A massive coal-fired power plant that has provided Southern California Edison with 7% of its electricity -- but emits vast quantities of air pollution that have clouded views of the Grand Canyon -- will close at year's end to comply with a court ordered deadline, the utility confirmed Thursday.
The Mohave Generating Station near Laughlin, Nev., was required to upgrade its pollution controls or close by Jan. 1 under a consent decree won in 1999 by environmental groups. The groups had alleged the plant repeatedly violated the Clean Air Act.
Edison said it had adequate sources of other power, so its 13 million customers would not immediately be affected.
The biggest losers may be the Hopi Tribe and Navajo Nation, which provided natural resources and labor at the coal mine which feeds the plant. The tribes may now be without a major source of jobs and royalty money.
The 1,580-megawatt Mohave plant, which also provides some electricity to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, releases an average of 19,000 tons of nitrogen oxide, 40,000 tons of sulfur dioxide and 2,000 tons of fine particles a year into the air above Laughlin. That plume of smog and soot pollution has contributed to the haze that has diminished visibility at the Grand Canyon.
The utility, which operates the plant and is its majority owner, had hoped to keep Mohave open because inexpensive coal power looked increasingly attractive as natural gas prices have risen.
But the utility did not secure an extension of the deadline to clean up or close and announced that the plant, which opened in 1971, would shut down by midnight Saturday.
In a filing Thursday with the California Public Utilities Commission, Edison said it planned to continue negotiations aimed at keeping the power plant open but expected to close it for at least a few months.
The cost of adding pollution controls to the power plant has been estimated at $1 billion. Edison told California regulators that it hoped to negotiate a deal to keep the plant running while it installs the controls, a process that is expected to take several years.
Environmentalists claimed in their lawsuit that the plant had violated the Clean Air Act more than 40,000 times during the 1990s, making it liable for up to $10 billion in fines. Even as it announced the closure of the facility, Edison continued to dispute those allegations Thursday, maintaining that the plant had complied with state and federal standards.
