EPA Gives Coal Plant a Pass

Update:  You can view the proposed rule here, and send comments by 14 May to
Webb.Thomas@epa.gov. You should indicate your support for the more effective "selective catalytic reduction" technology, which would help keep poisons out of the nearby community of Moapa and improve visibility in our wildlands.
The Reid Gardner coal power plant casts a shadow over the Moapa Band of Paiutes, along the Muddy River in the eastern Mojave Desert.  On an annual basis, the coal plant spews three million tons of CO2,  nearly four thousand pounds of nitrogen oxides and, 71 pounds of mercury (a miniscule fraction of which is considered deadly).  Reid Gardner is a dangerous neighbor to this small community northeast of Las Vegas.  The tribe is fighting vigorously to put an end to this toxic industry, but the EPA recently proposed a rule that would permit the plant to continue operating with only marginal reductions in pollutants.  According to the EPA ruling, the costs of the most effective emission controls would not be "justified," passing up an opportunity to use the best available technology to protect our community and environment.

The EPA's proposed rule is primarily focused on controlling the "haze," or visual impacts, of the coal plant's toxic cocktail, and so the EPA determined that weaker and less effective emission controls -- despite being three times less effective at reducing haze than the best available technology -- would be enough to be in compliance with EPA regulations.  According to the EPA proposal, the "cost of compliance" was the primary basis for the decision.  The EPA's preferred technology would reduce nitrogen oxides (NOx) at a rate of approximately $1,100 per ton, whereas a more effective technology was assessed at $3,600 per ton.  No matter how much each ton of NOx costs to remove, it is still equally harmful to our health.  Our health is apparently worth no more than $1,100 per ton of visual and toxic blight.

The Reid Gardner Coal Plant in Nevada.
Our Environmental Protection Agency should be protecting our communities and our natural resources, and not allowing one of the oldest coal power plants to poison a Native American community and pollute our air

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Many Plants Species in the Desert?

Would you expect that California's desert hosts gives the redwood forest a run for its money when it comes to plant biodiversity?  It's easy to take the desert for granted when all you want to do is zoom through it on the highway and get to your destination. But you are passing by an amazing and biologically diverse ecosystem.  There are at least 2,450 native plant species found in California's desert, according to a great article by Chris Clarke on desert life , posted at KCET. If you want to learn more about our amazing deserts, join Desert Biodiversity, a new organization dedicated to exploring, respecting and defending the deserts.
Read more

Mowing Vegetation as Mitigation: Trump Administration Practice Goes Unchallenged

Image
The Trump administration is again touting the practice of mowing thousands of acres of desert vegetation as environmentally-responsible, despite a preponderance of evidence to the contrary.  The draft environmental review of the Yellow Pine Solar project in southern Nevada claims that vegetation mowing - as opposed to bulldozing - will yield positive outcomes that are highly doubtful.   This positive framing of the construction practice misleads the public and decisionmakers and ignores decades of scientific research regarding the impacts of mechanized disturbance on desert wildlands.  According to the draft environmental review: "Mowing is becoming the standard on large site-type ROWs to prevent permanent impairment of public lands (as mandated by FLPMA) and in lieu of off-site mitigation... Mowing methods are designed to help preserve soils, biological soil crusts, soil seed banks, native perennial vegetation diversity and structure, and cacti and yucca species, and to resist
Read more

The Absurdity of the Cadiz Water Export Scheme

Image
The Department of Interior this month reversed a policy to make it easier for the Cadiz company to pump billions of gallons of water from an ancient Mojave Desert aquifer - killing off natural springs that wildlife depend upon - to ship that water to the lush landscaping of Orange County.   Cadiz still has other hurdles in its way, but the company's tenacity and willingness to line the pockets of politicians could spell doom for Mojave wildlife. Cadiz Calls it Conservation The Cadiz company has a contract to export nearly 16.3 billion gallons (yes, that is billion with a 'b') a year for 50 years from the Mojave to the Santa Margarita Water District ( SMWD ) in Orange County.  The Cadiz company claims that it will only pump water that would otherwise evaporate from a dry lake bed and that the aquifer will naturally recharge from rainfall, leaving no significant impacts on wildlife or groundwater levels.  According to Cadiz propaganda, this isn't a water export sche
Read more