April 4, 2008
By Chuck Slothower | Herald Staff Writer

Two environmental groups have filed a lawsuit against the Bureau of Indian Affairs over the agency's refusal to release documents related to the controversial Desert Rock power plant.

San Juan Citizens Alliance, a Durango-based environmental organization, and the Navajo group Diné Citizens Against Ruining our Environment, or Diné CARE, say they have been stymied in their attempts to learn more about how a key document was created.

The groups filed suit Wednesday in U.S. District Court for New Mexico. The U.S. Department of Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs and BIA Navajo Regional Director Omar Bradley were named as defendants.

The groups seek BIA records related to the development of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS. The statement is a lengthy document detailing the possible effects of the power plant on nearby air, water, soil and animal species.

After months of work, the Draft EIS was released in May 2007.

The plaintiffs say the BIA denied access to documents it requested relating to URS Corp., a San Francisco company, and its work on the Draft EIS.

"We are very concerned about the corruption of the BIA's public approval process for Desert Rock," said Mike Eisenfeld, San Juan Citizens Alliance's New Mexico staff organizer.

"URS Corporation wrote the Draft EIS for the BIA, but now the agency says that URS works for Sithe," Eisenfeld added. "The public has a right to know how the agency, Sithe and URS have interacted in planning the proposed power plant."

Sithe Global Power, a New York-based company, and Diné Power Authority, a Navajo company, propose to build Desert Rock on Navajo land about 30 miles southwest of Farmington.

Desert Rock, a $3 billion project, would produce 1,500 megawatts of electricity. Navajo Nation officials have strongly backed the project, saying it would provide much-needed economic development on the impoverished reservation. But environmentalists have raised concerns about the possible environmental effects of the coal-fired plant.

A BIA official did not return a message requesting comment Thursday. But Frank Maisano, spokesman for the project, called the lawsuit a "delaying tactic."

"These are old charges, and we've heard these same things many times before," Maisano said. "The reality is we've had more than 450 public meetings about this project. There's nothing new here. This is just another delaying tactic, and the real sad thing is this only hurts the Navajo people."

The plaintiffs said they had filed three Freedom of Information Act requests that the BIA denied. Their lawsuit requests communications between URS, the BIA and Sithe, and full release of water and land agreements between the Navajo Nation and Sithe.

"We are highly concerned that the tribal government may be planning to use its water rights in the San Juan River basin to feed Desert Rock," said Dailan Long, a Diné CARE activist.

Brad Bartlett, an attorney for the Energy Minerals Law Center in Durango, representing the plaintiffs, said "the BIA's refusal to let the public know what it is doing through access to its records is unacceptable."

The purpose of the Freedom of Information Act, Bartlett added, "is to foster public disclosure of government actions and is designed to pierce the veil of administrative secrecy and to open agency action to the light of public scrutiny."