You may have heard that it’s getting more difficult to see the view in Grand Canyon National Park. The Department of the Interior first complained about the air quality there in 1985. It keeps getting worse. You’re looking at the reason why.
It turns out there is such a thing as a coal pipeline. This seems to me like such a bad idea I can barely get my mind around the fact that they actually build them. This one is currently the world’s largest, and it’s been in operation since 1970.
This is where the pipeline ends: At the the massive generating station and slurry ponds just over the border in Laughlin, Nevada. About half of the electricity from the Mohave Generating Station goes to Southern California. The other half goes to Las Vegas.
Connecting from the generating station to the Black Mesa Coal Mine on the Hopi reservation, a distance of 275 miles, is an 18-inch diameter pipeline for coal slurry: a mix of pulverized coal and water in a ratio of 1:1 by weight.
It starts here, at the Kayenta open pit mine, operated by Peabody, the largest coal company in the world. If you’ve visited the Hoover Dam, you’ve been only a few miles from this site. They probably didn’t mention it on the tour.
In 1967, Peabody Coal negotiated the mining rights to the Black Mesa with a Mormon named John Boyden, who represented the Hopi while himself secretly on the payroll of the coal company.
The Hopi sued in federal court to get the lease overturned, but the court ruled that the Hopi, in effectively suing themselves, were violating their tribe’s own sovereign immunity to lawsuit.
It’s almost unimaginable how much water this coal pipeline requires. The company admits to about 4000 acre-feet a year, but it’s probably higher: the Hopi agreed to almost unlimited water withdrawal from the aquifer, back in ’67. They have since rethought that agreement as their water dries up.
Four thousand acre-feet is around one and a half billion gallons, or six million tons of water. Every year. Since 1970.
All of that is fossil water pumped from the deep aquifer. None of the water is recovered. It’s grossly contaminated by the time the coal is ‘de-watered’ in the huge black slurry ponds at the end of the line.
Of course the mine itself, and the smokestacks at the generating station, and the mercury-laced alkali ash produced by the burning, are all environmental nightmares in their own right. But this pipe just freaks me out.
Thanks to Nat Vaprin.
Nice reporting job; perhaps the ‘sprolies’ could help support the Hopi.
Funny, the stuff you never hear about. It makes me seriously afraid and feeling highly uneducated. Thanks again.
Peace……….
I conducted research into coal-water slurry technology – looking at ways to improve flow characteristics etc and reduce pupming energy requirements.
I knew of the Black-Mesa pipeline because of it relevance to my work and obviously it surfaced in many citations in the literature.
The comments you make are sad and very typical of the way industry works. Its a sort of sympton of human attitudes and a spin off of capitalism as well.
Take the harvesting of whales for instance. About 20 years ago Research showed that whales could be sustainably harvested at a rate of 10% but at rates above 15% they would become totally exstinct. So what does the industry do? It takes whales at the maximum they can in order to maximise profits and share holder return. THis rate is above 15% and so the industry knows that it will drive the current whale population towards exstinction. This is a very common approach of the capitalist system – when the whales die out or the commodity is of no value anymore, they shift their capital to other industries or ventures. They carry their philosophy with them and the problems and destructive activities continue. Very sad state of affairs and in some areas it is getting worse with time
I worked on the coal pipeline which ran from Cadiz, Ohio to Eastlake, Ohio (CEI) in 1956. I worked as a “Holiday Inspector” It was my first time away from home. One of the most memorable times of my life.
If you would like to read more about this issue check out chapter 11 in “Water Follies” by Robert Glennon
Where can I find more information on the CEI pipeline that ran from Eatlake to Cadiz Ohio?
Thanks.
Rich Jordan
I laughed hardily at this piece of undeniable propaganda for a good full minute! First of all, the author seriously needs to research Arizona geography. The mine that USED TO fuel Mohave Gen. Station is at the very least 4-5 hours drive time away, no where NEAR the Hoover Dam. The supposed picture of the “Kayenta open pit mine” is NOT even close to the mine that USED TO supply the M.G.S. plant. In fact the picture that the author used to sway you all into believing is a mine, isn’t even a mine AT ALL!
Thank you for your entry. It has given me very much to think about. Thank you again!
Navajo Generating Station
The photos posted are of the Navajo Generating Station near page. The coal is hauled in.
Navajo Generating Station is a coal-fired powerplant with a power of 2280 megawatts located on the Navajo Indian Reservation, near Page, Arizona, USA. Navajo Generating Station has three 236 meter high chimneys, which are among the tallest structures in Arizona. This plant provides electrical power to customers in Arizona, Nevada, and California. It was assembled during the 1970s and began producing commercial power in 1975. The construction costs were about $650 million, with an additional $420 million for new environmental scrubbers, constructed during the 1990′s. The power plant is served by coal mined at the Kayenta Mine near Kayenta, Arizona, and hauled by the Black Mesa and Lake Powell railroad. The Kayenta mine ships about 8 million tons of coal each year to the power plant. Images of the plant are featured in the Godfrey Reggio film Koyaanisqatsi.
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