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Colorado regulators approved a plan Tuesday to cut mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants with rules that are tougher than federal requirements.

The state Air Quality Control Commission signed off on the proposal after weeks of negotiations among utilities, environmentalists and local governments.

The federal government directed Colorado and other states to develop plans to reduce mercury, a powerful toxin. The Colorado rules would take effect ahead of a federal deadline.

"The bottom line is that this proposal will lead to mercury reductions more quickly and more significantly than the federal rule," said Will Allison, a representative of the state attorney general's office, who was involved with the negotiations.

Jim VanSomeren, a Tri-State spokesman, said it might affect the Craig Station, but the company needs to study the plant's mercury emissions first.

"The Craig Station is already very low in their mercury emissions," he said. "So, we are going to be installing some monitors, probably in the 2008-2009 time frame, just to be able to collect that data and be able to figure out where we are with that facility."

He said if Tri-State needs to follow-up with new equipment after that study, necessary installations at the Craig Station will be made by a 2014 time frame.

"Until we know exactly what those numbers are, we don't know where we stand," VanSomeren said. "But we do know that we are already quite low with the equipment we have in place. ... That plant basically has the best control technology, state-of-the-art equipment that anyone is using right now. So, we're in real good shape."

Coal-fired power plants are among the larger sources of man-made mercury. It gets into the food chain primarily through fish from polluted rivers and lakes.

State health officials recently issued warnings that some large fish in Colorado reservoirs are tainted with mercury.

The debate over how to reduce mercury had been contentious, prompting the commission in November to give the various parties time to work out a compromise.

Xcel Energy, the state's largest electricity supplier, was among the utilities that agreed to reduce emissions earlier than the federal government required.

Xcel owns the power plant in Hayden.

"All the parties realized that if we could come up with something we all could live with, that was a better outcome," said Jim Sanderson, an attorney representing a coalition of utilities.