A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the State of Wisconsin violated the Clean Air Act by failing to upgrade the pollution controls on a campus power plant even as it was improved in various other ways in recent years, the Wisconsin State Journal reported this morning.

The judge, John Shabaz of the U.S. District Court in Madison, said the 48-year-old plant should have had pollution controls installed during construction projects that he described as “massive in scope,” including the use of a crane to remove equipment being replaced. The university characterized the work on the coal-fired plant as routine maintenance, work that under federal law does not require pollution-control upgrades.

The ruling, which stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club and may be appealed, could cost the university millions of dollars to comply, as “the campus cannot function” without the plant, one official said.

In a coincidence, Wednesday also saw the announcement, by former President Bill Clinton, of a $5-billion fund to help colleges pay for energy-efficiency projects with the hope of reducing their carbon emissions. —Andrew Mytelka