Friday, December 9, 2011

EPA head says ruling on Ariz. coal plant complex

EPA head says ruling on Ariz. coal plant complex

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) â€" The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency expects to make a preference on either to charge pollution controls for a coal-fired power plant on a Navajo reservation subsequent spring.

But with so many competing interests, informal director Jared Blumenfeld in a EPA's San Francisco bureau admits a group won't prove them all, and a differences expected will have to be ironed out in court.

"To contend it's formidable would be an understatement," he told The Associated Press in an talk Thursday.

The Navajo Generating Station nearby Page ensures H2O and appetite final are met in vital civil areas and contributes significantly to a economies of a Navajo and Hopi tribes. Conservationists see it as a health and environmental hazard.

Blumenfeld pronounced a EPA eventually contingency confirm what record would best strengthen a atmosphere around a Grand Canyon and other primitive areas as partial of a informal mist rule. Whether that means low nitrogen oxide burners already commissioned during a plant, some-more costly scrubbers or something else won't be disclosed until subsequent year. The plant's owners would have 5 years to approve once a final order is issued.

"It is expected we will be scrutinized, so we are sticklers for following a rules," he said.

The Navajo Generating Station is only one of 3 coal-fired power plants in a segment that directly or indirectly affects a Navajo Nation. The EPA already has due wickedness controls for a Four Corners Power Plant and a San Juan Generating Station in northwestern New Mexico, that are in transparent perspective of one another. The latter is overseen by another EPA region.

The Department of Interior is conducting a investigate with a breeze due out this month on a 2,250-megawatt Navajo Generating Station that will uncover only how immeasurable a interests are in a plant that began producing electricity in 1974. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is a infancy owners of a plant. It is run by a Salt River Project and fed by spark from Peabody Energy's Kayenta Mine.

The informal mist order allows a EPA to demeanour during factors other than atmosphere peculiarity and cost efficacy in last regulations for appetite plants. Navajo Generating Station provides appetite to broach H2O from a Colorado River to Tucson and Phoenix by a array of canals and fulfills H2O rights settlements reached with American Indian tribes.

Blumenfeld pronounced a group needs specific information on what tribes, like a Gila River Indian Community, would design to compensate for H2O if that appetite no longer was available, or a total from a Navajo and Hopi tribes on income waste should a appetite plant stop operation. SRP has pronounced it could be forced to shiver a plant if it doesn't secure franchise agreements or it can't means some-more a costly wickedness controls.

"Until we have a minute information about what those impacts are, we can't do really most with that," Blumenfeld said.

His bureau also has been criticized by some Republican members of Congress for what they contend are nonessential regulations that are spiteful internal economies. Blumenfeld pronounced while critics trust states can take over a EPA's duties, his group ensures coherence opposite a board.

"Ultimately it's an instance of common-sense standards of assisting a American open have a healthy life," he said. "We commend that we also need energy, though we consider they are not in conflict."


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