By JOHN G. EDWARDS

REVIEW-JOURNAL

A deal reached earlier this month to restart the Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin using coal from a mine on lands of the Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribes has collapsed.

A confidential document dated March 7 was leaked to the news media, sources said, and outlined a tentative agreement on nonfinancial terms.

However, "the March 7 document is no longer current to these discussions," said Gil Alexander, a spokesman of Southern California Edison, majority owner of the plant.

Nevada Power is a minority owner in the Mohave plant.

Meanwhile, Edison advised the California Public Utilities Commission that the 1,580-megawatt plant probably could not reopen for another four years. To comply with a court order, the Mohave plant must have about $500 million in pollution-reduction equipment before it resumes operation.

The owners shut the plant Dec. 31 because that was the deadline for having the pollution- reduction equipment installed or closing the plant, even if only temporarily.

Roberto Denis, senior vice president of Nevada Power parent Sierra Pacific Resources, said: "The restoration of the plant at this juncture faces some serious hurdles that must be overcome."

The plant cannot be equipped with pollution-control equipment until Mohave owners have a long-term contract for coal and water to use in a new coal slurry line, he said. The line would carry the coal from the Indian reservations in northeast Arizona to the Laughlin plant.