Salt River Project will host a community meeting Aug. 15 to discuss the recently announced Technical Work Group (TWG) proposal for Navajo Generating Station.
The public meeting will begin at 5:30 p.m. at the Page PERA Club, 445 Haul Road.
Grant Smedley, SRP’s manager of Environmental Policy and Innovation, will explain the TWG proposal, which was submitted to EPA on July 26.
The TWG consists of representatives from the Central Arizona Water Conservation District, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Gila River Indian Community, the Navajo Nation, Salt River Project (on behalf of itself and the other NGS owners), the U.S. Department of the Interior, and Western Resource Advocates. The group was established to identify emission reduction alternatives for NGS. Its proposed alternative will allow the continued operation of NGS, while achieving greater emission reductions than EPA’s proposal issued earlier this year.
Under the terms of the TWG proposal, one 750 MW unit at the power plant would be shut down by January 1, 2020, and the implementation of additional environmental controls at the plant would be delayed until 2030 – if the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power and NV Energy exit NGS as expected by 2019, and if the Navajo Nation chooses not to exercise an option to purchase a portion of the plant’s ownership shares. If the ownership situation plays out differently, the agreement would require equivalent emission reductions between 2020 and 2030.
“Given the challenges associated with the timelines specified in the proposed rule, the development of an alternative proposal was essential”, said Mike Hummel, chief power system executive at SRP. “The TWG proposal provides a path for the future operation of NGS that incorporates potential ownership changes and provides a much needed extension to the schedule for installing SCR at NGS. As such, SRP strongly believes that the TWG proposal is the best path forward for its customers and for the state of Arizona.”
“We are hoping the open house forum hosted by SRP on August 15 will help educate the local community and prepare them to participate in the formal EPA public comment process which will come later in the fall,” said NGS Plant Manager Robert Talbot.
For more information, visit www.ngspower.com.
