The National Park Service has come out against the giant coal-fired electrical generating plant planned for north of Ely, Nevada. Now it and majority leader Harry Reid are in opposition as well as it appear local residents.
Park Service: Ely, Nevada coal-fired power plant plan ‘unacceptable‘. Elko Daily Free Press.
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
That is great news about the Park Service speaking out against the coal plant. The Ely area really has some of the clearest air left anywhere.
The whole area outside the Park, too, is nationally significant for that reason alone. Ely has grown enough with retirees and others seeking a quality of life – no “we need the coal plant or the area will collapse” argument can be made.
There are large utility corridors proposed for the region that are of concern as well – SWIP – based on an old Idaho Power EIS from the early 1990s that they are trying push through. There is no need for these huge transmission corridors acrossv hundreds of miles of lands to promote siting of remote energy production facilities.
Now it’s time for Harry Reid to introduce new legislation to stop the awful Las Vegas (SNWA) water mining pipelines that his Lincoln County Wilderness Bill be punched northward into Spring Valley right by Great Basin National Park and into other areas near Ely that will deplete scarce spring and ground water aquifers. Las Vegas (SNWA) has bought out nearly all the ranches and now holds public lands grazing permits over large areas. They are poised to suck the aquifer dry and further desertify the basins and ranges with public lands grazing. I also understand that some of the grazing permits associated with base properties that they have bought include domestic shep permits (El Tejon – a major sheep operation based in Bakersfield but that runs sheep across much of central Nevada or others)
Time for all parties to realize the pipelines, like the mega-coal polluters to turn central Nevada into an energy province for Las Vegas are a big mistake. And that water conservation and taking care of watersheds across the region should be first and foremost. Time for Las Vegas (SNWA) to retire the public lands grazing permits and start on that path. It could be part of the “compensation” / mitigation for the global warming gases Sin City generates …