Some Navajos oppose plant on reservation

By Susan Montoya Bryan

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - With population swelling across the West, supporters of a proposed coal-fired power plant on the Navajo Nation reservation say the thirst for electricity is becoming too much for existing plants.

"We‘re the ones who have to have all the health problems and we‘re going to be the ones who have all the pollution," Nadine Padilla of the Sacred Alliance for Grassroots Equality Council said Thursday at a news conference before a public hearing on the project. "And for what? For Phoenix and Las Vegas to have electricity?"

The tribe‘s power authority and Sithe have touted Desert Rock as the cleanest coal-burning plant in the nation and a much-needed source of jobs and revenue for the Navajo Nation, where unemployment hovers around 50 percent.

But Padilla and representatives from a host of environmental groups are urging leaders around the nation to look to renewable resources, such as wind and solar energy, to produce electricity.

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