Posted on 07/04/2002 12:30:29 PM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
A year after Clark County officials said Southern Nevada was in an energy crisis, air quality regulations might pull the plug on a proposed power plant.
The Diamond Generating Co. wants to build a power plant south of Las Vegas, near Goodsprings and the site of the county's planned airport.
Because the Ivanpah airport is expected to generate considerable air pollution from jetliners, cars and auxiliary uses, federal regulations may prohibit other projects from taking root in that area.
As a result, the airport will consume most of the remaining air quality credits allowed in that area, leaving very few for the development of a power plant, said Randy Walker, director of the county's Aviation Department.
"Not all of it's going to be able to be built and be within the air quality standards," Walker said. "We ought to have a master plan to show what should or what could be done in that valley."
Bill Davis, spokesman for Los Angeles-based Diamond Generating, couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday. The company was scheduled to request a zone change from the County Commission so it could move forward with its plans, but executives withdrew the request prior to Wednesday's meeting.
The county Aviation Department, meanwhile, received a zone change for construction of the new airport even though the regional facility isn't expected to be built for at least eight years.
The decision helped the airport clear another hurdle in getting the project approved by the county's Air Quality Management Department. Meanwhile, the power plant is still a step behind in a process that rewards the first in line.
"It (the zone change) is a significant milestone (for the airport), and it allows the airport to apply for air quality credits and allows them to lock up those air quality credits so future uses would not interfere," said Chuck Pulsipher, zoning administrator for the county.
Air Quality Management officials are reviewing both proposed projects, and are required to weigh them on a first-come, first-served basis.
Unless the commission changes the zoning to accommodate the power plant, air quality officials will no longer consider the project viable, said Carrie MacDougal, assistant director of the air quality department.
Diamond Generating is expected to appear before the commission next month to request the zone change, county officials said.
Enviro-whacko NIMBY extremists don't even want airports and clean-burning natural-gas fired power plants built in a Ghost Town in the middle of nowhere.
Not that it makes a helluva lotta sense to build this stuff where there's no people to service anyway.
Moroons. America is cursed with a population of absolute idiot moroons.
Seems like a better plan would put them over by the Colorado River where the Envirowacko's would have to find some Exotic Species to stop them!
They can stop them easily where they are currently trying based on air or depletion of the water aquifer.
Maybe they go go up by Yucca Mountain and help lower the water table that the envirowacko's are trying to use to stop the development of the DOE Radioactive Storage Facility!
What a game!
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