EPA to accept power plant's plan to reduce pollution

LAS VEGAS - The Environmental Protection Agency intends to accept a proposal by the operators of a coal-fired power plant in Laughlin to install pollution controls by 2006 to reduce emissions that contribute to haze in the Grand Canyon.

The agency's San Francisco regional office, which oversees Nevada, released a statement Friday saying it would field public comments for 30 days on adopting a consent decree that requires the operators of the Mohave Generating Station to reduce sulfur dioxide, particulate matter and nitrogen oxides.

The EPA plans to include the terms of the agreement in its revised plan for protecting visibility in Grand Canyon National Park.

The plant is being sold by Southern California Edison and Nevada Power Co. to AES Corp., a Virginia-based energy development company that said in May it is buying a 70 percent stake in the plant for $667 million. Southern California Edison owns 56 percent of the plant and Nevada Power owns 14 percent. Other parties with a financial interest in the plant are the Salt River Project and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

Steve Hansen, a spokesman at Southern California Edison's corporate office in Rosemead, said that when the sale becomes final, the new owner will be held to the consent decree that resolved a lawsuit brought by three environmental groups - the Grand Canyon Trust, the Sierra Club and the National Parks and Conservation Association. The groups claimed the plant's emissions violate clean air laws.

In order to be in compliance, the Mohave Generating Station must install lime-spray dryer technology to reduce sulfur-dioxide emissions from the plant's two boilers by 85 percent. The owners also must install expensive ''baghouses'' aimed at reducing the amount of particulate matter released by the 1,580-megawatt electrical power generating station. Baghouses, which would cost the plant's owner more than $100 million, operate like huge vacuum cleaners with many filter bags.

The EPA found that when the wind blows strongly enough in the direction of the Grand Canyon, about 100 miles northeast of the plant, the pollutants contribute to haze in the canyon. To correct the problem, the plant - built between 1967 and 1971 - needs to be modified, according to the EPA.

The plant's first unit must have the pollution controls in place by Jan. 1, 2006, and the second must be in compliance by April 1, 2006.

''The compliance deadlines would be accelerated if all current owners of the facility sell 100 percent of their interest in the plant before Dec. 31, 2002,'' according to the EPA statement.

The EPA estimates the plant releases more than 40,000 tons of sulfur dioxide per year and is one of the largest sources of that pollutant in the West.