Laughlin residents differ on effort to relax plant’s air quality standard

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Wednesday, June 20, 2001 | 10:55 a.m.

Although the town has few trappings of the Wild West, a showdown may well happen Thursday in Laughlin -- at 10:30, not high noon.

The town of 7,800, 100 miles southeast of Las Vegas, will be the site of a meeting to decide whether to lift the cap on emissions at the nearby Mohave Generating Station, Nevada's biggest coal-fired power plant.

Laughlin borders the Colorado River; Arizona is on the other side. There are people on both sides of the river who believe the plant has gotten away with similar requests too often during its 30-year history, including Laughlin Town Board member Debbie Dauenhauer and members of Arizona's Mohave County Board of Supervisors. They see the issue as one of stopping pollution.

But there are those, such as the Laughlin Chamber of Commerce, which give the request a thumbs-up and say that lifting the cap may be necessary in upcoming energy shortages.

"We're asking for this waiver (on emissions limits) for humanitarian reasons, not because we want to sell more energy," Mohave Community Affairs Representative Don Hendren said.

The Nevada Environmental Commission, an 11-member board under the umbrella of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources in Carson City, will travel 395 miles to hear both sides and make a decision.

The issue is how much opacity the plant should be allowed to add to the air. Opacity is the amount of light that is blocked by something, in this case particles spewed by the plant's smokestack. The more particles in the air the higher the percentage of opacity.

The particulates that contribute to opacity are not directly linked to health hazards, though more particulates usually mean more pollutants, such as sulfur dioxides, which are tied to respiratory problems.

Nevada's current regulations put a cap of 30 percent opacity on power plants. Mohave wants permission to go higher; it wants to operate a total of 22 hours over a 12-month period from the date on which the approval is granted. Currently the plant operates at 70 percent capacity to meet state emissions requirements.

Southern California Edison, which owns 56 percent of the plant, is asking the Environmental Commission for permission to exceed these requirements because it anticipates facing increased power needs.

This is the third such request made in the past year; similar ones having been granted from June 20, 2000, to Oct. 20 and from Dec. 21 to Feb. 15.

Nevada Power owns 14 percent of the plant, and Mohave supplies power to the towns of Laughlin and Searchlight, as well as about 200,000 homes in the Las Vegas area. Nevada Power and the California Independent System Operator, which manages the state's electric system, will have the power to invoke the waiver.

"During the summer months we might need power for hospitals, or air conditioners, or what have you, and these are health and safety considerations," Hendren said.

"This measure could save lives," he said.

But others don't see things the same way.

"Nevada gets 100 percent of the pollution and 14 percent of the benefits. It's always been like this. Who's going to keep making this deal?" said Dauenhauer, who was recently elected to her second term on Laughlin's five-member board -- the same Town Board that declined to write a letter of support for the plant April 30.

Dauenhauer and others draw attention to the plant's history, especially the absence of state-of-the-art emissions control technology during its three decades on line.

Rick Moore, program officer at the Arizona-based Grand Canyon Trust, has tried to re-write this part of the plant's history.

Together with the Sierra Club, the Grand Canyon Trust filed a federal lawsuit in 1998 seeking to force the plant to install technology to reduce sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, which contributes to opacity.

With this technology the plant could operate at full capacity and the first two pollutants could be reduced as much as 85 percent, Hendren said. Particulates could be reduced 100 percent.

The suit alleged that the Grand Canyon, only 75 miles away from the plant, was affected by these pollutants.

On Dec. 15, 1999, the plant signed a consent decree agreeing to put the technology in place by the end of 2005. If it fails to do so, the plant must shut down in January 2006.

As the decree was being worked out Virginia-based AES Corp. was discussing buying the plant from Edison. Nevada Power and was expected to pay for these changes. But the deal fell through April 18 when the Legislature passed a law prohibiting utilities from selling power plants.

This has set plans for installing the emissions control technology back at least a year, Hendren said.

"Now we have to wait until August or September to submit a budget to the Public Utilities Commission, and then we can start construction," he said. The changes should cost $350 million, he said. He also said that the plant has spent $90 million over the last 10 years on emissions control equipment.

"People are now frustrated with this plant," Moore said. "It's done the absolute minimum for so long and has a long history of foot-dragging," he said.

"Across the West utilities are trying to relax air quality permits, and Mohave is an example," he said.

On the other side of the river from Laughlin, in Arizona, the Mohave County Board of Supervisors voted to oppose the variance sought by the plant on June 4, stating similar reasons.

Bill Ekstrom, counsel to the board, has worked 15 years on the issue of opacity, including a period in the early 1990s when he filed a petition to the Nevada Environmental Commission to lower the rate from 40 percent to 20 percent. The commission agreed to set the rate at its present level of 30 percent.

"We're against the Mohave Generating Station's petition because it's been such a long battle until now, and we see this as a step backward," Ekstrom said.

"Also, the way they measure these things is a bunch of mumbo-jumbo anyway," he said.

"I'm a lawyer and I don't understand it. The only thing I know is that 22 hours doesn't really mean that, and this plant could wind up doubling the dust it dumps on both sides of the river if their request is granted," he said.

David Cowperthwaite is executive secretary of the environmental commission, which will decide on the request Thursday. He said this decision is different because there was less community involvement in the first two requests. The public is considered first in their ruling, followed by property owners and the plant.

One member of the public who could sway local opinion has neglected to take a stand -- town founder Don Laughlin, who has lived in the area for 35 years and owns the Riverside hotel-casino, which employs 2,200.

"Everyone wants to keep the air as clean as possible, but I'm not taking a position on this issue," he said.

Laughlin said many of his employees have expressed concern about the issue, and they may take time off to attend the meeting.

"I'm not going to the meeting, though. We get along with Southern California Edison and want to keep it that way," he said.

As for the opposition, Hendren said he doesn't understand what the fuss is all about.

"I think these people just don't want to listen to the facts and data," he said.

"There's a lot of misinformation out there. The local newspaper often publishes an old photo of the plant spewing black smoke, which happens only when there's an upset at the plant. But if I look out my window right now, I can hardly see the plume," he said.

Ekstrom has his own story regarding a photo.

"I remember back in the late '70's, I attended an environmental commission hearing on opacity and the Mohave plant in Las Vegas. Someone from the plant showed a slide of the plant showing a smokestack and a clear blue sky. But some of the members of the commission had been to Laughlin, and they weren't fooled one bit -- they knew this isn't the way it looks."