WildEarth Guardians

Tuesday, May 31, 2011
WildEarth Guardians Files Suit to Protect Clean Air from PNM's San Juan Generating Station

Lawsuit Seeks to Overturn Air Pollution Permit for Coal-fired Power Plant
Contact: Jeremy Nichols (303) 573-4898 x 1303

San Juan County, New Mexico—WildEarth Guardians today filed suit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to overturn the air pollution permit allowing Public Service Company of New Mexico, or PNM, to operate the coal-fired San Juan Generating Station.

“This is about protecting our clean air from one of the largest and dirtiest sources of air pollution in the State,” said Jeremy Nichols, Climate and Energy Program Director for WildEarth Guardians.  “Importantly, this is about holding PNM accountable to keeping its air pollution in check.” 

The San Juan Generation Station is a 1,800 megawatt power plant located in northwestern New Mexico that every year releases thousands of tons of toxic air pollution from its smokestacks.  Consisting of four boilers, the plant releases more than 18,000 tons of smog forming nitrogen oxide gases, 51 pounds of mercury, and more than 13,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide—as much as is released by more than 2.3 million passenger vehicles.

It is estimated that every year the plant causes 33 premature deaths, 50 heart attacks, 600 asthma attacks, 21 cases of chronic bronchitis, and 31 asthma-related emergency room visits every year at a cost of more than $250 million (see Clean Air Task Force).

In November of 2010, WildEarth Guardians filed a petition with the Administrator of the EPA, calling on the agency to object to the New Mexico Environment Department’s proposal to renew the air pollution permit for the San Juan Generating Station. The petition challenged the failure of New Mexico to hold PNM accountable to installing up-to-date pollution controls at the plant, to ensuring accurate pollution monitoring, to reporting violations to the public, and to protecting ambient air quality in the region as required by the Clean Air Act.

“Plain and simple, the San Juan Generating Station is illegally spewing poisons into the air we breathe and worse, New Mexico’s permit condones this,” said Nichols. “Since the New Mexico Environment Department won’t protect people from the San Juan Generating Station, we will.”

The suit comes as the Environment Department is advancing a PNM proposal to retrofit the San Juan Generating Station with second-tier air pollution controls.  On June 1st and 2nd, the New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board will hear the proposal and likely adopt it.  The PNM proposal would reject an EPA plan to reduce emissions by more than 80%, instead opting to reduce harmful air pollution by only 20% from the power plant.  Although all indications are that the PNM proposal would be rejected by EPA, the Environment Department is continuing to push for a weaker clean air plan.

The air pollution permit for the San Juan Generating Station was proposed under Title V of the Clean Air Act.  Under Title V, permits must be written to ensure that sources of air pollution comply with all Clean Air Act requirements, including best available pollution control requirements. Under the Clean Air Act, best pollution controls are required whenever a major source of air pollution is constructed or modified.

In the case of the San Juan Generating Station, evidence shows that PNM constructed the facility, yet never installed the best pollution controls.  Since then, the plant has been modified, yet PNM continues to operate without up-to-date pollution controls.

Under Title V, citizens can petition the EPA Administrator to veto state-issued permits. The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to respond within 60 days to a petition. In this case, EPA’s response is long overdue, prompting WildEarth Guardians to file suit today in federal court in New Mexico.

If the petition is granted, New Mexico will have 90 days to prepare a new permit that brings the San Juan Generating Station into compliance. If it fails to do so, the San Juan Generating Station could not legally operate.