Study of Desert Rock’s Impact on Endangered Species Due Soon

by Marjorie Childress
The New Mexican Independent
07 December 2009
   

In September, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rescinded the air permit it had issued in 2008 for a coal-fired power plant to be built near Farmington, saying the decision was made in part because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department hadn’t yet completed a study of potential impacts of the project on endangered species.

That study has been underway and will be completed and turned over to the Bureau of Indian Affairs this month, Wally Murphy, supervisor of the Albuquerque office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department, told the Independent in an interview.

  
Species potentially impacted by the proposed Desert Rock project—which would be the third coal-fired power plant located within 16 miles of each other—are the southwestern willow flycatcher, the Colorado pike minnow, the razorback sucker, the silvery minnow, the Mancos milk-vetch and the Mesa Verde cactus.

While the data isn’t publicly available yet, Murphy said there are serious problems posed by high levels of mercury and selenium both in the air and in the San Juan River. Both elements are naturally occurring, but in large concentrations pose a significant health hazard to humans and the environment. According to the New Mexico Environment Department, coal-fired power plants account for more than 50 percent of the mercury found in New Mexico; they are also a significant source of selenium.

“Selenium in the San Juan River is at the point where reproduction and nervous system function in the fish are impaired,” Murphy said.

While selenium is a by-product of power plants, the high levels in the San Juan are in large part due to agriculture. Water used for agriculture leaches the selenium out of a geological formation called Mancos Shale. The addition of more selenium from another power plant would make this problem worse.

Mercury levels in the San Juan are also much higher than are healthy for fish, Murphy explained. While the two existing power plants in the four corner region share much of the blame for the high levels of mercury, we can also point the finger at China, he said.

“Mercury precipitates over water bodies, that’s why we see mercury warnings in the Gulf of Mexico for shrimp,” he said. “A lot of the mercury in the San Juan River actually comes from China — most of their power is from coal-powered plants.”

It’s rare for an endangered species consultation to shut down a project, Murphy said. In most cases, a “reasonable and prudent” alternative can be found. But still, the study will show there are significant threats already posed to the vulnerable wildlife and plant species in the area.

“The San Juan River has some problems,” Murphy said with understated candor.

The endangered species review was one of the major reasons EPA gave for officially pulling the air permit in September, but Desert Rock Energy Company spokesman Frank Maisano told The Independent that the move was “nothing more than politics at play.”

Maisano said EPA officials have told him air permits are issued all the time without first having official results in from ESA studies, and that the argument otherwise is being made by “activists or people opposed to the project.”

“The new administration isn’t interested in moving forward with the project,” he said. “Desert Rock isn’t alone, it’s other projects also.”

But Murphy said the EPA is supposed to wait for information about endangered species before issuing the permit.

“The EPA regulations require that they consult with us prior to releasing the air quality permit,” he said.

A project like the proposed Desert Rock plant is subject to several federal studies, including a comprehensive study under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and a look at the impact on endangered species. An Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is prepared through the NEPA process that assesses the project from multiple angles.

The draft Environmental Impact Statement for Desert Rock was completed in 2007. That report pointed out that the plant would be a state of the art facility that would emit pollutants — but at levels below what would prohibit the project. The company has also agreed to fund the installation of technology on the two older power plants in the vicinity that would reduce the sulfur dioxide emissions of the region by 110 percent of current levels.

Still, even small amounts of new emissions in an area already overloaded with pollutants is too much, activists and New Mexico officials have said. The Desert Rock plant would be the third coal-fired plant within an area that also has a large oil and gas industry, and agricultural activity. It’s a rural area that has had periodic ozone pollution problems equivalent to a densely populated urban area.

“If you have two Hummers running in your garage, and you add a hybrid — it may not add a Hummer’s worth of emissions, but it still worsens an already pretty bad situation,” Dailon Long, an organizer for Diné Care, a Navajo environmental organization, told The Independent in September.

Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, Jr. is at odds with those opposed to the plant, which include some Navajo families who would be displaced by the project, as well as environmental organizations and the state of New Mexico.

In a statement reacting to the remand of the air permit in September, Shirley said the project is the most important economic development project in Navajo history, and he insisted that it will eventually be completed. The Endangered Species Act consultation and the final Environmental Impact Statement will be completed soon, he said. The company applied in August for a stimulus grant to install experimental technology that would capture carbon dioxide emitted by the plant and inject it into the ground.

Carbon dioxide is the primary industrial emission pinpointed by scientists as the primary culprit causing global warming, and coal-fired power plants are a major source of it. The Desert Rock project would emit approximately 12 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year. The installation of carbon capture and sequestration technology, however, would reduce that by about 25 percent. And the company thinks that a selection of the Desert Rock project by the federal government as a pilot project would green-light Desert Rock once more.

“I would suspect that if the stimulus money came through, it would be a strong reason for the project to move forward,” Maisano said.

   

    


Reprinted as an historical reference document under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html