http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/mar/09/power-plant-planned-mesquite-use-natural-gas-inste/

Mesquite power plant will use natural gas instead of coal

By Stephanie Tavares (contact)
Tuesday, March 9, 2010 | 5:15 p.m.

Mesquite Mayor Susan Holecheck is announcing tonight that the power plant planned for her city will be fueled with natural gas instead of coal.

Sithe Global Power planned to have the Toquop Energy Project completed and generating relatively cheap electricity by 2013. But the project ran into problems within months of announcing the switch to coal. Support for coal power in the U.S. Decreased amid growing environmental concerns and politicians began proposing a tax on greenhouse gas emissions.

Planned coal plants around the country, including two in Ely, fell to political pressure and worries that a carbon tax would make the coal plants unprofitable.

In 2008 the company backed out of its water supply contract, citing delays in permitting the project. By the end of that year, natural gas prices had stabilized as new forms of natural gas extraction became financially feasible, opening up vast new domestic supplies.

The announcement from Mesquite comes after all three of the company’s planned coal-fired power plans ran into major bureaucratic hurdles. A proposed coal power plant in New Mexico had its air quality permit rescinded by the EPA, another in Pennsylvania was rejected for a government backed loan guarantee and the Bureau of Land Management sat on the Environmental Impact Statement for the Toquop plant for months after it was expected to be released.

http://www.thespectrum.com/article/20100302/NEWS01/3020308

Toquop plant’s future still up in air

BY DAVID DEMILLE • DDEMILLE@THESPECTRUM.COM •

MARCH 2, 2010

ST. GEORGE – Backers of a coal-fired power plant proposed for construction north of Mesquite are still planning to build, but a long delay and rejected financing for another plant have opponents encouraged that the project could be dead.

The 300-megawatt Toquop plant proposal caused a controversy in Southern Utah two years ago, with a number of groups mobilizing to organize protests when Sithe Global Power announced it would build a coal-fired plant at the site rather than a natural gas plant, as originally planned.

The combination of opposition and market forces appears to have put the plant on hold indefinitely, as no updates have been reported for months. The Bureau of Land Management has still not provided an environmental impact statement for the project and several loose ends are still unresolved, such as where Sithe would get the water needed for such a plant, and who exactly would purchase the power.

Frank Maisano, a partner with Bracewell & Giuliani, which has represented Sithe in the past, said he could not comment on the project’s current status, and calls to Sithe representatives were not returned on Monday.

Last week, Sithe officials announced cancellation of plans for a coal-fired plant in Clearfield County, Penn., saying the federal government would not give them a guaranteed loan on the $600 million project.

Critics say coal-fired plants seem difficult to move forward in today’s market as environmental concerns, a sluggish economy and likelihood of regulatory legislation have stalled plans for such plants across the country.

Just a week before the announcement about the Pennsylvania plant, the U.S. Department of Energy approved $1.37 billion in loan guarantees for a massive solar project proposed by BrightSource Energy, to be built in California.

“It’s interesting to me that renewable energy is getting the loan, and a coal plant doesn’t,” said Michele Burkett, president of Defend Our Desert, an advocacy group based in Mesquite.

Susan Holycheck, the mayor of Mesquite where the city council voted to formally oppose the Toquop project, said she and others with the city have been trying to persuade Sithe to pursue renewable energy resources instead, touting the area’s potential for solar and wind and mentioning the possibility of a hybrid plant.

Part of the issue has been a lack of news lately, she said, as Sithe representatives haven’t spoken with city officials for months.

“The proposed plant is only about 12 miles away, and it would be nice if they kept us in the loop,” she said. “We hear nothing.”

Southern Utah’s advocacy groups have also maintained their opposition, planning to hand out awards later this month to people who have made efforts to stop the Toquop project. At a ceremony scheduled for March 25, Citizens for Dixie’s Future is set to recognize two mayors and two individuals with the James O. Kennon award Ð named after the recently-deceased crusader who spent nearly all of the last decade fighting another proposed coal-fired plant near Richfield.

“It’s a great opportunity to look at ourselves and say we’ve done a good job, but it’s not done yet,” said Jeff Feldman, president of CDF’s board of directors. “We need to continue it through until it’s done.”

http://www.gpace.org/?p=1190

From Nevada: Coal-fired Plant May Be Out of Steam Before It’s Up

Posted Mar. 1, 2010.

By Stephanie Tavares of the Las Vegas Sun

A controversial coal-fired power plant was supposed to be under construction near Mesquite by now.

Sithe Global Power planned to have the Toquop Energy Project generating relatively cheap electricity by 2013 so it could sell the power wholesale to Nevada and other Southwest states.

But the site remains empty, and many Mesquite officials, who haven’t heard from Sithe in months, figure the coal plant is not going to happen, Mayor Susan Holecheck says. Coal plant opponents such as the Sierra Club have sent out news releases predicting the plant’s demise.

If they’re right, Southern Nevadans might be able to breathe a little easier. The plants’ smokestacks would have released microscopic particles that studies have found can cause heart attacks, strokes and respiratory diseases hundreds and even thousands of miles away.

Opponents have many people to thank for keeping the coal plant on ice.

The Bureau of Land Management seems to be sitting on the plant’s environmental impact statement. Its release was expected months ago. The public-comment period, another prerequisite for BLM approval, can’t begin until that environmental assessment is released.

The developer has yet to explain where it will get the water it needs for Toquop.

Although Sithe Chief Operating Officer Thomas DeLeo maintains his company is not canceling the project, some experts say it will have to beat the odds to get built.
Plans for dozens of coal-fired power plants across the country, including two in Nevada, have been scuttled in recent years by permitting issues and costs.

“The proposed coal plants across the country are dropping like flies,” notes Utah Physicians for Healthy Environment President Brian Moench, whose group opposes coal plant development.

Energy experts and coal opponents say plants just don’t pencil out in today’s regulatory environment.

The cost of coal-fueled electricity is expected rise dramatically over the next few decades as mitigation requirements increase, air pollution standards get tougher and Congress mulls taxing greenhouse gas emissions.

“The cost of carbon is a significant one,” says Dan Bakal, director of electricity power programs for CERES, a nonprofit group that examines the economics of sustainability. “It’s still uncertain how much it might be or what the perimeters of climate policy are going to look like, but any developer should be assuming there will be a large cost of carbon over the life of the plant. That does have an impact on development.”

That makes other cleaner and less-controversial technologies economically competitive.

Speculation is that Toquop might be built, but fueled by natural gas rather than coal. Its first BLM environmental review was for a natural gas power plant. But in 2007, when the price of natural gas was fluctuating wildly, the company decided to go with coal instead.

What at the time seemed like an economically conservative move has since turned out to be a financial quagmire.

“The credit markets are still fairly cautious, and there is, for coal plants specifically, a higher level of concern and scrutiny than there has been,” Bakal says.

Meanwhile, natural gas prices have stabilized as extraction techniques became cheaper and new supplies opened up.

But switching to natural gas doesn’t resolve the question of who would buy electricity from Toquop.

The booming growth that was expected to create a market in the Southwest for Toquop’s electricity has gone bust. The recession and government-initiated energy conservation campaigns have resulted in decreased demand for electricity.

And in Nevada, NV Energy has been quietly assembling new or upgraded power plants that would be connected by a planned cross-state transmission line. The company expects to make the state energy independent soon.

Arizona and Utah have seen their growth, and therefore their energy needs, slow down.

California looks like Toquop’s best shot, but only if the plant uses natural gas. The Golden State has taken a stand against buying any more coal energy.

http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2010/02/coal-plant-fails-in-penn-navajos-hope_24.html

Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Coal Plant Fails in Penn., Navajos Hope Desert Rock is Next

COAL PLANT FAILS IN PENNSYLVANIA COAL COUNTRY

Health Risks and Controversy Remain At Sites on Navajo Nation And Nevada

Press statement
KARTHAUS, Penn. – An international energy developer financed by Wall Street equity firm The Blackstone Group has abandoned plans for a proposed 300-megawatt waste-coal power plant in rural Pennsylvania.

Sithe Global, which is also behind the proposed Toquop coal plant in Nevada and the Desert Rock plant on the Navajo reservation in New Mexico, announced Tuesday it was canceling its proposed $600 million River Hill plant near Karthaus, Penn. due to financing difficulties.

Progress on Sithe’s other two coal projects has also stalled as a result of permitting and financing difficulties and intense opposition from local communities who say the potential harm to their air, water and health far outweighs any economic benefits from the plants.

“We have suspected for a long time that the River Hill project was very tenuous at best,” said Randy Francisco, of the Sierra Club in Pennsylvania. “It says a lot about the viability of these dirty coal plant proposals when they can’t get taxpayer bailouts and they can’t make them pencil out even with the backing of a company with pockets as deep as Blackstone’s.”

Anna Frazier, coordinator of the Navajo group Diné CARE, said that Sithe’s proposed Desert Rock plant is also on equally shaky ground after suffering one setback after another over the past year. Desert Rock’s pollution permit was withdrawn by the EPA in Septermber, a permit for the transmission right-of-way needed to get the power to Southwest markets was overturned earlier in 2009, and the Department of Energy denied Sithe a request for $450 million in federal stimulus dollars late last year.

“The Navajo communities of Northwest New Mexico have always been opposed to Desert Rock, so we are encouraged by the cancellation of the River Hill project,” said Frazier. “In an area that is already under siege by pollution from fossil-fuel development, Desert Rock has been a six-year black hole that has wasted millions of dollars that could have been used to bring clean-energy projects to the Four Corners region.”

Sithe’s proposed Toquop plant near Mesquite, Nev., originally proposed as a natural gas-fired plant, also has been on the drawing board for years but still does not have a pollution permit or an approved BLM environmental impact analysis, and last year the project lost rights to water it needs for to operate.

“We’ve been trying to persuade Sithe for years to focus on developing Nevada’s vast solar and wind resources instead of outdated and dirty coal,” said Mesquite Mayor Susan Holecheck. “Hopefully, Sithe’s decision to abandon the Pennsylvania plant is a signal that we can soon put the nail in Toquop’s coffin, too, and get it out of the way for clean-energy jobs and economic development in Nevada.”

Tim Wagner
Program Director
Resource Media
150 S. 600 E. Suite 2B
Salt Lake City, UT 84105

Office: 801-364-1668
Mobile: 801-502-5450
www.resource-media.org

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50449

ENERGY: Coal-Fired Power on the Way Out?

Analysis by Lester R. Brown*

WASHINGTON, Feb 24, 2010 (IPS) – The past two years have witnessed the emergence of a powerful movement opposing the construction of new coal-fired power plants in the United States.

Initially led by environmental groups, both national and local, it has since been joined by prominent national political leaders and many state governors.

The principal reason for opposing coal plants is that they are changing the earth’s climate. There is also the effect of mercury emissions on health and the 23,600 U.S. deaths each year from power plant air pollution.

Over the last few years the coal industry has suffered one setback after another. The Sierra Club, which has kept a tally of proposed coal-fired power plants and their fates since 2000, reports that 123 plants have been defeated, with another 51 facing opposition in the courts.

Of the 231 plants being tracked, only 25 currently have a chance at gaining the permits necessary to begin construction and eventually come online. Building a coal plant may soon be impossible.

What began as a few local ripples of resistance to coal-fired power quickly evolved into a national tidal wave of grassroots opposition from environmental, health, farm, and community organisations. Despite a heavily funded ad campaign to promote so-called clean coal (one reminiscent of the tobacco industry’s earlier efforts to convince people that cigarettes were not unhealthy), the U.S. public is turning against coal. Read the rest of this entry »

http://www.wjactv.com/news/22648002/detail.html

Sithe Global -Clearfield County Waste Coal Plant Project Canceled

Posted: 3:49 pm EST February 23, 2010
Updated: 4:39 pm EST February 23, 2010

KARTHAUS, Pa. – A multimillion-dollar project to build a waste coal plant in Clearfield County has been canceled.
The project was projected to cost around $600 million and could have created around 60 jobs.

The plant was being developed by Sithe Global Power.

Company officials said the federal government wouldn’t give them a loan guarantee.
They added that the loan guarantee would have given them instant credibility with lenders.

The plant would have been built right outside the small community of Karthaus.

Residents said they sensed something was wrong when construction slowed at the plant site.
They added that the loss of the potential jobs is a big disappointment.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/feb/18/solar-plant-boulder-city-gets-29-million-grant/

Solar plant in Boulder City gets $2.9 million grant

By Stephanie Tavares (contact)
Published Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010 | 9 p.m.
Updated Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010 | 10:02 p.m.

The Spanish company that is expanding its Boulder City solar plant got a boost from the U.S. government recently when the Energy Department awarded it a $2.9 million grant, the Obama Administration announced tonight.

The grant for Acciona comes in lieu of the tax credit the company would have gotten for expanding its Boulder City solar plant. It is one of about 250 renewable energy projects that have qualified for grants in lieu of tax credits under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009. About 72 percent of those projects are solar energy projects. The Federal Government has promised $550 million in allocations for projects approved since applications opened in August.

Three other projects in Nevada are also getting the grants but they are all geothermal plants in the northern half of the state. Nevada Geothermal Energy’s Blue Moutain plant in Humboldt County is getting $57.9 million. Enel Green Power’s Salt Wells and Stillwater geothermal plants in Churchill County got a total of about $61.5 million.

The grants allow developers to recoup 30 percent of the cost of building a commercial renewable energy generator. The developer must apply for the program with the Department of Treasury, and if approved can get the money once the project is completed.

The grants help renewable energy developers who may not have had enough tax liability to actually get cash back under the old system, said Energy Department Spokeswoman Stephanie Mueller.

The program allows developers to get the money much earlier than if they waited for the investment tax credit on their tax return. The renewable energy industry had lobbied hard for the option after the bottom fell out of the banking industry and financing for renewable energy projects became difficult to acquire. The guaranteed cash in a grant programs makes multimillion-dollar renewable energy projects more palatable for lenders who are still hesitant to lend to solar and wind developers because of the risk involved. Much of the technology in new solar and wind plants hasn’t been widely developed, especially in the United States.

When it was completed in 2007 Nevada Solar One was the first solar power plant built in 17 years. It sparked interest in large-scale renewable energy development across the country. The 64-megawatt solar thermal power plant is the third largest solar power plant in the world.

Acciona in September expanded that plant, adding 40 solar troughs and increasing the electric output slightly.

CORRECTION: This story was updated to reflect that Acciona was not the first developer to finish a qualified project. | (February 19, 2010)

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/02/19/19greenwire-developer-proposes-30000-solar-dishes-in-calif-19323.html?pagewanted=all

Developer Proposes 30,000 Solar Dishes in Calif. Desert

By SCOTT STREATER of Greenwire

Published: February 19, 2010

Federal efforts to permit nearly a dozen large-scale solar-power projects in California by year’s end moved a significant step forward last week as the Bureau of Land Management rolled out a detailed environmental review for one of the largest plants proposed to date — a 750-megawatt concentrated solar facility in the Colorado Desert.

When completed, Stirling Energy System Inc.’s $2.2 billion Solar Two project is expected to include 30,000 solar dish systems across more than 6,100 acres of federal land — making it the largest project to move this far through the federal permitting process.

At full capacity, Solar Two could generate enough electricity to power more than a quarter-million homes, according to a draft environmental impact statement (pdf) (EIS) released last week by BLM and the California Energy Commission.

The proposed plant, in the Imperial Valley about 14 miles east of El Centro, is one of nine commercial-scale solar projects in California that the Interior Department has placed on a fast-track permitting schedule for 2010. Plants that break ground by the end of the year can qualify for lucrative stimulus grants under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The other two solar projects to reach the draft EIS stage are the Ivanpah Solar Energy Generating Station, a 400-megawatt solar power plant in the Mojave Desert near San Bernardino County, and the 45-megawatt Lucerne Valley Solar Project in San Bernardino County. BLM and CEC issued a draft EIS for BrightSource Energy Inc.’s Ivanpah project in November and Chevron Energy Solutions’ Lucerne Valley project this month.

Together, the nine fast-tracked solar projects have a total generation capacity of 4,580 megawatts — enough to power about 1.6 million homes, according to federal estimates.

A final EIS on Stirling’s Solar Two project should be completed in the next few months, said David Briery, a BLM spokesman in Sacramento.

Stirling has secured a 20-year power purchase agreement with San Diego Gas & Electric, and the electricity produced at Solar Two will power homes and businesses in the San Diego metropolitan area about 100 miles to the west. A 10.3-mile-long electricity transmission line would be built to help bring the power to market, according to the EIS.

“We’re expecting to have the permits in hand by late summer and to get this project into construction by the fall,” said Sean Gallagher, vice president for market strategy and regulatory affairs for Tessera Solar North America, Stirling Energy’s sister company involved in project planning. “It’s a big project and it’s a lot of work, and we’ve taken the approach of let’s cooperate and make sure we address everyone’s issues up front.”

Some of those issues involve environmental impacts, including questions about water availability in the arid Imperial Valley and potential impacts to species like flat-tailed horned lizards, burrowing owls and peninsular bighorn sheep.

Environmental groups monitoring the Solar Two project and other fast-tracked proposals in California say Stirling appears to be addressing such issues in a proactive and thoughtful manner. For example, 1,039 acres of the proposed project site are already disturbed and being used as BLM-sanctioned off-roading trails.

“I think Stirling Solar Two is … headed in the right direction,” said Kim Delfino, California program director for Defenders of Wildlife, a national conservation group. “I’m optimistic about the project.”

Overcoming resistance

Still, efforts to build large-scale solar projects in the Southern California desert have met resistance from environmentalists worried that the federal push to expand renewable energy will damage or destroy pristine natural resources.

A prime example is the Ivanpah Solar Energy Generating Station in the Mojave Desert.

BLM’s draft EIS for that project, released last November, concluded that with proper mitigation the Ivanpah plant would not cause significant harm to the 4,073 acres of undisturbed desert where it would be sited. But BLM also found that the project could destroy rare plants and permanently alter prized views from the nearby Mojave National Preserve, as well as potentially harm federally protected desert tortoises that would be relocated to make way for the project (Land Letter, Nov. 12, 2009).

Last week, BrightSource submitted a revised project plan that reduces the project size by 12 percent in an effort to trim the number of desert tortoises that must be relocated and to avoid an area of rare plants. The revision will also result in scaling back the amount of electricity capacity from 440 megawatts to 390 megawatts, according to the company (Greenwire, Feb. 12).

Environmental groups who have opposed BrightSource’s plans to locate the plant in the Ivanpah Valley were cautiously optimistic about the revised plan.

“I think from our perspective, we’re happy they are starting to work to address some of the issues we’ve been raising for more than year,” said Delfino, the Defenders of Wildlife official. “But our feeling is there is more work to be done. The project is still proposed in a high-density area for tortoises.”

Delfino said her group has pushed for BrightSource to move the proposed project closer to a nearby federal highway where there are fewer tortoises.

“No matter where you put this project, you’re going to impact tortoises. It is inevitable,” she said. “The question is are you going to impact lower-density or higher-density populations?”

Water is key

Meanwhile, Stirling Energy’s Solar Two project must address some big environmental questions, too, including nagging questions about water supply.

BLM’s analysis found that the project would require 10.4 million gallons of water annually to wash solar panels, provide dust control and support other plant operations.

But, the agency said, such a need could not be met by the region’s existing surface or groundwater.

“Water studies showed that the aquifer is significantly overdrafted and that new well permits are not being granted,” the draft EIS states.

There is, however, plenty of available wastewater, and Stirling has proposed a novel approach that could allow for the use of treated sewage water to meet its demand.

The treated wastewater would come from nearby Seeley, Calif., where Stirling would pay to upgrade the town’s wastewater treatment plant so that the water meets state requirements for reuse. The company would also pay to train plant operators to use the new equipment and build an 11.8-mile underground water pipeline to the plant, according to the EIS.

In addition, the company is working to reduce its water demand “by developing alternative mirror washing methods and schedules,” according to the EIS.

Wildlife concerns

Another concern cited by BLM is that the project would occupy a site that “supports a diversity of mammals, birds, and reptiles, including some special status wildlife species, such as flat-tailed horned lizard (FTHL) and burrowing owl.” The Fish and Wildlife Service is currently reviewing whether the lizard should be added to the federal Endangered Species List.

Rare desert bighorn sheep also occupied part of the project site as recently as last spring, but federal and state wildlife officials believe the sheep were “flushed” onto the property by off-road vehicles and do not normally use the area to forage or as a migration route.

Much of the 6,140 acres of BLM land, and another 300-acre parcel of privately owned land, would need to be graded to make way for the solar power systems.

BLM and the California Energy Commission, which are jointly handling the environmental assessment of the project, have proposed that Stirling purchase 6,619 acres “of habitat suitable for these listed species” to compensate for the loss of habitat at the project site. Including surveys and fees, the total cost for the mitigation would run $5.7 million, according to the EIS.

Gallagher, the Tessera Solar official, said BLM has identified several nearby inholdings — private parcels within federally managed land — that would be suitable to transfer lizards.

Lastly, the project would require two 2.5-million-gallon evaporation ponds to store wastewater, causing concern among regulators that the ponds will attract animals that prey on the flat-tailed horned lizard and other species. Stirling has proposed to build fences around the structures and overlay the ponds’ surface areas with netting to prevent predators from accessing them.

“We made a conscientious effort to take a responsible approach to the sizing of this project, and we’ve tried to work closely with the environmental groups to make sure that at least some of them can support this project,” Gallagher said.

Click here (pdf) to read the draft EIS.

Streater writes from Colorado Springs, Colo.

http://www.sacbee.com/702/story/2547537.html

New rules could affect coal-fired power plants

By JIM TANKERSLEY
Tribune Washington Bureau

Published: Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010 – 12:00 am

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration proposed new rules Thursday for how federal agencies should apply one of the nation’s signature environmental laws, a move that could affect construction of new coal-fired power plants and other government-approved projects that produce large amounts of greenhouse gases.
The White House Council on Environmental Quality announced the draft guidelines at an event celebrating the 40th anniversary of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires federal agencies to analyze potential environmental health impacts before approving major projects such as road construction.
The new guidelines set uniform standards, for the first time, on how federal agencies must consider the causes and effects of climate change as part of their environmental analyses. They require analyses under NEPA of the greenhouse gas emissions of any project expected to emit the equivalent of at least 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year – roughly 4,600 cars’ worth of carbon.

They instruct federal agencies to “consider opportunities to reduce (greenhouse gas) emissions caused by proposed Federal actions” and “use the NEPA process to reduce vulnerability to climate change impacts, adapt to changes in our environment, and mitigate the impacts of Federal agency actions that are exacerbated by climate change.”

Among the types of projects that could be affected by the proposal, according to the proposal: large-scale landfills, coal-fired power plants and coal mines that give off methane.

The analyses of climate impacts would not necessarily affect the fate of a plant or a mine. White House officials stress the rules are not meant to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Still, after analyzing a project, federal officials could decide they need to reduce its associated greenhouse gas emissions. In that case, the guidelines suggest several steps that, at present, could increase the up-front cost of the project – installing carbon capture and sequestration technology on a coal plant, for example, or capturing methane as it escapes from a mine shaft.

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_14392177

Power plant opponent fighting to the end

Jim Kennon » Retiree led group that has foiled plans nearly a decade.

By Judy Fahys
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 02/12/2010 05:10:19 PM MST

Jim Kennon, front, and Dick Cumiskey stand outside their… (FILE PHOTO / Salt Lake Tribune)

Jim Kennon hoisted an oxygen tank with him as he trudged forward to address the Utah Supreme Court more than a year ago as part of his battle with regulators and energy executives over a proposed coal-fired power plant in Sevier Valley.

Now, with his health declining rapidly, Kennon has been making arrangements lately for the future of the power-plant fight without him.

“It’s going to leave an empty spot, unfortunately,” he said.

Kennon’s liver and lungs are failing. His wife of nearly 49 years, Carolyn, said Thursday that he had already outlived the doctor’s prognosis by two days. Troubled by “bad breathing” when the couple retired to Koosharem, she was the inspiration for her husband’s activism and the now-active group that sprouted out of it, Sevier Citizens for Clean Air and Water.

As recently as last spring, Kennon was determined to outlive plans for the plant, a 270-megawatt generator that opponents complained would belch pollution into the farming valley and put 80 coal and lime trucks on local roads every day.

“Do I wish it was over? Yeah,” said the former firefighter and school teacher back in May. “A lot of people wish it was over.”

That was before the Supreme Court in December ruled in favor of power-plant opponents, partly based on assertions by nonattorney Kennon, and fellow power-plant opponent Dick Cumiskey, that the Utah Division of Air Quality had used a Post-it Note to extend the plant’s license rather than undertaking the in-depth review required by state law.

Cumiskey, also a retiree, has talked with Kennon on the phone daily in the past few weeks and drops by every few days. They have been strategizing as they try to anticipate the next move by power-plant advocates.

“There’s still a lot of unfinished business, unfortunately,” Cumiskey said.

On Wednesday, the Utah Valley Sierra Forum dropped by Kennon’s home to present the duo with its Earth Stewardship Award for efforts “to help the earth and greater good of all.”

“It’s really moving,” said Kennon, who has been fielding calls all week from supporters.

The Forum’s Jim Westwater said the award has been in the works for a while.

“They have been able to keep the air quality in the valley at a reasonably healthful level and they have largely prevailed,” Westwater said. “This [work by Kennon, Cumisky and the Sevier Citizens] is extraordinary. This is exemplary.”

Not too long ago, Kennon opted for hospice care rather than a liver transplant that might give him more time. Ever since, his home has been filled nonstop with family and friends.

Neighbors drop by with food. He has all but finalized his own funeral arrangements. The only thing that’s not exactly in order is what happens next in the power plant fight. He’s a bit uneasy about not being able to see the battle through to its conclusion.
“I pushed myself to the very end,” he said Thursday. “It has just been a great experience.”