Power Struggles: The Desert Rock Power Plant
"Woman in Gas Mask" (courtesy: small axe organization)
The debate over the Desert Rock Power Plant may seem like a Four Corners fight, but it is really a lot bigger than that. The addition of a third power plant within a 30-mile radius may have economic impacts on our state for years to come. The argument for and against the plant are pretty simple. On the one hand, the project will create hundreds of jobs and bring millions of dollars in tax revenues to the Navajo Nation each year. But, opponents say it is the Navajo people themselves that might be left to pay hefty environmental and health issues created by the additional CO2, mercury and other emissions created by the plant. There's no easy solution, and I have a feeling it will be years before the whole issue gets resolved.
Up next in the fight is the BIA's final decision on an Environmental Impact Statement. In addition, there is the appeal of the EPA's air quality ruling to deal with. Needless to say, the battle is just beginning.
You can read much more about the plan, and especially the ongoing movement to squash the project on the desert rock blog or on the San Juan Alliance website. You can also read up on a study commissioned by opponents of the plant that looks at how renewable energy projects could be incorporated on tribal land, instead of continuing with the idea of a coal-fired plant.
We want to thank filmmaker Tony Estrada for all his hard work on the documentary that we aired to help explain the scope of the project a little better. Tony also had a lot of help on the project, as you can see below.
Segment Provided By
Independent Filmmaker Tony Estrada, Wild Horse Films
From footage from his Work-in-Progress Documentary
THE LAND WHERE EAGLES FLY
Director/Producer TONY ESTRADA, WILD HORSE FILMS
Camerawork Done By ANTONIO ACOSTA
DAVID CORTEZ
TONY ESTRADA
DAVID FLOETER
SOPHIE ROUSMANIERE
Editor PATRICK WILLINK
Graphics & Titles PATRICK WILLINK
Post Production Sound BRAD STODDARD
& Editing Magician
Additional Post DAVID CORTEZ
Production Services BRANDON JOHNSON
SOPHIE ROUSMANIERE
Poster Design BRANDON JOHNSON
Still Photographs By CHRIS CANDELARIO
DAILAN LONG
LISA MEERTS
Flute Music ADRIAN WALL
Special Thanks MARNI SAMUELS
We want to know what you think about the Desert Rock project. Either leave us a comment, or email the show at infocus@knme.org. We'll try to read a few of your comments in an upcoming show. On the topic of audience participation, don't forget to vote in this week's online poll, which looks at how confident you are in our state's election system.
And, don't forget to keep track of our citizen journalists. They are hard at work bringing their own opinions and perspectives on this historic election. Just click on the By the People, For the People channel to read their blog, and watch their videos!
The Public Affairs Team
posted by Kevin McDonald at
12:22 PM
1 Comments:
Steve Cone
Comment 17 July 2007 Farmington Civic Center, New Mexico
Public Hearing, Desert Rock Energy Project -- Draft Environmental Impact Statement
THE SIX QUESTIONS CONSIDERED IN FORMULATING THE DRAFT EIS FOR:
DESERT ROCK ENERGY PROJECT
QUESTION #1: IS THERE A VALID PURPOSE AND NEED FOR THE PROJECT?
Of course there is NO valid purpose or legitimate need for the Desert Rock Energy Project. The need for the project has been invented to justify construction of the Project. The apparent purpose of the Project is to generate maximum profit by offering a glut of power to make-believe customers to fuel rampant, unrestrained development in remote markets. “But just trust us,” says Sithe Global, LLC, somewhere, sometime, someone will purchase Desert Rock power to sell to restless consumers with a craving for more of all those gadgets no respectable American should live without: the electric knife, the 55-inch plasma TV, the weed whacker, and the electric lint remover. The real purpose of the project is to create an artificial demand for more electricity and still more projects, as growth is unleashed to feed on itself unabated, always begetting more growth. So, the real purpose of the project is to kill for profit; some must be murdered so others can bask in a bottomless pool of obscene wealth.
QUESTION #2: HAVE A REASONABLE RANGE OF ALTERNATIVES BEEN CONSIDERED?
Sadly, no! A reasonable range of alternatives has NOT been considered. The Environmental Impact Statement for Desert Rock is woefully inadequate because the No Action Alternative has not been rigorously explored or objectively evaluated. The public has been deprived of an opportunity to fully consider the impacts of the proposed Project because the No Action Alternative has been mischaracterized and misunderstood. The National
Environmental Policy Act [“NEPA”] specifically requires that the examination of a proposed action must include a thorough analysis of a No Action Alternative, and that the No Action Alternative then be raised as the standard against which all other alternatives are weighed. Satisfactory analysis of a No Action Alternative provides a reliable benchmark, enabling the public and decisionmakers to compare the magnitude of environmental effects of the various alternatives.
The Executive Summary on page ES-7 of the DEIS notes that if No Action is taken to construct and operate the Desert Rock Energy Project, air quality in the Project Area “would remain unchanged”. But in assessing adverse environmental impacts of Desert Rock, the DEIS presumes a substantial reduction of toxic emissions from the existing Four Corners and San Juan power plants. These emissions reductions have not actually occurred yet.
Sithe, nonetheless, claims credits and offsets associated with some future, scaled-down operation of these two plants. The fact is that air quality would improve dramatically in the Four Corners if the “No Action Alternative” was adopted, and the Desert Rock Energy Project was not constructed. If the Proposed Project were not constructed as planned, and the additional thousands of acres of the Navajo Mine were not developed, the incidence of cardiopulmonary disease would drop dramatically and lives would be saved.
QUESTION #3: IS THE PROPOSED PROJECT CONSISTENT WITH APPLICABLE EXISTING REGULATIONS
AND PLANS?
Surprise! Surprise!! The system is rigged! Land managers at the Department of the Interior are expected to maintain the façade of serving the interest of the public in the preparation of Environmental Impact Statements and by conducting public hearings. But the fundamental purpose of this NEPA process and this Draft EIS is to understate the damage to be done by Desert Rock and arrive at a finding of “NO Significant Impact”. Those who wield power --the Government (both United States & Navajo Nation) in collusion with private corporations (Sithe Global, BHP, Blackstone, and URSCorp), are literally using the law to get away with murder. Industry stooges, politicians, and bureaucrats cooperate as partners in the business of murdering communities and murdering the Earth.
- It is not uncommon for Federal agencies to fire, threaten to fire, harass, or strong arm biologists who find that activities such as the construction of a power plant would harm Federally listed, legally protected species.
- It is not uncommon for Federal agencies to fire, threaten to fire, harass, or strong arm cultural specialists who report that proposed activities would destroy archaeological sites or sites sacred to Native Americans.
- It is not uncommon for Federal agencies to fire, threaten to fire, harass, or strongarm hydrologists who disclose that a planned project would damage aquifers, streams, or rivers.
- It is not uncommon for Federal agencies to fire, threaten to fire, harass, or strong arm toxicologists who reveal that project operations would result in the poisoning of the people and their landbase.
Naïve as we all sometimes can be, it may come as some surprise at first that an Environmental Impact Statement is not, in fact, a document designed to help people make informed decisions about anything, but instead attempts to justify decisions made long before, to satisfy backroom deals cut between politicians and their corporate backers. It is ridiculous to pretend this Draft EIS is important as a decision-making document. The die has
already been cast, and the system is rigged from top to bottom.
QUESTION #4: WILL THE PROPOSED PROJECT CAUSE ADVERSE EFFECTS ON THE HUMAN AND
NATURAL ENVIRONMENT?
Of course it will! The Proposed Project is an exercise in predatory capitalism, rooted in human misery and environmental degradation. The drilling of twenty water wells to supply the Project will result in a deterioration of water quality and a reduction in the diversity and density of wildlife habitat and groundwater dependent vegetation in the upper reaches of the Chaco River.
Sithe Global is a profit extraction corporation which treats the human and natural environments as resources to be exploited, converted into capital, and destroyed. As a profit extraction corporation Sithe Global, LLC is devoted to an ideology of greed and endless economic growth without the slightest concern for the public good or the natural environment.
The treatment of cumulative impacts in the Draft EIS is haphazard and self-serving, failing as it does to consider all past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions. Existing impacts of current mining activities, power transmission, and the operation of two existing coal fired plants, as well as the cumulative impacts of nearly 30,000 approved oil and gas wells are conveniently swept under the rug as the San Juan Basin is further relegated to a permanent status of National Sacrifice Area.
QUESTION #5: IS MITIGATION EFFECTIVE IN MINIMIZING IMPACTS?
Of course NOT! Mitigation is a myth designed by the Government and Sithe to buy people’s trust and approval. As the corporation funnels profits from the rape of the earth and the annihilation of life, the public is supposed to feel satisfied and secure in the knowledge that everything possible is being done to compensate for this murder and mayhem. Shouldn’t we be eager, shouldn’t we be proud to provide corporate incentives and Payment in Lieu
of Taxes perks to reward the nameless, faceless folks who profit handsomely by poisoning our precious air and water and sickening our children?
Disproportionate impacts of the Project to the indigenous population are unconscionable, as these people already bear the brunt of pollution form two other existing power plants. The Project promoters’ disdain for environmental justice demonstrates a penchant for colonialism and an utter disregard for public health.
There is no way to mitigate for the spewed filth that will impede vision and impact visual resources. You cannot put a price tag on the misery of those forced to suffer from crippling asthma or chronic emphysema. But for Project proponents, all those respiratory ailments and lung cancer deaths to come are simply corporate “externalities” – collateral damage that cannot and will not be mitigated.
And so, the NEPA process is law the government uses to mitigate murder by the project promoters. Throw a handful of cash at a school district to buy its assent. Sidestep the ESA and strong arm the F&WS to produce a “No Jeopardy” opinion allowing for further contamination of the river and the extirpation of two federally listed aquatic species.
A recent ruling in a California U.S. District Court in the case Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) v. DOI (Kempthorne) cited the Bureau of Reclamation’s failure to consider the best available science with respect to the potential effects of climate change on endangered species. The impact of global warming on the San Juan Basin’s hydrologic future is significant, and climate change associated with power plant emissions may well
interfere with the Fish & Wildlife Service’s obligations under the endangered Species Act to recover federally listed aquatic species in the San Juan River.
QUESTION #6: HAS THE PUBLIC BEEN INFORMED ABOUT THE PROPOSED PROJECT?
NO, of course not! A massive, private,multinational corporation, URS Corp., has been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by a massive, private, multinational corporation, Sithe Global Power LLC, owned by a massive, private, multinational corporation, The Blackstone Group, to write a public document, the EIS, for a public agency, the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In the process the NEPA has beensubverted, and the public’s mind has been poisoned with propaganda purporting the unrivaled cleanliness and state-of-the-art efficiency of the Desert Rock Energy Project.
Frank Maisano of Rudy Guiliani’s law firm, is the media/public relations specialist hired to create a smokescreen, defuse the justifiable public outrage, twist the truth, and put the people back to sleep. These poor, confused locals must simply be made to understand that emissions from a third massive power plant in the National Sacrifice Area they call home “will be”, in Maisano’s words, “negligible” and won’t pollute the air, sicken or kill
them.
The “Scoping Report” referred to on page E-20 of the Executive Summary as “a detailed report of comments and issues heard from the public”, actually fails to address many of the public’s most pressing, legitimate concerns such as accurate air quality monitoring and valid health studies. Critical issues raised in the scoping process have been totally ignored in the Draft EIS, and all those who submitted scoping comments early-on in this
process should resubmit them for inclusion in the Environmental Impact Statement.
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