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MOAPA BAND OF PAIUTES

MOAPA RIVER INDIAN RESERVATION

BOX 340

MOAPA, NEVADA 89025

TELE PHON E {7 02) 865-27 87

FAX (702) 865-2875

May 30,2012

Lisa Jacks on, Administrator

U.S. EPA Headquarters

Ariel Rios Building

1200 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W.

Mail Code: l l0lA

Washington, DC 20460

Email : i ackson. Iisa(@epa. qqv

Re: EPA's Pending Final Decision with Respect to An Inadequate BART determination

forNV Energy's Coal-Fired Power Plant at Reid Gardner

Dear Administrator Jacksoq

I would like to follow up on the letter that I sent to you on April 3,2072 (please

see the attached) on behalf of the Moapa Band of Paiute Indians.

In that letter, I expressed concern that EPA's proposed Best Available Retrofit

Technology (BART) determination, pursuant to the Clean Air Act, was far too lax in its

imposition of controls on NV Energy's Reid Gardner Generating SAtion. This is a coal

plant that was sited directly adjacent to our community; its smoke stack-emissions, fly

ash contamination and associated additional pollution severely impact our community.

We have yet to hear back from you with respect to our April 3 letter. However,

since that time, we have met with several of your staffin Washington D.C. and

participated in your agency's hearings held on the Reservation and in Overton on May 3.

We appreciate your staffs expressions of interest and concem as well as their

willingness to travel to the Reservation to hear directly the concerns of our people.

Nearly a thfud of our entire community came out to testiff in defense of our children, our

people's very way of life, our health and the health of the entire region.
But the Tribe needs your direct engagement. We need it now.

NV Energy does what regulators permit it to do -- notwithstanding what is just,

what is good for public health, what is sustainable, and what is required for a relatively

stable climate system.

The problem here is that your agency to date has not extended the full measure of

protection under the law to our region and people. In particular, EPA has adopted a

notion of 'oincremental visibility improvement" that is not contemplated under the Clean

Air Act and whose application, under EPA's draft, disadvantages public health generally

and my people in particular.

Your agency has extended far more rigorous protection to people and visibility

values alike elsewhere -- but not here where the impact of this coal plant's pollution is so

direct and egregious. This is inconsistenl unwarranted, and unworthy of the US EPA. If

adopted, your proposal would constitute a grafuitous new act of environmental injustice.

Accordingly, we renew our invitation to you to visit to the Reservation. Please see

for yourself, without delay, how this coal plant's exceptionally close proximity to our

community center imposes a terrible toll on my people. This will help you to choose to

enforce the law in a way that enhances visibility and protects the people alike.

Thank you for your consideration. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Should you have any question, or should you wish to accept our invitation to visit the

Reservation, please contact our attorneyo Dan Galpem, at 541'968-7L64 or

galpern.tebbuttlaw @grnrnil. com.

Cc:

Harry Reid, Majority Leader of the United States Senate

N*cy Sutley, Chairwoman of the Council on Environmental Quality

Heather Zlkal, Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change

Sincerely,

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I{OAPA BAND OF PAIUTES

I,IOAPA RIVER INDIAN RESERVATION

BOx 340

UOAPA,NEVADA 89025

TELEPHONE 702. 865. 2787

FAX 702.865.2875

Apr|l3,2012

Lisa Jackson, Administrator

U.S. EPA Headquarters

Ariel Rios Building

1200 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W.

Mail Code: 1101A

Washington, DC 20460

Email: i ackson.lisa@epa. gov

Re: EPA's Unjust Proposal with Respect to Reid Gardner pollution

Dear Administrator Jackson,

I speak for the Moapa Band of Paiutes, a federally recognized Tribe within the plume and

downwind of NV Energy's Reid Gardner coal-fired power plant and associated facilities.

Let me note, at the outset, that the land and the air and water here were relatively clean

before the coal plant. But with NV Energy's arrival in our ancestral lands we have. for nearly six

decades, suffered from the unrelenting air, water, and dust pollution generated by this facility,

including the blowing coal ash and hydrogen sulfide gas pollution stemming, respectively, fiom

the Reid Gardner coal ash landfill and wastewater ponds.

Yesterday, Region 9 of EPA proposed a Best Available Control Technology (BART)

determination for Reid Gardner NOx pollution, pursuant to the Regional Haze Rule under the

Clean Air Act, that is inconsistent with the law, inconsistent with EPA's strong decisions

elsewhere (such as at the San Juan Generating Station in New Mexico), and contrary to the

environmental justice principles to which you have nominally given support. In particular, EPA's

proposed NOx limits allow pollution concentration levels several times greater than the limits

you have approved elsewhere.

It is clear now that Region 9 will not, on its own" grasp the opportunity to impose

stringent, cost-effective controls that will protect visibitity in the region and, as a critical

ancillary benefit, protect public health.
The Reid Gardner facility - including its coal ash landfill and its collection of wastewater

ponds - is adjacent to the Tribe, within a mile of its community center, and within aVz mile of

the closest homes of Tribal Members. The facility generates significant quantities of regional

haze pollution in Nevada and it imposes on Tribal members an overwhelming environmental and

public health burden. The impacts of the coal plant, coal ash dump, and the wastewater ponds, on

our community and on our way of life cannot be fully understood without coming to our

community and speaking with Tribal Members. Because of this, in September 2411, we invited

you to visit the Reservation and see for yourself. We hereby renew that invitation, in the hope

that you will visit well before making a final decision on BART.

We appealed to you late last year out of concern that Region 9 woutd not do the right

thing. Now, in the wake of the Region's submission to the coal plant and its rejection of the

minimal demands of public health, we again seek your engagement. As you stated in your letter

that commenced your Agency's Environmental Justice Plan2014, "every American deserves

clean air, water and land in the places where they live, work, play and leam."' We must ask you,

now: Are we, the Moapa, within your scope of concern? [f so, then for EPA to "[ead] by...

working for environmental justice,"' it is necessary for you to take back this proposed

determination.

Your Agency has acknowledged that breathing^ ozone reduces lung function, inflames the

lining of the lungs, and permanently scars lung tissue.' Accordingly, failure to impose the most

stringent cost effective controls will consign my people to unnecessary disease and early death.

This failure itself constitutes a renewed environmental injustice, one that compounds the damage

of decades of preventable pollution imposed on my people. Altematively, you can choose to act

firmly to meet Congress's visibility goals with the notable co-benefit of protecting public health

and honoring your Agency's long-standing environmental justice commitments.

We urge you take strong action, at long last. Please intervene to ensure that your Agency,

in crafting your final determination, upholds the law, protects the environment, and protects our

people fully.

Thank you for your consideration. We look forward to hearing from you soon. Should

you have any question, or should you wish to accept our invitation to visit the Reservation,

please contact our attorney, Dan Galpern, at 54I-359-3243, or galpern@westernlaw.org.

Sincerely. , 

/'

t Message from Administrator Jackson in Plan EJ 2014, found at http://www.epa.gov/compliance/ej/planejlindex.html.

'td.

3 http ://www .epa.gov / glo /hea lth.htm I

iam Anderson, Chai

oapa Band o[ Paiutes

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