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Public Workshop To Be Held On Reid Gardner Permit Request

By Vernon Robison
Moapa Valley Progress

The Southern Nevada Health District will hold a workshop on Monday, October 4 in Moapa to discuss an application by the Reid Gardner Power Station to expand its Class III industrial waste landfill. The meeting will be held at the Moapa Recreation Center from 5:00 – 7:00 p.m.

Reid Gardner, owned by NV Energy, maintains an industrial waste storage area primarily to store dry ash that is left over from burning coal at the plant. The landfill will also store pond solids that are left over after recycled plant water evaporates. The industrial landfills are permitted and regulated by the Southern Nevada Health District (SNHD).

NV Energy is proposing to expand the plant’s waste storage area to increase its capacity. Based on current production rates, the current landfill area is expected to reach its capacity within the next two years.

The expanded storage area is proposed to be located on the desert mesa area to the south of the plant. According to NV Energy spokesman Mark Severts, the new landfill would be located at an elevation of approximately 150 feet above the level of the Muddy River.

This is significant because it will allow certain solid waste to be stored in the expanded landfill. The plant is currently storing solid waste in unused evaporation ponds located down within the Muddy River floodplain. The plant has been required by the Nevada Division on Environmental Protection (NDEP) to relocate this waste material to a place outside of the floodplain. The proposed landfill expansion will allow that relocation to take place.

“All of this will further protect the Muddy River and local groundwater in the event of severe flooding conditions or inadvertent seepage,” Severts said.

During the land permitting process, the Bureau of Land Management determined in a March 2008 study, that the expanded landfill would “not have any significant impacts on the human environment.” Rather, the alternative of shipping the waste to an offsite landfill would have caused a greater impact to the surrounding area and its residents, the study stated.

“They decided that keeping the waste storage onsite would avoid a lot of safety and roadway congestion problems with large, 20-ton hauling trucks on local roads and the nearby freeway,” Severts said. “It would also reduce negative environmental impacts associated with additional vehicle emissions and dust impacts. The related ‘Environmental Assessment’ with the BLM predicted that we would have had 64 one-way trips per day through the Moapa community.”

But environmental activists have voiced concerns about the proposed landfill expansion. Members of the Mesquite grassroots organization, Defend Our Desert, recently held a workshop meeting in Mesquite inviting Vinny Spotleson, a climate organizer with the Sierra Club, to speak about the dangers of coal ash. At the meeting, leaders of the group and city officials expressed concerns that the permits would, in effect, extend the life of the coal burning facility for another three decades.

Spotleson informed the group that in June 2007, Reid-Gardner was assessed as the dirtiest carbon dioxide emitting plant in the U.S. by the Environmental Integrity Project, an environmental group located in Washington, D.C.. He stated that Reid Gardner’s “old and dirty technology” ought to be transitioned to cleaner energy sources.

But NV Energy officials disputed these claims. “That activist label (dirtiest power plant) was given to us because of our carbon dioxide emission rate,” said Reid Gardner Plant Director Dave Sharp. “The information on Reid Gardner used that year overstated our emissions by nearly 30% percent, and if the 2007 report were done for last year, or 2008, Reid Gardner would not have even been listed among the top 50 allegedly dirty plants. I say ‘allegedly dirty’ as CO2 emissions have not been deemed a pollutant by the EPA, are not regulated and are emitted every time someone breathes.”

According to Severts, the Reid Gardner station is now one of the cleanest coal-fueled facilities in the United States with sulfur dioxide emissions among the lowest ten percent of plants in the nation.

“We think it is very unfortunate that the Sierra Club has misrepresented the facts in their recent visits with citizens in Mesquite,” Severts said. “They have not been shy about expressing their desire to shut down all coal-fueled power plants in the nation, and their efforts to mislead the public and slow down the regulatory process are obvious.”

After Monday’s workshop, the final public hearing on the matter is scheduled to be held on October 28 at 8:30 a.m. at the SNHD, Ravenholt Public Health Center at 625 Shadow Lane in Las Vegas.

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