Contact: John Weisheit - (435) 259-1063
Today it was announced a major coal-fired power plant adjacent to Lake Powell reservoir may be left high and dry by rapidly falling reservoir levels, unless it receives approval from the National Park Service to begin a major extension of its water intake infrastructure.
Environmental clearance is being sought to extend the water intake tubes for the Navajo Generating Station 120 feet to the near-natural elevation of the Colorado River. What the National Park services is calling a "maintenance project." involves five 54-inch-diameter holes being bored 150 feet through Navajo sandstone for the installation of pipes and submersible pumps to move 17 million gallons of cooling water per day from Lake Powell to the power plant.
"This is not maintenance, but a multi-million dollar undertaking in an effort to preserve outdated and terribly polluting technologies," says John Weisheit, conservation director for Living Rivers/Colorado Riverkeeper. "We must prepare for the end of Lake Powell by investing resources into more appropriate energy paths such as conservation or solar and wind, not trying to prolong dirty coal and dams."
Due to climatic changes over the past five years, Lake Powell's water level has fallen 127 feet to 3573 feet above sea level, and is now declining at a rate of 21 inches per week. It is projected that absent a major change in rainfall patterns, that Navajo Generating Station's power plant intakes will be exposed as early as 2006. The hydroelectric power plant at Glen Canyon Dam will suffer a similar fate, but will have to be shut down as lowering its intakes is not technically feasible.
The Navajo Nation has benefited little from power from either Navajo Generating Station or Glen Canyon Dam over the past four decades, as many homes still do not have electricity. Small photo-voltaic power stations and wind turbines are now being used to provide energy to individual homes on the reservation.
"Our prayers continue to be answered," says Thomas Morris Jr. a Navajo medicineman working for decommissioning Glen Canyon Dam. "Let the power plant fall idle, as it has brought nothing but asthma and other illnesses to our people in exchange for a few jobs. We must follow nature's lead, and the revival of the Colorado through our land, not the past mistakes."
Navajo Generating Station was completed in 1974 to provide the electricity necessary to pump Colorado River water from Lake Havasu reservoir to Phoenix and Tucson through the Central Arizona Project. It was built as a substitute for dams proposed in Grand Canyon National Park that were defeated by public opposition in the 1960s. The Bureau of Reclamation is the largest shareholder in the Navajo Generation Station at 24.3%. Other partners include Salt River Project, Los Angeles Dept. of Water & Power, Arizona Public Service Company, Nevada Power, Tucson Electric Power.
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Additional Information:
Living Rivers/Colorado Riverkeeper
September 1, 2004, National Park Service News Release on Navajo Generating Station
Navajo Generating Station
Glen Canyon National Recreation Area
Letter from the Environmental Planner at EcoPlan Arizona
Map of NGS pumping plant
Comment letter from Living Rivers to EcoPlan Arizona
