Down and Dirty
Opponents of the Desert Rock Power Plant say it's time to get over coal.
Photo by Robert F.W. Whitlock
Out on the Navajo reservation, which spreads some 17 million acres across New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, the unemployment rate has hovered around 50 percent for decades.
Poverty is endemic to the area, where jobs are few and far between, and meaningful economic development is difficult to imagine. In some communities, a third of the population lacks electricity; in others, water still needs to be hauled from pumps miles and miles away.
But if Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. gets his way, this remote area could soon become home to a massive coal-fired power plant that would supply energy to cities such as Las Vegas or Phoenix.
Read more at: http://www.sfreporter.com/stories/down_and_dirty/4332/
