forgotten people and ngs: securing environmental and climate justice

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Navajo Generating Station Navajo Generating Station Securing Environmental and Securing Environmental and Climate Justice Climate Justice Navajo Generating Station Meeting with US DOI, Salt River Project, Arizona Public Service, Tucson Electric Power, and Nevada Power February 4, 2011, Pera Club, Page, AZ Forgotten People www.forgottennavajopeople.org [email protected]

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Page 1: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Navajo Generating StationNavajo Generating StationSecuring Environmental and Securing Environmental and

Climate JusticeClimate Justice

Navajo Generating Station Meeting withUS DOI, Salt River Project, Arizona Public Service,

Tucson Electric Power, and Nevada PowerFebruary 4, 2011, Pera Club, Page, AZ

Forgotten Peoplewww.forgottennavajopeople.org

[email protected]

Page 2: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

RoadmapTransition not Retrofit

• Transition to clean energy-solar, wind, photovoltaic, concentrated solar, geothermal, and biomass

• Invest in a transition to clean energy instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars to retrofit

• Uncertain water and coal supply• Grand Canyon visibility• US EPA Clean Air and BART regulations• Toxic coal ash/Health effects/Climate change

Page 3: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Forgotten People Overview

• The Forgotten People is a grassroots organization representing communities in the western portion of the Navajo Nation.

• The communities are spread over almost 2 million acres of remote desert terrain in the northeast of Arizona.

• Only 3 percent of the families in these communities have electricity and only 10 percent have running water (HR5168, 2004).

Page 4: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Challenges: The Bennett Freeze

• For over 42 years, a US law called the Bennett Freeze prohibited any home repairs or community improvements in most of the western Navajo Nation.

• The community infrastructure has

deteriorated and while city residents pay 30 cents for a hundred gallons of water, the cost for the water haulers can be over $25 for a hundred gallons, 100x as much for a basic necessity of life.

Page 5: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Challenges: Achieving Environmental Justice

“If a fraction of the deadly contamination the Navajos live with every day had been in Beverly Hills or any wealthy community, it would have been cleaned up immediately. But there's a different standard applied to the Navajo land... while time passes, people get sick, people die, people develop kidney disease, children, babies are born with birth defects, bone cancer develops and gets worse, lung cancer, leukemia, while we wait”

US Senator Henry Waxman, 2007

Page 6: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

43 Years of Third World Conditions The Bennett Freeze

Page 7: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Challenges: The Bennett Challenges: The Bennett FreezeFreeze

Page 8: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Forgotten People Partnerships

Page 9: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Forgotten People with CDC & US EPA

Page 10: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Addressing Interlinkages: Health

Page 11: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Hard life for water haulers

Page 12: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Peabody Kayenta mine

Page 13: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Coal dust over Black Mesa

Page 14: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

School bus on Peabody mining

haul road by J-28

Page 15: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Navajo Generating Station

Page 16: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Navajo Generating Station emissions

• The Navajo Generating Station produces 1/4 of all US greenhouse gas emissions - 300 lbs. of mercury each year, and emits as much pollution as LA and Denver, impairing visibility locally and at the Grand Canyon.

• Based on a ranking by the US Environmental Protection Agency, a 2009 report "America's Biggest Polluters" stated the Navajo Generating Station is the eighth dirtiest plant in the nation, releasing 20.1 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2007.

Page 17: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Grand Canyon visibility concerns

Grand Canyon National Park (GCNP) is a mandatory Class I federal area

that is afforded visibility protection under the Federal Clean Air Act.

Page 18: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Toxic coal ash

• Coal that is mined gets burned and creates coal ash. Big coal has spent millions of dollars touting the virtues of what the industry calls “clean coal,” but coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel and this cost is not factored into the price.

• When coal is burned it releases monstrous quantities of deadly compounds and gases — and it all has to go somewhere.

• The worst of the waste — heavy metals like arsenic, cadmium and mercury, all of which are highly toxic — are concentrated in the ash that’s left over after coal is burned or in the dirty sludge that’s scrubbed from smokestacks.

Page 19: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Navajo Generating Station does not have a

reliable source of coal• The Navajo Generating Station does not have a

reliable source of coal. Los Angeles Department of Water and Power contract with Peabody expires in 2016.

• The life-of-mine permit for Peabody’s Black Mesa mine was vacated by an administrative law judge in January 2010 and the mine has been closed since the Mohave Generating Station shut down.

• Peabody’s Black Mesa and Kayenta mine lease expires with the Navajo Nation in 2011.

• Peabody cannot mine one piece of coal at the Black Mesa mine and any lease issued to do activity by law requires a permit.

• The Kayenta mine is running out of good coal.

Page 20: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Railroad carrying Kayenta coalhas no transportation permit• The railroad carrying coal from the Kayenta mine

to Navajo Generating Station has no transportation permit as required under Surface Mining Coal Reclamation Act. No barrier arms and warning lights at the railroad crossings which has resulted in the death of people and livestock.

Page 21: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Navajo Generating Station does not have a

reliable source of water

• Lake Mead, which dams the Colorado River near Las Vegas and is one of the largest reservoirs in the country, is 59 percent empty and the water level is so low that the giant turbines in Hoover Dam could soon stop turning.

http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2010/world/power-plant-that-moves-torrent-of-water-uphill-considers-closing/

Page 22: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Changing water patterns and Lake Mead & Lake Powell

• Changing rainfall patterns, natural climate variability, high levels of evaporation, reduced snow melt runoff, and current water use patterns are putting pressure on water management resources at Lake Mead as the population depending on it for water and the Hoover Dam for electricity continues to grow.

• A 2008 paper in Water Resources Research states that at current usage allocation and projected climate trends, there is a 50% chance that live storage in lakes Mead and Powell will be gone by 2021, and that the reservoir could drop below minimum power pool elevation of 1,050 feet (320 m) as early as 2017.

Page 23: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Public Health Effects

• Observed adverse impacts of the burning of coal are affecting air quality, water quality and access to water for water haulers living in the vicinity of Peabody that do not have piped water, electricity, and are experiencing health effects including Black Lung, Silicosis, asthma, widespread chronic lung problems, coughs, sore throats, eye irritations, flu like symptoms, asthma, dark yellowish mucous coughed up by children and adults due to pollution, especially the dust and smoke generated by NGS.

Testimonies of Black Mesa and NGS area residents

Page 24: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Public Health effects 2

• A 2008 study found that people living in mining communities are 70 percent more likely to develop kidney disease, 64 percent more likely to have chronic lung diseases such as emphysema, and 30 percent more likely to report hypertension. Those who live near coal-burning power plants are also at higher risk.

4/18/2010 The Great US Coal Disaster

http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=10045

Page 25: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Call to Action

• Forgotten People joins environmental, human rights and social justice organizations to urge US Department of the Interior, Salt River Project, Arizona Public Service, Tucson Electric Power and Nevada Power to abandon Navajo Generating Station retrofit and create a timeline for transition to clean energy sources.

Page 26: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

US EPA enforcement of emissions limitations & BART

• Forgotten People supports the US Environmental Protection Agency’s finalization of a Federal Implementation Plan under the Clean Air Act to:

• Regulate emissions from Navajo Generating Station;

• Establish federally enforceable emissions limitations for sulfur dioxides, total particulate matter, and opacity;

• Best Available Retrofit Technology limits for NOx and PM emissions.

Page 27: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Coal Plants in Transition

• March of 2010 report, “Coal Plants in Transition: An Economic Case Study” used the NGS as a case study to examine the costs and benefits of the plant’s future favored the phasing out of existing coal plants over retrofitting them with scrubber technology.

• The report notes that retrofits can entail substantial costs, running into the hundreds of millions of dollars and it may be more profitable to abandon retrofit plans and instead embrace a full range of clean energy resources, including wind, photovoltaic and concentrated solar, geothermal, and biomass, combined with large-scale supply and demand-side efficiency measures.

Page 28: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Phase out coal & eliminate 80% of the solution to the global warming

crisis• Coal-fired power plants are responsible for

one-third of America’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions—about the same amount as all transportation sources -- cars, SUVs, trucks, buses, planes, ships, and trains -- combined.

• Coal-fired power plants are largest single source of carbon dioxide in the country. NASA scientist James Hansen said that phasing out coal “is 80% of the solution to the global warming crisis”

Page 29: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Recommendations 1

• The US Department of the Interior, Salt River Project, Arizona Public Service, Tucson Electric Power, and Nevada Power shall begin installing SCR and bag houses on their share of NGS to meet BART regional haze and reasonable attribution provisions of the Clean Air Act within three years.

Page 30: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Recommendations 2

• The US Department of the Interior, Salt River Project, Arizona Public Service, Tucson Electric Power, and Nevada Power shall:

• Redesign the existing generation and transmission infrastructure to accommodate renewal energy projects such as Black Mesa Water Coalition’s recommendation to convert strip-mined areas on Black Mesa to solar generation, locating solar generation near transmission lines on Navajo and Hopi lands, and covering the Central Arizona Project canal/corridor with PV.

Page 31: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Recommendations 3

• The US Department of the Interior, Salt River Project, Arizona Public Service, Tucson Electric Power, and Nevada Power shall:

• Redesign existing water siphon in Lake Powell, electric railroad corridor to Black Mesa, and abandoned slurry pipeline route for reuse as a water supply system to meet existing needs of western Navajo and Hopi communities.

Page 32: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Recommendations 4

• The US Department of the Interior, Salt River Project, Arizona Public Service, Tucson Electric Power, and Nevada Power shall:

• Assist in financing capital costs by addition to the CAP loan, extending the time allowed to repay the loan, and generating revenues for Hopi and Navajo economic development from a sale of “peaking power” from solar generating plants.

Page 33: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Recommendations 5

• The US Department of the Interior, Salt River Project, Arizona Public Service, Tucson Electric Power, and Nevada Power shall:

• Explore other revenue generating possibilities such as selling NGS SO2 and NO2 pollution credits and creative ways to market the CO2 not emitted by NGS and CO2 sequestered in the un-mined coal within Black Mesa.

Page 34: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Recommendations 6

• The US Department of the Interior shall commit to reduce DOI’s 24.3% share of Navajo Generating Station air pollution to meet Best Available Retrofit Technology within three years;

• Conduct an Environmental Impact Study of air and water quality that affects the public health of Navajo Nation citizens and non-Navajo citizens, the socio-economic impacts, the environmental, cultural, and traditional cultural use impacts of continued pollution by Navajo Generating Station and Peabody.

Page 35: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Recommendations 7

• The US Department of the Interior, Salt River Project, Arizona Public Service, Tucson Electric Power, and Nevada Power shall:

• Examine the costs and benefits of the plant’s future favored the phasing out of existing coal plants over retrofitting them with scrubber technology.

Page 36: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Next Steps?

• The US Department of the Interior, Salt River Project, Arizona Public Service, Tucson Electric Power, and Nevada Power shall commit to eliminating coal use and implementing on-site renewal energy projects at the Navajo Generating Station site by 2020 in compliance with:

• President’s Executive Order 13514;• Department of the Interior Strategic

Sustainability Performance Plan that committed the agency to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020 for emission sources that DOI owns, controls, or purchases;

• President’s Executive Order 12898 on Environmental Justice.

Page 37: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

Preserving traditional Dine’ way of life

Page 38: Forgotten People and NGS: Securing Environmental and Climate Justice

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