Controversy is boiling over the West’s biggest coal-fired power plant, located just south of the Utah-Arizona border near the shores of Lake Powell.
Owners of the Navajo Generating Station say an Environmental Protection Agency proposal to clear the air in the region’s national parks may push the plant into an unacceptable financial situation. They’ve indicated it could force a shutdown as early as 2017.
“The critical issue is the timing of it,” said George Hardeen, a spokesman for the plant. “If the EPA requires it to be done within a short period of time, it becomes economically non-viable.”
A shutdown of the plant would put nearly 1,000 people out of work on the Navajo Indian Reservation that is already deeply mired in unemployment and poverty.
