Defeat for Kaiparowits

Set in a wilderness of wind-carved rock, southern Utah's desolate Kaiparowits* Plateau is one of the most unspoiled places in the U.S. Now it seems likely to stay that way. For nearly 14 years a consortium of Western power companies has been seeking--over objections by environmentalists--to build a huge coal-fired plant on the plateau. Last week its campaign failed when two of the firms--Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric--informed Interior Secretary Thomas Kleppe that they were dropping, for the time being, their plans to build the plant.

It was an expensive defeat for the companies, which have sunk $22 million into promoting, researching and engineering the $3.5 billion installation. In the planning stage since 1962, the plant would have exploited the vast deposits of low-sulfur coal in southern Utah and, when fully operational, generated 3 million kilowatts for customers in Arizona and Southern California--enough power to meet the needs of some 3 million people. The project's demise is also a blow to the economy of Utah, which had envisioned the creation near the plant of a town of up to 15,000, additional payrolls of $100 million and tax revenues of $28 million.

Already Dirtied. But Kaiparowits looks like a major victory for environmentalists. The huge plant would have burned more than 1,000 tons of coal an hour, and environmental groups like the Sierra Club objected to the fact that its smokestacks would have spewed at least 300 tons of pollutants a day into the desert air, which is already being dirtied by other power plants in the area. The National Park Service agreed that the plant's emissions would harm the region; some 20% of the country's land managed by the National Park Service--including the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and Bryce, Zion, Grand Canyon and Capital Reef national parks--is located within 250 miles of the proposed plant site. Two weeks ago, in an action that probably hastened the consortium's decision, 31 members of Congress suggested even further delays in the plant's oft-stalled construction by formally asking Kleppe to withhold approval pending further study.

Michael McCloskey, executive director of the Sierra Club, was elated by the consortium's defeat. Said he: "Kaiparowits was a project at the wrong time and in the wrong place." Ironically, however, the Kaiparowits decision may work against environmentalists on another front. Deprived of coal power to meet growing energy demands, Southern California Edison, the largest member of the consortium, can now argue more convincingly for an alternative also opposed by the Sierra Club: more nuclear power plants.

* The name comes from a Paiute Indian word meaning "Mountain of Many People."

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