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NGS Proposes Solution To EPA Mandates
Laurel Morales
One of the Navajo Generating Station's three 750-megawatt generators.
Faced with expensive federal environmental mandates and a potential shutdown, the West’s largest coal-fired power plant and a group of stakeholders have proposed a workaround.
The operators would shut down one of its three generators by 2020 reducing haze at the nearby Grand Canyon.
Under its proposal to the Environmental Protection Agency, the Navajo Generating Station would also install nitrogen oxide-reducing technology on all three generators by 2030.
The plant’s operator, the Salt River Project, estimates it will cost half a billion dollars. The proposal also sets 2044 as the shutdown date for the entire plant.
Salt River Project’s Mike Hummel said working with a group that represents the Navajo Nation, industry, environmentalists and government, was a long process.
"I don’t want to say there was yelling and screaming but there was strong points of views made," said Hummel, SRP's associate general manager and chief power system executive. "We did reach a conclusion that I think everybody believes works but didn’t give them everything they wanted."
The Sierra Club dropped out of the group because it didn’t see a strong enough commitment to reducing pollution, or a direct transition to renewable energy on the Navajo Nation.
"We didn’t think that it was moving in a direction that was going to result in the kinds of improvements in air quality that are needed to protect Grand Canyon and to protect public health," said Sandy Bahr, Sierra Club spokeswoman.
SRP said if renewable energy becomes more cost effective to its customers, the company will make a stronger commitment to it.
The Navajo Generating Station supplies electricity to Arizona, California and Nevada. The deadline for public comments is Oct. 4.
