Mohave Owners Choose To Shut Power Plant - Pollution Stops on New Year’s Day

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December 29, 2005

FLAGSTAFF, Arizona – The owners of the Mohave Generating Station, led by Southern California Edison, are expected to close the Nevada power plant on New Year’s Day because they have been unable to meet their own deadlines for securing coal and water for continued operation. 

The plant is owned by Edison, Salt River Project, Sierra Pacific’s Nevada Power, and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

The owners agreed not to operate the plant after December 31, 2005 without installing modern air pollution controls according to a court-approved consent decree signed in 1999 with the Grand Canyon Trust, Sierra Club and the National Parks Conservation Association.  Edison, which operates the plant, has not invested in pollution controls called for in the decree, choosing instead to close the plant after the deadline.

Mohave Generating Station has been operating without significant pollution controls since it opened in 1971.  Local protests and legal actions over emissions began soon thereafter.  However, operations continued unchanged until the end of the 1990s when the conservation groups sued the plant’s owners for violating air quality and health standards under the federal Clean Air Act.

The conservation groups showed that the plant violated its pollution limits over 400,000 times between 1993-1998. Because the maximum fine for each violation is $27,500, the maximum potential penalty was $10 billion.  After intensive negotiations, the owners and the conservation groups signed a consent decree in 1999, which provided  six years for the plant to install pollution controls or shutdown, allowing sufficient time to not only install the controls but also to negotiate new coal and water contracts  with the Navajo and Hopi tribes and with Peabody Coal Company.

Since 1999 the owners have failed to negotiate new contracts for coal and water, and have made no attempt to install the required pollution control equipment, which could have been done in less than three years.  There are also expensive repairs and upgrades which have not been made for the coal slurry pipeline used to transport the coal from the Black Mesa Mine in northern Arizona to the power plant in Laughlin, Nevada.

Over the last six years since the consent decree was signed the power plant has spewed 240,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, 120,000 tons of nitrogen oxide and 60,000 tons of particulate matter into the region’s air, putting the respiratory health of area residents at risk and obscuring visibility at Grand Canyon National Park.

“As of the New Year, Mohave Valley residents and Grand Canyon visitors can breathe easier because Mohave’s owners chose to shut down their old polluting plant,” said Rob Smith, Southwestern representative for the Sierra Club.

“The owners’ decision to shut down Mohave offers an unprecedented opportunity to begin the much needed shift from older and dirtier forms of energy to the next generation of cleaner energy. We encourage them to develop new partnerships with Navajo and Hopi people to create renewable energy options for the future and to replace revenues that the tribes will lose with Mohave’s closure,” said Bill Hedden, Executive Director of Grand Canyon Trust.

“Pollution from the Mohave plant fouls some of the most scenic vistas on the planet,” said Mark Wenzler, Clean Air Program Director at the National Parks Conservation Association.  “The plant’s closure will help restore the Grand Canyon to clean, clear air that is of paramount importance to the park’s nearly five million visitors a year from around the world.”

What the owners say about the reasons for the shutdown of the Mohave plant:

“Due to lack of progress in negotiations with the Tribes and other parties to resolve several coal and water supply issues, SCE’s application stated that SCE would probably be unable to extend Mohave’s operation beyond 2005… The outcome of this matter is not expected to have any material impact on earnings.”
                                                    Source: Southern CaliforniaEdison 2004 Annual Report

“The Mohave Participants have refused to commit to install pollution abatement equipment without reasonable assurance that water will be available to enable delivery of coal to the plant. Consequently the plant will cease operations at the end of 2005 for some extended period of time.
                                                    Source: Salt River Project 2005 Annual Report

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