Ecoflight, Aspen, CO
The San Juan Generating Station is a large coal-fired power plant, pushing 40 years of age, located near the town of Farmington, New Mexico. A heavy-hitting polluter, the power plant releases 100 million pounds each of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides every year, both toxic pollutants known to harm human health and the environment. Added to this pollution cocktail is a generous sprinkle of soot, topped off with a dash of mercury. The Clean Air Task Force has calculated that the San Juan plant contributes to an estimated 15deaths, 23 heart attacks, and 280 asthma attacks per year, costing society more than $255 million. The smog from San Juan’s smokestacks also affects visibility in Grand Canyon and Mesa Verde National Parks. The San Juan station also emits as much carbon pollution per year as 2.3 million cars, and its neighboring coal mine is believed to be contributing to the Four Corners area’s reputation as the largest methane emitter in the country.
As is tragically common in issues of environmental degradation, the least-advantaged communities bear the brunt of the pollution from the San Juan plant, which impacts health and quality of life in the nearby Navajo Nation. Colleen Cooley from Dine Care, a local Native American environmental organization, recalls stories of bronchitis, headaches, and asthma attacks amongst the locals, often treated with slow-responding and inadequate health care that lacks the resources to relieve locals’ pain. “We’ve suffered for how many years?” Cooley asks. “How much longer do we have to suffer?” She also notes that “the people who live near the power plant can’t get up and leave for a place with cleaner air. This is where they grew up.”
In 2011, the EPA signed a new pollution limit on nitrogen oxides into law, a limit below the San Juan plant’s current emissions. In response, instead of installing the most effective cleaning technologies, the San Juan station offered to retire two of their four units and install less-expensive filters on the remaining two.
However, with two of its boilers planned to go out of commission in the next few years, the utility owners of San Juan are faced with the dilemma of where to get their power. PNM (Public Service Company of New Mexico), the single largest energy company in New Mexico, wants to increase its share of the San Juan plant’s remaining units, in a sense “investing” in the future of the aging plant, and thus committing New Mexico to burning dirty coal for years to come.
In addition, the future of coal at the San Juan Generating Station has grown increasingly uncertain in recent weeks as more costs and challenges continue to arise, including the uncertainty of where the plant will get its coal after 2017 and who will actually own the plant after contracts with multiple utilities expire in 2022. Today, PNM faces a choice of whether to continue to lock New Mexico ratepayers and the surrounding community into a future of more coal burning or commit to a clean energy transition from the plant.
Sinking more money and resources into the San Juan power plant not only extends its reign of smog and pollution, but is also economically disastrous for New Mexico ratepayers. It recently came to light that PNM had made a “calculation error” in the cost of buying more shares of the plant and upgrading its filters. This error, amongst other recalculations, resulted in their cost estimate coming in at 1 billion dollars over its initially stated cost. As the figure rises, the plant’s investors have been backing out one by one, “dropping like flies” in the words of Nellis Kennedy-Howard, Senior Campaign Representative for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign. Even the town of Farmington has announced that, in the face of the costs, it would not buy a larger share of the plant. As a result of so many investors jumping ship, PNM would likely need to pass the price tag for the plant purchase onto its customers, increasing their energy bills.
Now, as PNM’s plan goes into its final committee, the entire feasibility of the project is being rethought. “Our state is at a crossroads: dirty coal or clean energy,” says Kennedy-Howard. “New Mexico families and the surrounding community deserve a swift transition timeline from the San Juan Generating Station that protects our health, our pocketbooks, and moves us towards more clean energy jobs to benefit our communities.”
“I’m tired of hearing excuses,” says Cooley, commenting that the people who own the power station do not live in the area. “Power plants provide revenue and jobs, but not enough for the people who have to suffer these impacts on a daily basis.”
The Sierra Club and a coalition of other community groups, including Dine Care, are calling on the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission to reject PNM’s proposal to continue burning coal at the San Juan Station, and urging them to instead invest in a clean energy future. The PRC and is currently taking public comment into the near future. Write them to tell them what you think of committing New Mexico to ever-more coal pollution.