Grand Canyon Trust & Sierra Club - San Juan Power Plant Lawsuit Filed Alleging Violation Of The Clean Air Act

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 16, 2002

	Looking north from near the San Juan power plant towards the snow-capped San Juan Mountains © Grand Canyon Trust

FARMINGTON, NM - Citing thousands of air pollution permit violations and the lack of a proper "Prevention of Significant Deterioration" (PSD) permit at the San Juan power plant near Farmington, New Mexico, the Grand Canyon Trust and the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit today against Public Service Company of New Mexico in federal court at Santa Fe.

San Juan, the seventh largest power plant in the Western United States, consists of four separate coal-fired generating units with a cumulative generating capacity of 1,600 megawatts. San Juan's emissions of nitrogen oxides alone are equivalent to the pollution from a city with more than a million and a half cars.

"I live in the Four Corners for the clear skies and the recreational opportunities," says Farmington resident and Sierra Club member Verl Hopper. "Now I find out that the New Mexico Environment Department says San Juan County is about to flunk national ozone standards. From my house, I can see the haze the power plants produce. This is a big city problem and the power plants are huge contributors because of the enormous amount of pollution that they emit. It's time for these old plants to clean up."

Ground level ozone--as opposed to naturally occurring ozone high in the atmosphere which helps protect us from the sun's ultra-violet rays--is created when nitrogen oxides, like those emitted from San Juan, and volatile organic compounds are mixed together and baked by the sun. Symptoms include wheezing, coughing, pain when taking a deep breath, and breathing difficulties during exercise or outdoor activities. People with respiratory problems are most vulnerable, but even healthy people that are active outdoors can be affected when ozone levels are high.

The lawsuit alleges that the San Juan plant illegally exceeded its "opacity" limit thousands of times. Opacity is the density of the pollution coming from the plant's smokestacks. It measures the amount of breathable particles and gases emitted by the plant that are strongly linked to human health impacts. Reducing opacity at San Juan could significantly reduce many harmful pollutants including mercury. According to a 1997 EPA study, San Juan dumps more than 1,000 pounds (453,000 grams) of mercury into the San Juan basin's airshed every year. One gram of mercury can make the fish in a 15-acre lake unfit for human consumption.

In the past five years, San Juan has exceeded its opacity limit thousands of times. © Grand Canyon Trust.

The suit also alleges that other pollutants would be significantly reduced if the plant were to meet the more stringent pollution limits required by the Clean Air Act that were in effect when construction commenced on the two largest units.

According to the EPA emission scorecard, in the year 2000, San Juan emitted approximately 5,000 tons of particulates, 28,886 tons of sulfur dioxide, 31,376 tons of nitrogen oxides, and 14.5 million tons of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas that causes global warming.

"While visibility all over the Colorado Plateau is impacted by man-made haze, there is only one place--Farmington, New Mexico--where you can see smog that is as bad or worse than Los Angeles or Houston," said Geoff Barnard, president of the Grand Canyon Trust, whose mission includes the protection of air quality across the Colorado Plateau. "Sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and particulates from the San Juan power plant are a huge part of the big city smog," adds Barnard.

"Although PNM upgraded San Juan's existing pollution controls for sulfur dioxide in the late 1990s, the project failed to end PNM's practice of shunting approximately 20 percent of the flue gas around the scrubbers and was driven more by economics than worries about pollution," said Rick Moore, Air and Energy program officer for the Grand Canyon Trust. "A PNM report on the project states that it was '…driven entirely by economics…' and that the upgraded scrubbers will save PNM $20 million a year. A significant portion of those savings came from the 'reduction of personnel by 110 positions.' Unfortunately, the project did not eliminate the long-standing problem of bypassing its pollution control equipment and did not bring San Juan's pollution controls up to current standards."

"If San Juan stopped bypassing its pollution control equipment it could easily reduce its SO2 emissions by more than 90 percent--a rate achieved by several other old coal-fired plants--and it's emissions would be more than halved," said Jennifer de Garmo, Sierra Club Associate Regional Representative. Modern-day emission controls for nitrogen oxides could reduce San Juan's emissions from over 30,000 tons per year to below 3,000 tons."

"If, as PNM claims, it is truly 'committed to playing a leadership role in the effort to create a safer, cleaner world,' then the company should immediately cut emissions from the San Juan power plant to protect the residents of New Mexico and the extraordinary scenery of the Colorado Plateau and Four Corners region," de Garmo said.

For more information contact:

• Rick Moore
  program officer
  (928) 774-7488
  Email
• Jennifer de Garmo
  Rio Grande Chapter, Sierra Club
  (505) 243-7767
• Reed Zars
  Attorney
  (307) 745-7979
  

### END NEWS RELEASE ###

Download background information. (128KB PDF)*

Download high resolution images: 1 - 2 - 3

Click here to see a chart of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from the 18 coal-fired power plants on or near the Colorado Plateau.

Click here for "Comparison of San Juan Power Plant's Current Emissions to a Similar Size Power Plant with Modern Pollution Controls."

Presentation (a pdf file) on ozone given by the New Mexico Environment Department at an open house, Farmington, NM, 4/23/02. The Farmington area is close to exceeding federal ozone standards: The area is very close to exceeding the federal standard for ozone. This is surprising, since areas that exceed standards for ozone area unusually highly urbanized. Most ozone non-attainment in the U.S. occurs in metropolitan areas with populations greater than a million. (page 8) http://www.nmenv.state.nm.us/aqb/projects/042302-Ozone.pdf

Study (a pdf file) of mercury loading at McPhee and Narraguinnep Reservoirs by Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment. The San Juan power plant is identified as one of area's most significant sources of mercury deposition in the reservoirs: Total emissions from the 14 plants amount to 1,636 kg-Hg/yr, of which more than half (about 950 kg) are associated with the San Juan and Four Corners generating plants, the two largest facilities that lie within 50 miles of McPhee and Narraguinnep Reservoirs. (page 3-2) http://www.cdphe.state.co.us/hm/mercury/workshop/criticalreview.pdf

Table showing estimated mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants near McPhee and Narraguinnep Reservoirs. (397KB PDF)

Fish Consumption Guidelines due to Mercury Contamination: New Mexico Environment Department. http://www.nmenv.state.nm.us/swqb/hg_white.html

U.S. Geological Survey fact sheet on mercury in U.S. coal
http://pubs.usgs.gov/factsheet/fs095-01/fs095-01.pdf