Don’t rush to add coal plant, EPA warns

By Phoebe Sweet

Thursday, Aug. 9, 2007 | 7:05 a.m.

The Environmental Protection Agency is questioning whether Nevada is shouldering too much of the burden of generating power for the Southwest.

The question should be answered, the agency suggests in a letter to the Bureau of Land Management, before the BLM approves another coal-fired power plant in the state.

The EPA's comments come as the BLM is revising an environmental impact statement for the 1,590-megawatt White Pine Energy Station, a proposed privately owned coal-fired power plant near Elko.

The BLM, which owns the land on which the plant would be built, should identify who would purchase the power - enough for nearly 1.2 million homes - and evaluate the trade-offs between the need for more power and damage to the environment, the EPA advised.

"The EPA is concerned that the density of new coal-burning plants proposed in Nevada is in excess of the demonstrated need for energy throughout the western states," the agency wrote.

LS Power of New Jersey proposed the White Pine plant, but has not identified who will buy its electricity.

Sierra Pacific Resources, the parent company of the utilities that provide power to Southern Nevada and the Reno area, and New York-based developer Sithe Global Power have also proposed large, coal-fired power plants in eastern Nevada.

In a letter signed by Nova Blazej, environmental review manager in San Francisco, the EPA also complained to the BLM that its environmental study was too incomplete to determine whether the project would need additional environmental mitigation .

Blazej said in an interview that the EPA's complaints were procedural - that the BLM report didn't include enough information to make a decision as mandated by federal law.

"That's the point of the process, to provide informed decision-making," Blazej said.

But environmentalists say the language in the letter is clear.

"The EPA is really screaming at the BLM in their own bureaucratic way," said Charles Benjamin, director of the Nevada office of Western Resource Advocates. "The failure to evaluate a real demand out there for this plant is glaring. LS Power ... admits that it doesn't have a customer for the electricity from this plant."

Eric Crawford, director of project development for LS Power, acknowledges that the plant does not have agreements to sell its energy, but says it will sell to "investor-owned utilities, rural electric cooperatives and municipal electric utilities," and he sees a need for new coal-fired power generation in Nevada.

The EPA also griped that the BLM did not genuinely consider alternatives to the coal plant, such as conservation or coal gasification technology, and was satisfied to simply consider two locations in the same valley for the coal plant.

But Crawford said every alternative was considered - and eliminated. Gasification isn't available on a commercial scale, wind and solar power are intermittent sources, and hydroelectric and nuclear aren't realistic options .

But the EPA points out that a task force assembled by Western governors estimated last year that Nevada could generate 1,488 megawatts of geothermal power - enough for about 1.1 million homes - economically by 2015, for example.

The EPA also complained that although the BLM's environmental review eliminated alternatives to burning coal because they would cost LS Power more, it did not make clear why those options were eliminated or weigh the cost of the plant to Nevada's environment. The EPA also chided the BLM review for not having information on effects from ground water pumping, diminished air quality, mercury emissions and the lack of environmental mitigation.

Crawford said the EPA's only actual environmental objection to the plant may have stemmed from a misunderstanding.

The EPA worried that the plant would affect 440 acres of water and wetlands in White Pine County, but Crawford said the plant will affect less than four of those acres, again a case of not enough information being included in the draft review.

The EPA's comments, as well as comments from other federal agencies and the public, will be included in a final environmental impact statement scheduled for release in early 2008. Once that statement is released and the public has a chance to comment, the BLM will rule on whether LS Power can proceed and under what conditions. The decision is expected by late 2008.

Environmental groups and the National Park Service have complained that the plant would pollute Nevada's wilderness and spew 20 million tons of carbon dioxide into the air each year while potentially selling power to California, Idaho or other Southwest states.