The Moapa Band of Paiutes Indians said NV Energy submitted false reports to the state of Nevada on ambient particulate pollution levels around the Reid Gardner plant from at least 2006 through early 2011, according to a statement released by the tribe on Wednesday.
Plants must report their pollution levels to the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection to keep their air quality permits.
The Paiutes have long complained about the neighbouring plant and filed a 60-day notice of Clean Air Act violations on Wednesday to the Environmental Protection Agency, Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval, NDEP and NV Energy.
NV Energy responded with a statement saying that irregularities were identified by NDEP in 2011 but were immediately investigated and did not threaten the plant’s compliance with the Clean Air Act.
“In the summer of 2011, the NDEP discovered irregularities in a report filed by a third-party vendor regarding certain ambient air quality data at the Reid Gardner facility,” the statement said.
“As soon as those irregularities came to our attention, NV Energy launched a joint investigation with NDEP regarding the vendor.
“It is essential to note that the data in question is utilized for air shed modelling and is not relied upon for compliance purposes.”
NDEP also released a statement confirming it had no evidence of “falsified documents” but did confirm the 2011 irregularity.
“During the five-year review of data collected from meteorological and ambient air quality monitoring (2006-2010), problems with PM10 data collected and recorded by a third party contractor for NVE were discovered and corrected,” NDEP said in a statement.
“This data is not required to demonstrate compliance with environmental standards. This data is used by NDEP for regional air shed modelling for resource management purposes.”
The 557-megawatt plant 55 miles northeast of Las Vegas has been under attack from the Paiutes for years.
The group argues that its tribe members living on land adjacent to the plant have been sickened by pollution.
The Reid Gardner plant, built in the 1960s and ‘70s, is one of two remaining NV Energy coal plants in Nevada.
