Coal-Fired Generating Plant : Power to the People--L.A. Reaps Bounty From Utah

In the flat scrublands of western Utah, the mighty city of Los Angeles--which already draws water 300 miles from the High Sierra--has begun to collect the bounty of its latest foray into the distant West in search of natural resources.

This time the prize is not plentiful water. It is electric power, enough to light a third of the city’s homes, produced without adding any smog in the Los Angeles Basin. The power is generated here in massive coal boilers and carried by cable across 490 miles of desert to Los Angeles.

The $5.5-billion Intermountain Power Project, which will be officially dedicated Saturday by Utah Gov. Norman H. Bangerter and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, also serves as a symbol of the considerable influence that the “megacity” of Los Angeles exerts over areas of the West far from its borders.

Just off U.S. 6, a few miles from here, the Intermountain Generating Station is the tallest building in Utah. Its boilers consume seven trainloads of coal mined in Utah every week and send plumes of exhaust into Utah skies to keep Los Angeles in power. Its twin generators produce more power than the giant turbines at Hoover Dam.

Officially, Intermountain is a joint venture of 23 Utah utilities and six California cities. But when the switches were thrown last month, after 13 years of controversy and construction, about 90% of the power flowed south to Los Angeles.

“The Department of Water and Power again has demonstrated its vision and tenacity,” Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley said this week during a visit to the project. Bradley praised workers for completing the project ahead of time and under budget.

The city’s most famous venture into the interior is its claim on water that flows into the Owens Valley on the east side of the Sierra in California. After seven decades, some residents who blame Los Angeles for drying up their valley have come to resent the sight of Department of Water and Power trucks. But in Delta, the dominant emotion seems to be relief for the jobs that the Intermountain project has brought.

At the peak of construction, 4,500 new jobs created something of a boom in Millard County, an area of wind-swept alfalfa farms and cattle range that is normally home to 7,500 people. Although construction is over, the project’s work force of 623 remains the largest in this part of the state.

Tax Revenues

The financial payoff is even sweeter if $34 million in taxes expected from the project are counted.

To longtime residents, the new jobs mean that their sons can move back home from Salt Lake and Ogden, where they fled in search of work.

“Many of our young people have been able to get on there,” Mayor Ruth Hansen said. “The majority of people think it’s been good for the area.”

But boom towns are an old story in the West. So are the bad feelings that follow when the boom goes bust. During construction, Delta residents suddenly found traffic jams and long lines at the supermarket. Speculators drove up the price of land and more crimes were reported.

Intermountain--and by extension the electric customers back in Los Angeles--helped ease the pain with a $35-million “impact mitigation” fund. The money helped Delta beef up the police force, add schools, build a new City Hall and put in roads and parks.

But those payments end June 30, and the small town is suffering withdrawal pains. “People got used to living pretty high,” Hansen said. “Now they’re going to have to pay a little for it.”

Budget Slashed

The city budget for the next year has been cut by half, and some police officers have lost jobs. The city may have to fire its administrator and has tried to persuade county officials to take over the new park that Los Angeles money built in Delta. The groomed ball fields are nice, but the city can’t afford to pay the electric bill and upkeep of the lighted scoreboards.

“It’s very easy to go up in your standard of living, but to go back down it’s a real blow,” said Sue Dutson, publisher of the Millard County Chronicle and Progress.

There’s even a minority in town who wish the power project had not come at all. “If you figured out a way to make a little money on the plant, you’re pretty high on it,” Dutson said. “But we’re an austere people. In comes the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, spending money like the Shah of Iran. That was a little offensive to some people. We’re just damned tired of being told we’re a poor little farm town with no class.”

Originally, the Intermountain project was supposed to be built elsewhere in Utah. But the first site was close to Capitol Reef National Park, and objections by environmental activists forced the idea to be shelved.

The site near Delta was approved in 1979 as a compromise between the utilities and environmental groups. However, some activists say that it would never have won approval if Utah voters believed all the power was destined for California.

Local Resentment

“There’s always been murmurings about power plants being built in Utah for California,” said Alan Miller of the Sierra Club. “Since California can’t pollute its own air because it’s so bad, it’s looking for nice clean places to pollute.”

When the project was conceived in the early 1970s, nearly half of the electricity was set aside for Utah. Hopeful boosters expected a surge of growth from the MX missile system, and Intermountain was designed as the world’s largest coal-fired power plant to meet the demand.

But the MX program was canceled and the need for power in Utah plummeted. Intermountain’s output was cut in half by including only two huge generators instead of the four planned. But even at the new smaller scale, the 23 Utah utilities tap less than 5% of the power. The rest goes down the lines to Southern California--60% or more to Los Angeles, where more people live than in all of Utah and Nevada.

Intermountain largely completes Los Angeles’ strategy to reduce its burning of oil and natural gas, which emit nitrogen oxides and other sources of smog, in the Los Angeles Basin. The city has moved most of its power generating to the inland states of the West where coal is plentiful and the air cleaner.

Los Angeles receives about 20% of the output from a larger coal plant--the Navajo Power Project--in Page, Ariz., and the smaller Mohave project in southern Nevada. Although it once received 95% of its power from Hoover Dam, the fraction is now negligible.

The Intermountain Power Project

The Intermountain Generating Station burns seven trainloads of pulverized coal a week, about 61,000 tons, to generate 1600 megawatts of power near Delta, Utah.

The plant provides power to 30 Utah utilities and six Southern California cities. But nearly all of the power goes to California, more than 60% of it to Los Angeles.

Since the $5.5-billion project was completed last month, the city of Los Angeles has received about 30% of its power from IPP. The other California cities receiving power are Anaheim, Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena and Riverside.

The Intermountain Generating Station burns seven trainloads of pulverized coal a week, about 61,000 tons, to generate 1600 megawatts of power near Delta, Utah.

The plant provides power to 30 Utah utilities and six Southern California cities. But nearly all of the power goes to California, more than 60% of it to Los Angeles.

Since the $5.5-billion project was completed last month, the city of Los Angeles has received about 30% of its power from IPP. The other California cities receiving power are Anaheim, Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena and Riverside.