Biggest coal-fired plant in Western U.S. to close, hurting job prospects for Navajo and Hopi employees

The Navajo Generating Station, the largest coal-fired power plant in the Western U.S., will close in December 2019 unless a buyer can be found. Salt River Project, the utility that owns the 2,250-megawatt plant, said the closure was because producing electricity from natural gas is cleaner and cheaper.

"Navajo leaders are scrambling to find a new owner," Laurel Morales reports for Arizona State University's Cronkite News. "Officials with the Hopi Tribe have asked the federal government to buy electricity from the plant to avoid a shutdown. The Hopi Nation lies within the vast Navajo Nation, and both tribes have relied heavily on the coal industry for the past 40 years."

The plant's closure will strike a deep blow to the tribes: its 500 jobs pay better than any other nearby, and revenue, taxes and royalties from coal make up most of the Hopi budget and a third of the Navajo operating budget, Morales reports. About half the Navajos on the reservation are unemployed.

About a third of the plant's employees have taken jobs in Phoenix with the Salt River Project. Jerry Williams, who has worked at the plant for 38 years, told Morales that some people turned their job offers down: "A couple of them I know are close to retirement. And some of them, they have families, they have kids here in the school system and some of them have property they bought here."