By Vernon Robison

Moapa Valley Progress

Members of the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada (PUCN) took a tour of the Reid Gardner Power Station in Moapa and the Moapa Paiute Indian Reservation on Tuesday, January 24. The tour was part of a PUCN investigation, begun in August 2011, which proposes to analyze the recommended lifespan of the Reid Gardner station, one of two coal burning power plants in the state.

“Essentially the investigation is reviewing the economics of continuing to run Reid Gardner or potential alternatives,” said PUCN spokesman Peter Kostes. “The trip was mainly an opportunity to give the staff a chance to familiarize themselves with the physical location of the plan and the nearby reservation.”

On the tour was PUCN Commissioner Alaina Burtenshaw as well as numerous members of PUCN staff and representatives from Nevada Division of Environmental Protection (NDEP).

According to PUCN documents, the investigation is exploring several different future scenarios for Reid Gardner. These look at the economics of continuing to operate the facility year round, operating it only during the summer peak and shutting it down completely with the option of bringing it back online if long term market trends should favor coal over natural gas.

In addition the study will look at retiring the plant on various timetables. These include retiring the plant in September 2013, retiring it in January 2016, and retiring only units 1 and 2 in 2016 and operating unit 3 until 2023.

The Moapa Band of Paiutes began the day by hosting the PUCN representatives at a public meeting in the tribal center on the reservation.

Tribal leaders; citing above average instances of lung, heart and thyroid disease among the tribe; urged the PUCN representatives to recommend closure of the plant.

“You can see that this is not just affecting one or two people here,” said Moapa Band Tribal Chairman William Anderson. “It is a serious health problem that will continue to impact our people.”

“I’d urge you to do the right thing here,” said tribal leader Calvin Myers. “I’d ask you to try to get them to shut this thing down. The plant hurts us here. If you do nothing about it you are helping them to get rid of us.”

During the meeting, the floor was opened to reservation residents to speak about their experiences in living with the plant. For over an hour, residents came to the microphone to tell their stories. Many told of huge clouds of coal ash dust that blows into the reservation community from the plant on windy days.

“We see this monster every day of our lives,” said Iris Daboda of the plant. “We get the white blanket of daily dust in our homes, on our cars. We experience the dark smoke from the stacks and the foul odor coming from the ponds. At this point, we don’t need anymore band-aids. We need to have this plant shut down.”

Tribal resident Russell Sampson said that he had lived on the reservation for 63 years. He said he remembered the days before the plant was built when the air was cleaner.

“I am one of the ones that live the closest to the plant,” Sampson said. “Sometimes I can’t breath. I don’t like the air or the smell of it. But I have had to live with it for a long time. I’d like to have it shut down.”

After the meeting the representatives were taken on a brief tour of the reservation. They drove to a point overlooking the Reid Gardner settling ponds, many that had been newly retired, which are only a few hundred yards away from residents. They also were taken to an air quality monitoring station installed by NV Energy to track airborne pollutants at the reservation.

Anderson stated that the station had been placed at a low spot in the valley where it was protected from the heaviest pollutants in the air.

After a luncheon at the reservation, the PUCN representatives were transported by van to tour the Reid Gardner station itself.

After the tour, NV Energy officials explained that more than $84 million had gone into environmental improvements at the plant since 2007. The tour pointed out these improvements. They including the installation of natural gas igniters to replace diesel oil. Also systems installed in 2007 to improve combustion in the units so that they burn more of the pollutants inside the plant rather than sending it up the stacks into the atmosphere. Another improvement was the baghouses constructed in 2009 to capture more than 99% of particulate emissions at the plant.

The tour also showcased NV Energy efforts to move settling ponds away from the Paiute neighbors and out of the Muddy River floodplain where they had been before. NV Energy officials showed PUCN representatives the new settling ponds located about two miles away on the rocky bench to the south of the plant; out of the river channel and further from the reservation.

“All in all it was a good visit from our perspective,” said NV Energy spokesman Mark Severts. “We spent time sharing the progress we have made to get the plant running cleaner and more efficiently.”