Dennis Wagner and Ryan Randazzo
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 28, 2008 12:00 AM

Hundreds of windmills reaching nearly 400 feet into the sky could begin sprouting on the Navajo Reservation north of Flagstaff under a new agreement to harness wind energy for electrical use.

The Navajo Nation announced Thursday that it will partner with a Boston company to capitalize on the blustery conditions prevailing on the high mesas of northern Arizona. The Diné Wind Project, which would be the first commercial wind farm in the state, calls for Citizens Energy Corp. to invest millions of dollars to build the energy-collecting towers.

The enterprise was sealed this month by Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr., other key tribal officials and Citizens Energy Chairman Joseph P. Kennedy II, a former congressman and son of the late U.S.

Sen. Robert Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy. The agreement comes after nearly two years of pre-development work and marks another step in the Navajo Nation's move to exploit renewable-power sources for so-called clean energy. advertisement

In a news release Thursday, Shirley said the wind-gathering effort will "bring prosperity for the Navajo people and build our energy independence while providing jobs and other benefits for the Navajo Nation."

The operation is planned in the Gray Mountain area west of U.S. 89, about 50 miles north of Flagstaff. The tribe and its Diné Power Authority become partners in a joint enterprise known as Citizens Enterprise Corp., a subsidiary of Citizens Energy. Deswood Tome, a Navajo Nation spokesman, said the project is expected to generate 500 megawatts of electricity, enough to serve an estimated 100,000 households. As many as 300 turbine towers would be erected in several locations between Flagstaff and Tuba City, with first-phase completion in about three years.

The development would be among the largest wind-power installations in the country, said Bob Gough, secretary of the Intertribal Council on Utility Policy in Rosebud, S.D. The largest is near Abilene, Texas, which produces 736 megawatts. A cluster of separate wind farms near Palm Springs, Calif., contains thousands of turbines.

Gough said the Navajo Nation has some of the stiffest winds for turbines in Arizona, adding, "They've instrumented the Gray Mountain area, and on maps it probably shows the best resource in Arizona. That area also is the site of transmission lines coming out of the Four Corners region."

Environmental issues

Citizens Energy has been involved in renewable-electricity development for three decades, according to the company's Web site, and began working on wind projects in 2003, including other joint ventures with tribes in the United States and Canada. The Diné Wind Project would be the nation's largest Native American wind project.Roger Freeman, managing director of the wind project for Citizens Energy, said via e-mail that the wind towers would be 260 feet tall, with blades reaching an additional 135 feet above ground. Freeman emphasized that the company is committed to developing energy "in an environmentally responsible manner, including consideration for cultural impacts and respect for tribal sacred sites."

Tome said he is not aware of opposition to the development plan.

Citizens' Web site says company and Navajo leaders have worked to involve local tribal members in planning efforts.

Andy Bessler, a Sierra Club Southwest representative, said his group has not taken a formal position on the wind-farm project but welcomes Navajo efforts to exploit a renewable-power source that won't add to global warming.

"I think there will be 'viewshed' issues," Bessler said, noting that windmill orchards are perceived as eyesores by some. "But the local community members are very supportive."

Don Steuter, another Sierra Club representative, said studies must be done to determine whether the project threatens wildlife, including endangered California condors that patrol the Grand Canyon area.

Steuter said wind farms have posed a threat to birds of prey. Still, environmentalists encourage clean-energy efforts, Steuter said. "We have been encouraging the tribe to move in that direction."

For 30 years, a mine at Black Mesa on the reservation was operated by Peabody Western Coal Co., piping coal slurry to the Mohave Generating Plant in Nevada for energy production. That mine closed in 2006 after Southern California Edison shut down the power plant rather than pay $1 billion for environmental work and other upgrades.

The Navajo Nation has not abandoned coal as an economic resource, however. The tribe is struggling to develop a new coal-fired power plant near Farmington, N.M.,which developers hope will sell energy to Phoenix or Las Vegas.

Potential buyers

Precise terms of the Citizens Enterprises compact were not divulged.

But a tribal news release says Navajos will have "a significant ownership stake" in developments, reaping $60 million to $100 million over the project's lifetime.

No cost estimate was released for development. Christine Real de Azua, a spokeswoman for the American Wind Energy Association, said expenses range from $1.5 million to $1.8 million per megawatt of wind power produced.

That would put the project's value at $750 million to $900 million, although rising steel prices could increase those figures, Real de Azua said.

Two utilities serving the Valley, Salt River Project and Arizona Public Service Co., would seem likely buyers because they already purchase wind power generated in New Mexico. But the Diné project was news to both on Thursday.

"They have not come to talk to us about it," APS spokesman Jim McDonald said, adding that the utility is seeking alternative electricity to meet a state requirement to supply more renewable energy.

"It would be ideal if it came in at a price that was competitive," McDonald added. SRP has a similar requirement. "If the Navajo Nation were to build a project of this size, we would consider looking into it," SRP spokesman Scott Harelson said.

March 28th, 2008
Navajo Nation struggles to build coal plant

Like leaders of several other developing nations, Joe Shirley, the president of the Navajos, wants to build coal-fired power generation as fast as possible.

Shirley has been fighting to build a 1,500 megawatt plant in Northwest New Mexico called Desert Rock with a company called Sithe Global, LLC. He says it and associated mining would provide up to 400 long-term jobs for his people and pay more than $50 million annually to the nation.

The jobs sound good to some of the nearly 200,000 citizens of the Navajo Nation spread across the desert of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. An opening for a janitorial job at a Navajo college, for example, recently drew about 200 applicants. Many Navajo young men must travel to construction jobs in other states hundreds of miles away.

“It’s all about putting food on the table, putting shoes on little feet,” Shirley told reporters about the plant recently at his office in Window Rock, the capital of the Navajo Nation.

Unfortunately for Shirley, his nation, unlike other coal-rich nations like China or India, must get permitting for the plant from the United States.

For years the U.S. Environmental Protection Administration has delayed granting the plant an air permit, saying it has not had enough time to review public comments on an environmental filing on the site.

As the permitting process drags on, the cost of the plant has risen — to about $3 to $4 billion, depending on the strategy it uses to bury emissions of greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, if at all.

And local opposition to Desert Rock has risen. Many Navajos who the plant would push out of their homes south of Farmington, New Mexico have fought it. They said the plant would send most of its power to rapidly-growing Arizona and Nevada while many Navajos would continue to go without power.

Opponents said the plant would add to air pollution from two other coal plants in the area, and while strip mining of the coal and unregulated dumping of coal ash would degrade the soil.

One Navajo opponent, Sarah White helped lead a two-week blockade of the earthen roads leading to the proposed site when Sithe dug water wells for Desert Rock. She vows to keep blocking development of the site.

Meanwhile, throughout the United States, opposition has grown to plants fired by coal, which emits more CO2 than any other fuel. Plans for coal plants from Texas to Florida have been canceled, while coastal states like California and New York are beginning to regulate greenhouse emissions.

Shirley feels entitled to tap his coal, especially because the countries like the United States got rich on the stuff.

But also because China is building several coal fired power plants — every month. He said if the United States is serious about slowing output of greenhouse emissions, it should stop “picking on the poor Navajo Nation quagmired in impoverishment in its backyard” and talk more with China. “Is it because (China) is a nuclear nation?” he asks about the lack of progress.

This week the Navajo Nation announced that it plans to build a 500 MW new wind farm, which adds a new twist for their quest for energy development.

What do you think? Should the U.S. speed up approval of Desert Rock?

By FELICIA FONSECA/Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - The Navajo Nation is setting itself up to be a provider of wind power at a time when neighboring states are pushing for increased renewable energy portfolios.

The tribe announced Thursday it has partnered with Boston-based Citizens Energy Corp. to develop wind energy on the vast reservation.

''When they flip the switch off for conventional power and flip the switch on for renewable, you want to be able to be there both places,'' said Steve Begay, general manager of the tribe's Dine Power Authority, or DPA. ''... It's being in the market all the time with base load fossil fuel power and renewable.''

The DPA, Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. and Citizens Energy chairman and president Joseph Kennedy III signed an agreement earlier this month to develop more than 500 megawatts of energy on the Navajo Nation.

Several sites on the reservation are being considered for the Dine Wind Project, including the Gray Mountain ridge southwest of Tuba City, Ariz., and Cameron, immediately west of Gray Mountain.

The first phase of up to 200 megawatts is expected to be complete by 2012, said Roger Freeman, managing director of wind projects for Citizens Energy.

In the past 18 months, the group has conducted wind assessments, environmental and transmission reviews, and met with several chapters over the potential for wind energy development, Freeman said.

But before any wind turbines can go up, the partners would need to complete an analysis on wind potential and secure financing for the project.

''We're looking at another year and a half to two years before we actually get under way with construction,'' said Deswood Tome, a spokesman for the Navajo Nation's Washington, D.C., office.

The tribe plans to send wind power to cities off the reservation through the yet-to-be-built Navajo Transmission Project, a 470-mile power line to that would stretch from Shiprock to Laughlin, Nev., Begay said.

Early estimates show the wind project could bring in between $60 million and $100 million in revenue for the Navajo Nation over the lifetime of the project, which Begay said could be 25 years.

''By working together with the Navajo Nation's Dine Power Authority and Citizens to harness the power of the wind we can bring economic prosperity for the Navajo people and build our energy independence while providing jobs and other benefits for the Navajo Nation,'' Shirley said.

Under the agreement, the Navajo Nation will have the opportunity to gain a majority ownership in the project, and Citizens Energy has agreed to reinvest a portion of the profits on the Navajo Nation.

Freeman said Citizens Energy is putting up all the necessary development capital so that the project is low risk for the DPA and the Navajo Nation.