SoCal Edison to close coal plant at center of pollution dispute

[Ernesto]

(snip) the 1,580-megawatt plant, about 100 miles south of Las Vegas, had repeatedly violated the Clean Air Act, emitting high amounts of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and fine particles and contributing to haze at the Grand Canyon.
The plant is the only customer of the nearby Black Mesa mine, 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.
"We will lose about 160 jobs, and these are some of the best jobs on the Navajo Nation, paying upwards of $70,000. It will undoubtedly impact an already weak Navajo Nation economy."

http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/14026116p-14858396c.html

[papau]

1. Peabody Energy Corp is hard to love - those scrubber stacks that ended up

just being tall - did they ever install good scrubbers in those stacks?

Well.... NO - Peabody refuse to install the required controls.

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.

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.

Of course Edison could invest in renewable energy sources on tribal land - but that would be too easy. But if they did the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Tribal Council would no longer have to surrender the 3.3 million gallons of pure groundwater that are pumped, daily, from the Navajo Aquifer, which flows beneath the Hopi and Navajo Nations in northeastern Arizona, so that Peabody Coal Company can use the water to transport coal from a stripmine on Black Mesa to a power plant in the Mojave Desert, 273 miles to the west


One billion gallons of ancient, sacred water, mined to slurry coal, fouled beyond reclamation, evaporates each year in Nevada’s desert skies.

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. breadwinners are going to be out of work

So are all the other ones who's jobs were shipped overseas, but nobody cares about them.

[whatelseisnew]

3. An alternate aquifer can be used

http://www.blackmesais.org/mohave_future11.05.htm

The two tribes say the underground aquifer source of the water Peabody
is now using needs to be preserved for their drinking supply. An
alternate aquifer -- also under land owned by the tribes -- can be
used, but a 100-mile pipeline will have to be constructed.

Taylor of the Hopi tribe said So Cal Ed has agreed to pay $200 million
to build the new pipeline, but company officials declined to confirm
that.

Taylor said the Hopi can agree to allow Peabody to use the current
water source until the new pipeline is built.

Clark said the owners of Mohave "have had six years" to renegotiate
water and coal rights with the Navajo and the Hopi and with Peabody.
The coal and water rights agreements were set to expire at the end of
2005 long before the environmental groups filed suit against Mohave's
owners in 1997, Clark said.