Opposition to coal-fired plant growing

ST. GEORGE — Opposition continues to grow against a private company's proposal to build a massive coal-fired power plant on 640 acres of federal land about 12 miles northwest of Mesquite on Utah's border.

"This plant would burn 3 million tons of coal each year, about 11,200 pounds of coal every minute for the next 50 or 60 years, which would have dramatic impacts on air quality in southern Nevada and Utah," said Michele Burkett, director of Defend Our Desert, a Mesquite-based nonprofit working against Toquop Energy's plans to build the power plant.

"We want (Nevada) Gov. (Jim) Gibbons and other elected officials to realize that many people will suffer from the massive amount of pollutants that will be released into our air from the dirty coal that Toquop will burn," Burkett said.

The proposed $1.2 billion Toquop Energy Project would generate 750 megawatts of electricity, enough to provide power to 75,000 homes in the Las Vegas and Phoenix area, according to the permit application filed by Sithe Global Power.

The company's original plan to build a natural gas-fired power plant at the site changed to coal when gas prices escalated. A new environmental impact statement is now required, which is in its final stages, according to the Nevada Bureau of Land Management.

In a Dec. 14 review of the draft environmental impact statement for the project, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rated the proposal as EC-2, or Environmental Concerns — Insufficient Information.

The final EIS should address the following topics in greater detail, according to the review document: the scope of the alternatives analysis, the potential adverse impact to approximately 16 acres of aquatic resource, the uncertainty of groundwater availability, and issues associated with greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

Toquop Energy project manager Tom Johns said many of those issues are ongoing concerns for any coal-fired power plant.

"In my review of the letter, I didn't see anything that couldn't be resolved in the final EIS," Johns said. "We expect the air quality operating permit to be issued."

Lin Alder, executive director of Citizens for Dixie's Future, said the coal-fired power plant needs even further environmental review to address the potential health and economic impacts to communities in southern Utah.

In a letter to the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Air Pollution Control, Alder suggested the agency had a moral and legal obligation to hold a public hearing on the subject in the St. George area.