By Cornelia de Bruin The Daily Times
Article Launched: 08/17/2008 12:00:00 AM MDT

FARMINGTON — If — or when — the 1,500 megawatt Desert Rock Power Plant planned near Burnham on the Navajo Nation comes online, its emissions will add significantly to the pollution wafting over the Four Corners region, contends Mary Uhl, director of the New Mexico Environment Department's Air Quality Division.

"The nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide emissions from Desert Rock, while less than emissions from San Juan Generating Station and Four Corners Power Plant, are still substantial and are being added to an airshed that is on the brink of not attaining the federal ozone standard," Uhl said.

Added Lauren Ketcham, of Environment New Mexico, a sister organization to New Mexico Public Interest Research Group, "... The Desert Rock plant would increase New Mexico's global warming emissions by 15 percent." She credited New Mexico Environment Department with providing the figures to her.

That's in a county already listed as the "sixth-most carbon dioxide polluting county in the entire country," Ketcham said.

The plant's effects won't be known completely until it begins its operations, burning pulverized coal to supply power to growing areas in Arizona and Nevada, but Sithe Global claims the "clean coal" plant actually will improve air quality here and will be the cleanest coal-fired plant ever built on U.S. soil.

Sithe Global LLC is paying for construction of Desert Rock, which owners hope will be operational by 2012. The Navajo Nation created Diné Power Authority to operate the plant after it's built and brought online. Construction is expected to start by mid-2009, although legal challenges loom in the fight against a third coal-fired plant in San Juan County.

"Despite the continued claims from Sithe that the proposed Desert Rock power plant would improve air conditions in the Four Corners region, the simple facts are that Desert Rock would be a huge new source of carbon dioxide, would add mercury to our waterways, would contribute to more ozone, would create more regional haze, and result in decreased visibility in association with existing air pollution sources," said Mike Eisenfeld, New Mexico staff organizer for the environmental advocacy group San Juan Citizens Alliance. "The Four Corners region cannot afford the public health costs to our communities with further degradation of our airshed due to an ill-advised proposed third coal-fired power plant in a 25-mile radius."

Desert Rock's stance
The Washington, D.C.-based law firm Bracewell and Giuliani represents Sithe Global in its Desert Rock-related legal battles. Spokesman Frank Maisano continually touts the plant's "advanced" technology that makes it "the cleanest coal plant in the United States with the most strict air permit ever."

Maisano said requirements, in addition to those in its permit, "will reduce mercury by 90 percent and lower overall regional haze emissions by 10 percent" despite being a third power plant to operate in a small area. That's because of Sithe Global's plan to reduce emissions from other projects in the region.

"In addition, we reduce global warming emissions by 20 percent because of our efficient operation and reduce water use by 85 percent due to new air cooling technologies," Maisano said.

Sithe Global LLC provided only the permitted amounts of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide the large plant will be allowed to emit: 2,100 tons per year of nitrogen oxide and 3,300 tons per year of sulfur dioxide.

The permit issued by the EPA on July 31 allows Desert Rock to emit up to 3,325 tons of nitrogen oxide and 3,319 tons of sulfur dioxide per year. Those numbers are far less than current emissions at San Juan Generating Station and Four Corners Power Plant (see related box).

The plant, which received an EPA air permit late last month, would add 1,000 jobs during construction and 400 permanent jobs when operational, Desert Rock officials claim. It also would generate $50 million in annual tax revenue.

Desert Rock's emissions also include "approximately 12 million tons of carbon dioxide," said Uhl of the state's Environmental Department.

The amount of carbon dioxide is "not much less than San Juan Generating Station and Four Corners Power Plant," but will add to San Juan County's air — the airshed to which Uhl referred.

A carbon concern
The added carbon dioxide is significant because San Juan County's air continually flirts with non-attainment of EPA's new maximum permitted ozone, or smog, levels.

The EPA adopted the new standard of 0.75 parts per billion of ozone to air, lowering it from 0.80 ppb of ozone.

The change did not come without protest, however.

The EPA's scientific advisors recommended the standard be dropped from 0.80 ppb to 0.60 ppb.

New Mexico Environment Department Secretary Ron Curry also took issue with a change he termed placed a higher value on politics than on people's health.

"Bowing to industry pressure and going with a higher 0.75 ppb standard will potentially mean thousands more heart attacks, hospital visits and asthma attacks for Americans annually — especially for children," Curry said. "New Mexico will continue to fight for more sensible standards to keep our air clean from ozone, from automobile pollution and from the Asarco smelter recently approved near the New Mexico border in Texas."

Curry called the nation's Clean Air Act the "Most effective tool in place to protect the air from pollution."

"It doesn't need to be modernized to allow for inappropriate industry pressure. It needs to be allowed to do its job with the best scientific knowledge available," he said.

Ozone in the Four Corners region is of particular concern to New Mexico's Environment Department because of the number of times air here has come close to non-attainment of EPA's National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) — 0.08 parts per million — for the pollutant.

San Juan County "has been as close as within 5 percent of the (standard) in the last five years," information from the department states. "While NMED (New Mexico Environment Department) has monitored a decrease in 8-hour ozone design values in San Juan County during the past seven years, the concentrations remain close to the eight-hour NAAQS and may be considered high for a rural area with low population density."

Plant upgrades, technology helping owners of the two existing coal-burning plants visible to the west of Farmington aren't blind to the need for improvements.

PNM's San Juan Generating Station in Waterflow began a $320 million upgrade project in 2006 that will be completed by the spring of 2009. Two of the plant's four units are completed, according to PNM's Susan Sponar.

The upgrades will improve the plant's environmental performance and its efficiency in serving customers. Upgrades include work on San Juan Generating Station's boiler parts, turbines and controls, Sponar said.

Environment upgrades include:

# Installation of nitrogen oxide burners and overfire air to reduce the amount of the pollutant created.

# Injection of a new additive to limestone slurry spray to increase the ability of scrubbers to remove sulfur dioxide.

# Use of bag houses that act like giant vacuum cleaners to collect more than 99 percent of fly ash and other particulates created by burning coal.

# Installation of activated carbon injection systems. Mercury adheres to the injected carbon and is removed from the plant's flue ash by the bag houses.

Bag houses, however, do not reduce carbon emissions, Sponar said.

Steven Gotfried, spokesman for Arizona Public Service, the owner of Four Corners Power Plant, said improvements are being made on the five-unit plant. The Four Corners plant is located in Upper Fruitland.

They include the addition of sulfur dioxide scrubbers and particulate capture devices to three of the five units, and baghouses — also used to capture particulates — to the remaining two units.

"We also have NOx (nitrogen oxide) burners on all five units," Gotfried said. "We still have CO2 issues, but we are working on an algae project that creates oxygen."

Put simply, the project uses blue green algae that ingest carbon dioxide and convert the algae to biodiesel and ethanol. The function of algae in nature is to ingest carbon dioxide and convert it to oxygen.

State of New Mexico Gov. Richardson last year directed state Environment Director Curry to testify to Congress about his administration's efforts to reduce greenhouse gas pollution — specifically pollution from coal-fired power plants.

"Greenhouse gas emissions are just as detrimental to the environment and public health as the standard EPA regulated pollutants from power plants," Curry testified. "Those pollutants are sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxides and particulate matter."

Curry's statement instructed the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform about Richardson's implementation in 2005 of greenhouse gas reporting regulations within New Mexico.

Cornelia de Bruin: cdebruin@daily-times.com