By JOHN G. EDWARDS

REVIEW-JOURNAL

The majority owner of Mohave Generating Station, a landmark in Laughlin for 30 years, will not continue efforts to reopen the power plant that was a source of inexpensive electricity for Southern Nevada and a major source of air pollution.

Southern California Edison on Monday said it "reluctantly decided not to move forward with our efforts to return" the plant to operation.

"After discussing this decision with our co-owners, all have agreed to jointly develop a plan for the plant's future," Edison said.

Nevada Power Co., the electric utility serving Southern Nevada, owns a 14 percent interest in the plant but said "it is not economically feasible to continue its own participation in the project."

The power plant was temporarily shut down at the end of last year, because the owners hadn't installed pollution-reduction equipment as required by a court order.

In 1999, the Mohave plant owners signed a consent order in federal court, promising to shut down the plant by 2005 if they had not installed equipment that would reduce pollution including sulfur dioxide, dust and nitrous oxide.

At the same time, the owners needed to negotiate new contracts with the Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribe, who own coal that was being mined in northeastern Arizona and shipped by slurry line to Laughlin. Edison continued to negotiate this year with the Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribe, who own the coal deposits, for a new coal contract. Edison also helped in efforts to find a new source of water to carry coal from the reservations in northeast Arizona to Laughlin. But those negotiations have ended now.

Before the temporary closing, the Laughlin power plant employed 308 workers. Southern California Edison, which owns 56 percent of Mohave and operates the plant, retained 224 workers to keep the generating facility in good shape should reopening it become possible.

A "substantial" reduction in jobs now is planned, but Edison did not specify the number of permanent job cuts. Mohave workers may find other jobs within the Edison company at another location, take a severance package or retire, according to Edison.

Nevada Power doesn't anticipate any major impact on its operations because of Mohave's closing.

Since 2003, Nevada Power has been planning on the plant to close, said Roberto Denis, senior vice president of Nevada Power parent Sierra Pacific Resources.

Those plans were based on Nevada Power's belief that the owners did not have time to complete pollution-reduction equipment and recover the cost of that equipment before a river water allocation ends in 2026, Denis said.

In February, Nevada Power estimated that it would have saved $93 million by continuing to use its share of electricity from Mohave this year, because Mohave burns coal, which is less expensive than natural gas. However, the projected cost savings from Mohave would be lower if they were recalculated today because natural gas prices have declined, Denis said.

In addition, Denis pointed out that the higher cost of electricity from gas-fired plants is already in Nevada Power rates and won't result in a later increase in Nevada Power rates.

The plant closing means that the Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribe will no longer get royalty payments from coal mined on their land in northeastern Arizona and shipped by slurry line to Laughlin. In addition, the tribes, which already have high unemployment, lost jobs.

Yet, the plant closing could benefit Southern Nevada in a couple of ways. The plant closing will reduce some of the haze over the Grand Canyon and will reduce air pollution in the Laughlin area, said Rob Smith, southwest representative of the Sierra Club.

He said Mohave was the last power plant in the West that was operating without air pollution reduction equipment.

The Mohave plant is allocated up to 19,000 acre feet of water yearly from the Colorado River until 2026. It used 13,000 acre feet last year, but the allocation has been available to the Southern Nevada Water Authority since the temporary closing, said water authority spokesman J.C. Davis. An acre foot of water is enough to cover one acre and be one foot deep.

In addition, closing the plant will enable the owners to sell sulfur-dioxide credits to another polluter, such as an industrial plant, because Mohave will no longer be emitting sulfur dioxide. Nevada Power did not have an estimate of how much it might receive from selling those credits.

The Sierra Club's Smith wants the utilities, which include the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Salt River Project, to use that revenue to build solar and wind power on the Indian reservations.

That does not seem likely, based on comments from two Mohave owners. Under Nevada's renewable energy law, Nevada Power must obtain renewable power such as wind or solar power from locations within the state in order to get credit for the renewable power, Denis said.

Nor does it appear that state officials would agree to use the revenue for the benefit of out-of-state residents.

"Any revenue derived from any sulfur dioxide credit would inure to the benefit of (utility customers) who have borne the cost of these facilities for the past 35 years," Denis said. "We would expect that the consumers are the ones that would receive this benefit."

Richard Rosenblum, senior vice president of Southern California Edison, made a similar comment. The sulfur dioxide credits are "really assets that our customers own," Rosenblum said.

Sierra's Smith suggested that solar and wind power could be shipped to Southern California over existing transmission lines. Solar plants and wind farms on the Indian reservations "would not be cost-effective compared to building them closer in," Rosenblum said.

Edison weighed multiple factors before deciding to drop efforts to reopen Mohave, Rosenblum said.

"There were many, many issues we faced in trying to bring Mohave back to service," he said.

Mohave, for example, needed to obtain water from a new underground source to carry coal from the Indian reservations to the plant site. Mohave owners had differing perspectives on the plant, he said.

Also, California has a new policy that leaves doubt about Edison's ability to resume to using power from a conventional coal- fired plant.

While two or three of the tough issues could be resolved, "it was unrealistic to believe we could overcome all of these issues." Rosenblum said. "In some sense, we simply ran out of time."

Rosenblum said he hopes that another company will buy Mohave and make improvements needed to resume operations. Nevada Power tried to sell the plant in 2001, but the Nevada Legislature refused to allow the utility to sell plants at that time because of the Western energy crisis.