Board gives approval to hydroelectric plant

Friday, April 6, 2001 | 10:49 a.m.

Absent an appeal, plans for a proposed hydroelectric plant in the mountains on the west side of the Las Vegas Valley can proceed.

The Clark County Planning Commission voted without dissent Thursday night to allow the project in the mountains south of the Red Rock National Conservation Area. Nobody spoke against the $320 million project.

A consortium led by a Utah-based company, Creamer and Nobel Engineers, plans to build a hydroelectric plant on 188 acres about 3 miles north of Blue Diamond Road. The plant would use two reservoirs, each more than 60 acres, to store electricity during low-usage times for recovery during peak demand.

The plant can produce about 400 megawatts for four hours of peak usage, enough to power about 200,000 homes during the summer months, said Terry Hickman, project manager for the consortium, Blue Diamond Power Partners. The proposed plant also can begin returning power to the grid in about 17 seconds, a significant advantage over older plants that can take hours or days to fire up.

The proposal, however, is likely to get another hearing. Jessica Hodge, a local organizer with the national Sierra Club, said her group would likely appeal the planning commission decision.

An appeal would automatically bump the issue up to the Clark County Commission's zoning board.

Hodge said members are concerned that the plant would use power inefficiently and would depend on coal-fired plants, which produce relatively high levels of pollution, for its source power.

"You're using dirty power to deal with some high summer demand," she said.

It would be better to simply build another natural gas electric plant to deal with the high energy demand during the summer months, Hodge said. Natural gas burns much more cleanly than similar-sized coal plants.

Hickman said the plant would not lead to increased pollution emissions.

"We're not causing somebody to build or fire up a plant," he said.

Hickman said the plant would use power from generating stations to produce power even when no one uses it -- power that otherwise will be wasted. He said the project has gone through a full environmental review on the federal and state levels.

"From an environmental standpoint, there are a lot more positives than negatives," Hickman said.

The proposed plant has gotten recommendations for approval from the Clark County planning staff and the Red Rock Citizens Advisory Council.

Another power plant on the planning commission agenda Thursday night, a gas-fired plant proposed for a mile north of Searchlight, was held. The planning commission should hear the zone change and use permit applications for that project on May 3.