Power Plant Partly Owned by L.A. Implicated in Grand Canyon Haze

A coal-fired power plant partly owned by the city of Los Angeles and located just 16 miles from Grand Canyon National Park has “contributed significantly” to the wintertime haze that is obscuring visibility at the nation’s most popular scenic attraction, the National Academy of Sciences declared Thursday.

But the long-anticipated report, issued by a panel of academy experts, sidestepped the central question of whether the owners of the Navajo Station plant should be ordered to install pollution-control equipment that would cost more than $1 billion.

The proposed improvements would permanently boost the electrical bills of consumers, including customers of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Los Angeles relies on the power plant for about 13% of its electricity.

The fight over the 2,250-megawatt generating station erupted last year when the Environmental Protection Agency issued a draft order that would require the utility consortium that owns the plant to install sulfur dioxide scrubbers on its exhaust stacks.

The order sparked an intramural battle in which the Interior Department’s National Park Service, which blamed the plant for episodes of dense wintertime haze in the Grand Canyon, was pitted against the Bureau of Reclamation, a member of the ownership consortium.

Although the academy experts concluded that the plant contributes to the haze, they said that even the best available pollution-control technology would not resolve the problem because auto exhaust, ore smelters and other sources contribute to the impairment of visibility.

The ownership consortium, known as the Salt River Project, includes several private utilities as well as the Bureau of Reclamation and the Department of Water and Power.

Teri Morris, a spokeswoman for the Salt River Project, said the study confirms “what we’ve said all along: We contribute (to haze), but how significant is it?”

DWP officials said they had not seen the report and could not comment on the findings. “All along we’ve said we’ll look at the evidence and do the right thing,” said Ed Freudenberg, a spokesman for the department.

Although the independent study carefully avoided making a recommendation on the installation of exhaust scrubbers, the National Parks and Conservation Assn. was quick to urge the EPA to move forward with a final order.

“Two studies have now implicated the Salt River Project in the Grand Canyon’s visibility deterioration,” said the association’s president, Paul Pritchard. “The Salt River Project and its participants . . . have always voiced their concern for the Grand Canyon. Now it is time for the Salt River Project to put its money where its mouth is and put controls on the (Navajo Station’s) sulfur emissions.”

Utility officials have estimated that the controls envisioned by the EPA draft order, along with other abatement measures already in the works at the plant, would add $22 a year to a typical residential customer’s yearly electrical bill.

An early resolution of the deadlock appears unlikely. The EPA draft was referred to the Office of Management and Budget several months ago, and there has been no indication when that office will complete its assessment of the potential benefits of the proposed controls.

The House version of an omnibus clean-air bill under consideration by a House-Senate conference committee includes a provision directing the EPA to take steps to protect national parks and wilderness areas from visibility-obscuring haze.

Rep. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who sponsored the provision in the House, said the National Academy of Sciences report would improve its chances of being adopted by the conference committee, which is expected to complete work on the massive bill this weekend.

The academy experts, who were brought into the fight by Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr., were asked to review a $2-million study sponsored by the National Park Service, which had blamed the Grand Canyon pollution on the Navajo Station.

In their report, members of the panel confirmed the findings of the Park Service study, in which “tracers” that were added to Navajo Station exhaust emissions were detected in the Grand Canyon.

But the academy panel said the study had been unable to determine how much of the Grand Canyon’s haze problem is attributable to the power plant.