in making a decision before that case is resolved," said Jim Little, an environmental scientist with the EPA. "The risk to the company is if they started construction and the permit is reopened, that might affect their final construction schedule."

The National Park Service has done an analysis, showing further reductions in visibility and deposits of acid.

"The Great Smokies is already being severely impacted," said Don Sheperd, an environmental engineer with the National Park Service. "Until the Great Smokies gets back to a situation where it is healthy, as long as the patient is still ill, adding more to its burden is not helping."

Gudrun Thompson, an attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, said the plant would belch more than 9 million tons a year of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas -- nearly three times as much as is currently produced.

"This is a very large new pollution source with no carbon controls," Thompson said.

Molly Diggins, state director of the Sierra Club, said Cliffside threatens Easley's legacy as a champion on clean air issues.

"Without changes, this permit will be bad for clean air, bad for consumers, and undermine enforcement of the Clean Air Act," Diggins said, referring to a key environmental law that protects national parks and wilderness areas from worsening air quality. "Five years ago, Governor Easley showed courage and leadership .... Now we need him to step up again, to protect the progress we've made on clean air, and to join other states in fighting global warming."