Power plant to install scrubbers, cut pollution clouding canyon

Scott Thomsen

Thursday, Oct. 7, 1999 | 10:08 a.m.

PHOENIX - A coal-burning power plant often blamed by environmentalists for clouding Grand Canyon views now may become one of the cleanest in the Southwest.

Owners of the Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nev., agreed to install pollution controls, including smokestack scrubbers, a filter system and new burners for the plant's boilers to settle a lawsuit brought by the Grand Canyon Trust and the Sierra Club.

"This is going to be one of the largest cleanups of one of the old coal-powered plants in the West," said Rick Moore, air quality program officer for the Grand Canyon Trust. "This plant regularly belches enormous plumes of soot and smoke."

The improvements announced Wednesday are designed to cut sulfur dioxide emissions by at least 85 percent and to reduce nitrogen oxides and soot. The project could cost $300 million and is to be finished by April 1, 2006.

Bob Wyman, an attorney for the owners, said the plant has stayed within federal emissions guidelines but that settling the lawsuit makes it easier to continue operations in an increasingly competitive energy market.

While the cost of the improvements is bound to be passed along to customers, the plant will be able to cut some operational costs by increasing its efficiency, said John Fielder, an attorney for Southern California Edison, the plant's operator.

Mohave, located 75 miles from the Grand Canyon, is the last large power plant operating in the Southwest without equipment to control sulfur pollution.

Environmental groups contend the 28-year-old plant routinely exceeded federal emissions standards for sulfur dioxide, a clear emission that combines with other atmospheric chemicals to cloud the sky.

In 1998, the Grand Canyon Trust and the Sierra Club filed a federal lawsuit trying to force a cleanup. The environmental groups and the plant's owners submitted a consent decree to the U.S. District Court in Las Vegas on Wednesday to resolve the suit. A judge now has 45 days to review the agreement in deciding whether to accept it.

The plant is owned by Southern California Edison, the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power, the Nevada Power Co. and the Salt River Project in Phoenix. It produces 1,580 megawatts of energy each year - enough to serve up to 1.5 million households in California, Arizona and Nevada.

It also produces a lot of pollution. The 6 million tons of coal it burns each year releases about 40,000 tons of haze-creating sulfur dioxide, 10,000 tons of soot and 20,000 tons of nitrogen oxide, the pollution that stains the air over many large cities brown.

The smoke stack scrubbers, which trap the sulfur dioxide, are expected to cut emissions to about 6,000 tons per year.

That is the equivalent of removing the exhaust of 6 million cars, said Rob Smith of the Sierra Club. "This plant will go from one of the dirtiest to one of the cleanest in the Southwest."

Additionally, the new, more efficient burners are expected to reduce the amount of nitrogen oxides.

"You've gone from a filthy rich company to a clean rich company and we appreciate that," Jack Ehrhardt, a Mohave Valley resident who helped bring the lawsuit, told the owners during a news conference Wednesday.

The Mohave project follows recently completed improvements completed at another coal-burning plant affecting the Grand Canyon. A scrubbing system now is operating at the Navajo Generating Station near Page as part of a $420 million upgrade.

Moore said it is difficult to say how much the cleanups will improve visibility at the Grand Canyon because weather conditions and many other pollution sources, including cars in Los Angeles and Phoenix, affect the amount of haze. However, the air will be noticeably clearer overall, he said.