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September 3, 2013

Pam Castañeda, Board Administrator Office of the Environmental Improvement Board Harold Runnels Building 1190 St. Francis Dr., Room N2150 Santa Fe, NM 87505 Phone: (505) 827-2425, Fax (505) 827-2836 pam.castaneda@state.nm.us

Re: New Mexico’s Regional Haze Alternative for San Juan Generating

Station

Dear Ms. Castañeda:

Diné Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment, National Parks Conservation Association, San Juan Citizens Alliance and Sierra Club (collec tively “Groups”) are encouraged by the environmental benefits offered by the agr eement-in-principle between EPA, the State of New Mexico, and PNM to retire two of San Juan Generating Station’s (“Sa n Juan”) old, dirty coal-fired units. Yet, as explained by the Na tional Park Service (“NPS”) in its attached comments, the agreement-in-principle is weaker than EPA’s Best Available Retrofit Technology (“BART”) determination in its Federal Implementation Plan (“FIP”), which is currently the effective regional haze plan for San Juan. With re spect to the four Class I areas that are most impacted by San Juan’s pollution (Arches, Canyonlands, Mesa Verde, and Weminuche), 1 the difference in visibility benefit between the FIP and the agreement-in-principle is particularly stark. As a result of its inferior visibility outcome, the agreement-in-principle does not satisfy the Clean Air Act (“Act”).

The Act requires any regional haze alternative to outperform BART. 2 An alternative to BART is acceptable only if modeling demonstrat es that “greater reasonable progress” is achieved, based on the following two criteria:

1 San Juan impairs visibility in sixteen separate Class I areas.

2 40 C.F.R. § 51.308(e)(3).Pam Castañeda September 3, 2013 Page 2 of 3

(i) Visibility does not dec line in any Class I Area, and

(ii) There is an overall improvement in visibility, determined by comparing the average differences between BART and th e alternative over a ll affected Class I

areas. 3

Unfortunately, the State’s own m odeling shows that the agreement-in-principle does not satisfy these criteria. Adding to this overarching concern are the State’s errors in its technical analysis.

As NPS concludes in its attached comments:

 The State significantly overestimated the cost of SCR

 The State’s visibility modeling analysis wa s not done according to the BART Guidelines.

 The visibility modeling anal ysis does not demonstrate th at the 2 SNCR/2 unit shutdown

alternative is “b etter-than-BART.”

 Without additional SO 2 or NOx reductions beyond those proposed in the agreement-inprinciple, the National Park Serv ice does not agree that the Stat e Alternative is better than

the BART determination in EPA’s FIP.

See NPS July 24, 2013 Comments to New Mexico E nvironment Department (NMED) Regarding

Best Available Retrofit Technol ogy (BART) for the San Juan Gene rating Station (SJGS) at 7.

Fortunately, NPS offers a numb er of feasible and cost-effect ive options to cure the abovementioned legal and technical deficiencies in the agreement-in-principle, including the imposition of lower SO 2 and NOx limits on San Juan’s remaining two units. The Groups support these recommendations and also urge the State to consider greater investment in energy efficiency and clean, renewable energy as replac ement power for the two retired units. On this point, we note considerable concern with the ag reement-in-principle’s commitment to a natural gas-fired combustion turbine but failure to make any corresponding commitment to energy efficiency and clean, renewable energy. This unbala nced approach eliminat es the possibility of more economical, and environmentally beneficial, replacement power alternatives that could and should be considered through more comp rehensive, transparent analysis.

3 40 C.F.R. §§ 51.308(e)(3)(i)-(ii).Pam Castañeda September 3, 2013 Page 3 of 3

Thank you for your consideration of our comm ents. As the agreement-in-principle works its way through the state and federal approval pro cesses, we remain committed to working with the State of New Mexico, EPA and PNM to reso lve these concerns in a manner that builds upon and improves the existing agreement, which represents an important—if insufficient—step

forward towards cleaner air for our nationa l parks as well as surrounding communities.

Sincerely,

____________________________ Suma Peesapati Erik Schlenker-Goodrich

cc: Bill Grantham

Rick Alvidrez

Dan Pinkston