The news is stunning, though anyone studying the changing economics of electrical power generation and distribution might have suspected it on the distant horizon.
Still, it is hard to fathom: The Navajo Generating Station, the coal-fired giant that for nearly 50 years has been a humming, smoking feature of the colorful canyon horizon at Page, Arizona, will shut down at the end of 2019, at least 25 years earlier than expected.
The closure is progress at a cost.
As detailed in High Country News writer Jonathan Thompson’s article (Journal, Feb. 16), the closure is a boon to the environment. The plant, in combination with the coal-mining operations that feed it, has long been “one of the biggest polluters in the West.”
Together, the mine and plant release some 20 million metric tons of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide and methane) annually, as well as mercury, selenium and arsenic that travel far and wide from the station’s trio of 775-foot smokestacks. In one of the most arid regions of the country, the plant also consumes 28,000 acre-feet of water — that’s 9 billion gallons — from Lake Powell each year.
For environmentalists, the planned closure is a cause for celebration, almost a fairy tale ending for a decades-long saga of pollution in the heart of canyon country. Navajo Station has had a detrimental — and visible — impact on air quality in Southwest Colorado since it began operations.
The economics behind the decision are clear. As Thompson writes, the plant’s owners “note that it’s now cheaper for them to buy power for their 1 million customers from other sources.”
That won’t change, Thompson emphasizes, even if the Trump administration makes an expected effort to boost coal consumption and restore coal-mining jobs. The market for electricity is radically changing, as are the grid connections that distribute it to utilities and customers in the West.
The closure will leave about 1,000 full-time workers unemployed at Navajo Station, the Kayenta Coal Mine and the railroad, where 90 percent of employees are Native Americans. Overall, job losses related to the plant closure are estimated at 2,400, as reported by Flagstaff’s Arizona Daily Sun. Both the Navajo and Hopi tribal governments will be hit hard without the royalty payments the operation provides, more than $50 million in 2015 alone. That is a legitimate economic disaster.
Development of wind and solar energy projects may replace some of the royalty payments to tribes and provide jobs, as the transmission lines leading from the plant can be used by another source, but those plans are only at the talking stage.
The closure is a reminder of the two-edged nature of our changing energy reality. Right now, a “glide path” to demolition is being negotiated. We hope the plan offers a glide path, and perhaps a financial boost, to an industry and jobs with a longer, healthier future than coal-fired power can provide in northern Arizona. That seems like a fair goal, especially since for many years, the Navajo Generating Station has exported electricity to the south while causing health problems closer to home. Those problems will not disappear when the income does.
Celebrate, yes, if you feel inclined. But keep in mind what the closure means for an area notable through the years for its lack of opportunity and poverty.