NEVADA TRIBE ACHIEVES GOOD-BYE TO COAL, WELCOMES SOLAR
In 1965, four smokestacks of the Reid-Gardner coal-fired power plant in Moapa Valley, Nevada started dumping ash laced with mercury, lead and arsenic into the local environment. The plant, recently acquired by MidAmerican Energy when that company bought NV Energy, sits just a few hundred yards away from some of the homes on the Moapa Paiute Reservation.
In June, after more than four decades of struggle, Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval signed SB 123, putting the Reid-Gardner coal plant on the path toward complete closure by 2017. While a huge victory for the Paiutes, the closure of the plant marks the beginning of serious work to clean up the uncovered ash ponds and often unlined landfills which will continue to contaminate the air and groundwater long after the plant is shuttered. Between 2008 and 2012, monitoring wells for groundwater quality showed over 7,000 exceedances of state standard...Continue Reading
In 1965, four smokestacks of the Reid-Gardner coal-fired power plant in Moapa Valley, Nevada started dumping ash laced with mercury, lead and arsenic into the local environment. The plant, recently acquired by MidAmerican Energy when that company bought NV Energy, sits just a few hundred yards away from some of the homes on the Moapa Paiute Reservation.
In June, after more than four decades of struggle, Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval signed SB 123, putting the Reid-Gardner coal plant on the path toward complete closure by 2017. While a huge victory for the Paiutes, the closure of the plant marks the beginning of serious work to clean up the uncovered ash ponds and often unlined landfills which will continue to contaminate the air and groundwater long after the plant is shuttered. Between 2008 and 2012, monitoring wells for groundwater quality showed over 7,000 exceedances of state standard...Continue Reading
![NEVADA TRIBE ACHIEVES GOOD-BYE TO COAL, WELCOMES SOLAR
In 1965, four smokestacks of the Reid-Gardner coal-fired power plant in Moapa Valley, Nevada started dumping ash laced with mercury, lead and arsenic into the local environment. The plant, recently acquired by MidAmerican Energy when that company bought NV Energy, sits just a few hundred yards away from some of the homes on the Moapa Paiute Reservation.
In June, after more than four decades of struggle, Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval signed SB 123, putting the Reid-Gardner coal plant on the path toward complete closure by 2017. While a huge victory for the Paiutes, the closure of the plant marks the beginning of serious work to clean up the uncovered ash ponds and often unlined landfills which will continue to contaminate the air and groundwater long after the plant is shuttered. Between 2008 and 2012, monitoring wells for groundwater quality showed over 7,000 exceedances of state standards.
Meanwhile, the tribe is preparing to break ground on the first large-scale solar project on tribal land in the nation. The 350 megawatt project is expected to come online in 2015. The tribe has signed a contract to sell the electricity — enough to power 100,000 homes — to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. “Who would have thought the Moapa Band of Paiutes would be supplying power to LA?” said Eric Lee, acting chairman from the tribe.
Earlier this year, Los Angeles Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, announced that his city would be off coal power by 2025. Currently, Los Angeles gets forty percent of its power from two old and infamously dirty coal plants — the Navajo Generating Station in Arizona and the Intermountain Power Project in Utah.
The Moapa Paiutes are far from the only tribe with a long and complicated history with the fossil fuel industry. Across the nation, a disproportionate number of power plants operate near or on tribal lands. According to an AP analysis of EPA data, 10% of all U.S. power plants are within 20 miles of a reservation affecting 48 different tribes. Historically, dirty energy has been embraced by communities who need the jobs and often lack the voice to stand up to industrial scale pollution.
The battle is far from over, though. Even as the suits to make NV Energy clean up the plant begin, Simmons and her neighbors worry that MidAmerican Power will bring natural gas development into the area.
“We’ve endured enough,” said Simmons. “We’re developing clean energy and we challenge MidAmerican to do the same.”
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Image credit: Bill Corcoran, @[6204742571:274:The Sierra Club]
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“What amazes me about the Moapa Paiutes is their persistence. Over the course of this fight, the tribe has buried so many of it’s leaders, but they’ve kept at it. Somehow maintaining their passion and momentum and bringing up new leaders to keep the fight going.”
-- Bill Corcoran, Western Regional Campaign Director for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Program.
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