FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Conservation Groups File Suit to Protect Four Corners Air

Contact:
        Matt Kenna, Western Environmental Law Center,
        (970) 385-6941, kenna@westernlaw.org

        Rob Smith, Sierra Club, (602) 254‑8362,    
        rob.smith@sierraclub.org

        Calvin Johnson, Diné for the C-Aquifer,
        (928) 814-1475, caljohnson2006@yahoo.com

Conservation Groups File Suit to Protect Four Corners Air

DURANGO, Colo. -  A coalition of health and conservation groups from the Navajo Nation and around the Four Corners filed suit on July 6th over an EPA-issued "Federal Implementation Plan" for the Four Corners Power Plant on Navajo tribal land in northwestern New Mexico.  While such plans are intended to reduce pollution and protect the health of local residents, the EPA admits that this plan simply establishes existing emissions from the power plant, without any assessment of efforts necessary to protect the health of Navajo tribal members and other peoples in the Four Corners region.  The suit was filed by Diné CARE, the Sierra Club, Diné for the C-Aquifer, and San Juan Citizens Alliance, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Denver.

Matt Kenna of the Western Environmental Law Center in Durango, Colorado is representing the groups challenging the EPA’s plan.  As stated by Kenna, "The Clean Air Act charges EPA with protecting the health of people who live near large pollution sources like power plants.  Yet this plan does nothing but codify the status quo, which causes asthma in Navajo and other children, and impairs visibility in Mesa Verde National Park and the entire region.  This is unacceptable, and the EPA needs to issue a plan that makes the air cleaner."

 Calvin Johnson of Diné for the C-Aquifer had this to say: "Pollution affects everyone no matter what race, color, gender or creed they are. This includes all other living things that can't speak for themselves. Global warming and diseases caused by these power plants are going to keep killing and that's why we have to take action now before it's too late."  "The Four Corners area has a nationally recognized and shameful reputation for the level of pollution generated by its power plants," said Robb Thomson with the Sierra Club in New Mexico. "The San Juan power plant is cleaning up, but the Four Corners power plant continues to pollute, and the people of the region will continue to pay for this with bad respiratory health due to the high levels of ozone and mercury contamination."

 As stated in a report issued by New Mexico Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission of Civil Rights, "There are serious issues concerning environmental health in San Juan County. In combination, automobiles, power plants, and the oil and gas industry are producing nitrous oxides (a precursor to smog). Asthma is a major disease in the region, for which Shiprock has among the highest rates in the nation. One factor contributing to asthma is smog."  Farmington, New Mexico has one of the fastest growing rates of childhood asthma in the nation, and the New Mexico Department of Health has stated that "[c]hildren living in communities with higher concentrations of acid vapor, ozone, NO2 and particulate matter have significantly reduced lung growth and development."

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