Black
Mesa Indigenous Support
P.O.
Box 23501, Flagstaff, Arizona 86002
Message Voice Mail: 928.773.8086
Email: blackmesais@riseup.net
Message Voice Mail: 928.773.8086
Email: blackmesais@riseup.net
The Associated Press 12.30.05
LAUGHLIN, Nev. -- A large coal-fired power plant at the center of a dispute
several years ago will close at the end of the year rather than violate a
court-ordered deadline to install an estimated $1.1 billion in pollution-control
measures.
Southern California Edison said Thursday the Mohave Generating Station near
Laughlin would close. The plant has provided the utility with 7 percent of
its electricity, but the company said its 13 million customers would not be
immediately affected because of other power sources.
Under a 1999 consent decree won by environmental groups, the aging Mohave
plant was required to upgrade its pollution controls or close by Jan. 1, 2006.
The groups had argued the 1,580-megawatt plant, about 100 miles south of Las
Vegas, had repeatedly violated the Clean Air Act, contributing to haze at
the Grand Canyon.
The utility, the plant's majority owner and operator, had hoped to keep it
open as natural gas prices have continued to rise.
In a filing Thursday with the California Public Utilities Commission, Edison
said it planned to continue negotiations aimed at keeping the plant open but
expected to close it for at least a few months. The environmental groups
have said they would not agree to a deadline extension.
The plant is the only customer of the Black Mesa mine near Kayenta, Ariz.,
which provides about 160 jobs to members of the Navajo Nation. The mine, run
by Peabody Energy Corp., will likely be forced to close.
"It was the environmental groups that helped bring this about - for
altruistic reasons, of course - but the result is that a lot of breadwinners are
going to be out of work," said George Hardeen, a spokesman for the Navajo Nation.
Environmentalists said they sympathized with the tribes, but argued Edison
had plenty of time to fix the plant's pollution problems. Edison should invest
in renewable energy sources on tribal land, which would benefit the people
"who have been exploited all of these years by the greater metropolitan
centers of the West," said Roger Clark, director of the Grand Canyon Trust's air
and energy program.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Power_Plant_Closure.html
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/northern_california/13515985.htm
The Associated Press 12.30.05
LAUGHLIN, Nev. -- A large coal-fired power plant at the center of a dispute
several years ago will close at the end of the year rather than violate a
court-ordered deadline to install an estimated $1.1 billion in pollution-control
measures.
Southern California Edison said Thursday the Mohave Generating Station near
Laughlin would close. The plant has provided the utility with 7 percent of
its electricity, but the company said its 13 million customers would not be
immediately affected because of other power sources.
Under a 1999 consent decree won by environmental groups, the aging Mohave
plant was required to upgrade its pollution controls or close by Jan. 1, 2006.
The groups had argued the 1,580-megawatt plant, about 100 miles south of Las
Vegas, had repeatedly violated the Clean Air Act, contributing to haze at
the Grand Canyon.
The utility, the plant's majority owner and operator, had hoped to keep it
open as natural gas prices have continued to rise.
In a filing Thursday with the California Public Utilities Commission, Edison
said it planned to continue negotiations aimed at keeping the plant open but
expected to close it for at least a few months. The environmental groups
have said they would not agree to a deadline extension.
The plant is the only customer of the Black Mesa mine near Kayenta, Ariz.,
which provides about 160 jobs to members of the Navajo Nation. The mine, run
by Peabody Energy Corp., will likely be forced to close.
"It was the environmental groups that helped bring this about - for
altruistic reasons, of course - but the result is that a lot of breadwinners are
going to be out of work," said George Hardeen, a spokesman for the Navajo Nation.
Environmentalists said they sympathized with the tribes, but argued Edison
had plenty of time to fix the plant's pollution problems. Edison should invest
in renewable energy sources on tribal land, which would benefit the people
"who have been exploited all of these years by the greater metropolitan
centers of the West," said Roger Clark, director of the Grand Canyon Trust's air
and energy program.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Power_Plant_Closure.html
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/northern_california/13515985.htm
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Black
Mesa Indigenous Support
P.O.
Box 23501, Flagstaff, Arizona 86002 Message Voice Mail: 928.773.8086 Email: blackmesais@riseup.net |
By Bob Christie, The Associated Press 01.22.06
PHOENIX -- The big coal-fired power plant outside Laughlin, Nev., has
been shuttered for nearly three weeks, but operator Southern
California Edison hopes to fire it back up despite huge odds against
the effort.
The utility is asking the California Public Utilities Commission to
let it charge customers the cost of "aggressively" trying to modify a
1999 legal settlement it made with environmental groups. In the deal,
Edison agreed to upgrade the Mohave Generating Station's anti-
pollution gear or shut it down by Jan. 1, 2006. It also wants
ratepayers to pay for an agreement it's seeking with Peabody Western
Coal Co. to keep its Arizona mine ready to provide fuel.
Edison also is hoping to come up with another source for the water a
third company uses to move hundreds of tons of coal each day in a
slurry through a 273-mile pipeline from Arizona to the plant.
The plant can provide enough power for 1.5 million average homes.
Environmental groups that sued Edison and the plant's co-owners in
1998 over pollution from the plant said they won't agree to any
settlement modification. Built in 1971, the plant doesn't have modern
pollution control devices like scrubbers to cut down on smoke and
sulfur dioxide emissions.
"We would not be interested in just different ways to run the plant
without any pollution controls," said Rob Smith, a Sierra Club
representative. "They've looked for all kinds of ways to get around
what they agreed to do without ... cleaning up the plant."
Edison won't comment on any settlement talks that may be under way.
The Sierra Club joined with the Grand Canyon Trust and the National
Parks and Conservation Association to sue Edison and the plant's
other owners in an effort to get them to install modern equipment.
Partners in the plant include Edison, with 56 percent, the Los
Angeles Department of Water and Power, 10 percent, Nevada Power, 14
percent and Arizona's Salt River Project, 20 percent.
Edison contends it's the iffy water supply for the slurry pipeline,
not the cost, that led to its decision to delay upgrading the
pollution controls and ultimately led to the shutdown.
"You would never invest more than a billion dollars in a plant that's
about to shut down," said Gil Alexander, an Edison spokesman.
Upgrading the plant and the pipeline are estimated to cost about $1.1
billion.
About 1,300 acre-feet of water are drawn from wells near Peabody's
Black Mesa Mine in northern Arizona each year. Leaders of the Hopi
and Navajo tribes blame the wells for dried-up springs on their
reservations.
The contract to operate the wells also expired on Jan. 1. Edison
expects results of a study soon to see if it can draw water from a
deeper aquifer.
If that study shows plenty of available water and it can make a deal
with the tribes to tap it, Alexander said Edison could move ahead
with plans to put the pollution devices on the Mohave plant.
Haze and soot from the plant is the largest single source of visible
pollution in the western Grand Canyon, and National Parks officials
already plan a program to measure effects from the shutdown.
Comprehensive results could take years.
The economic impact of the plant's shutdown will be significant,
according to a University of Nevada-Reno report completed in 2002.
The plant contributes about $300 million per year to the economy in
Nevada and Arizona through direct employment, mining and pipeline
activity, the study showed. It employed 280 people, 260 worked at the
Black Mesa mine and 52 in pipeline operations in 2002.
Operations at Black Mesa ceased on Dec. 31, Peabody spokeswoman Beth
Sutton said. The mine work force had shrunk to 165 by then.
About 20 percent transferred to a nearby mine and the rest were laid
off, with 15 percent taking retirement. Hundreds of other jobs are at
risk as well, both on the reservations and near the plant.
The Navajo and Hopis also will lose millions per year in royalties
and taxes.
Richard Mayol of the Grand Canyon Trust said he believes Edison
intended to shutter the aging plant until a run-up in natural gas
prices changed the economics of continued operation. Edison disputes
that, saying they delayed putting in the needed upgrades because of
uncertainty in the water supplies.
Mayol's group joined the Sierra Club and several other groups earlier
this month in asking California regulators to set aside any money
Edison may get for selling the plant's pollution credits into a fund
to help the Navajo and Hopi tribes.
They want the money used to build a renewable energy project such as
wind and solar power on the reservation as a way of backfilling for
the lost revenue and employment.
Edison issued a press release strongly opposing the notion.
"To claim that an asset belonging to our customers should be
transferred to others is unprecedented and inappropriate," the
statement said.