![]() We don’t have a family anymore,'” she said, referring to bonds broken as Navajos search for jobs elsewhere. “One of them told me, ‘I don’t know who to be angry at for us having to do this. Sharon Clahchischilliage, once a teacher and a former New Mexico lawmaker, said people in her Navajo community near Shiprock are angry. “There’s culture, there’s traditions, and so it’s not easy.” “That’s what others don’t understand,” she said. It’s been heartbreaking for so many Navajos to consider leaving home, Aspaas said. And to make up for lost property tax revenue, she said, some families will have to pay up to seven times more. But some of those projects have been delayed due to supply chain problems, and others are on hold indefinitely amid historic inflation and other economic constraints.įresh off a night shift as an electrician at the mine for the neighboring Four Corners Power Plant, Christine Aspaas, a Central Consolidated School Board member, said even if those “green” jobs existed now, they would be temporary. Solar and battery storage projects are meant to eventually replace the capacity lost with San Juan’s shutdown and provide jobs during construction. When the wind blows just right, he said his community is hit with ash and coal dust.Ī state fund established by the energy law also includes $12 million for affected workers. ![]() Joe Ramone, a 69-year-old pipe welder who worked at San Juan, lives in a Navajo community not far from the Four Corners plant. They argue that power plant emissions and methane from the oilfields have caused health problems for residents. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who is running for reelection, has said the law represented a promise to future generations for a cleaner environment and new job opportunities.Įnvironmentalists have said the closure will reduce air and water pollution in a region that some have described as an industrial sacrifice zone. ![]() New Mexico’s Democratic leaders have celebrated the plant’s closure while touting a landmark 2019 law that pushes for a renewable energy economy. The median annual household income is about $20,000, and the unemployment rate hovers around 70%. The poverty rate within the district is four times the national level. Internet service is spotty or nonexistent, and many homes don’t have electricity or indoor plumbing. Some students ride a school bus for three hours round trip, arriving home well after sunset. Hundreds of jobs are evaporating along with tens of millions of dollars in annual tax revenue used to fund schools and a community college. Realities of shuttering the San Juan plant are setting in for surrounding communities, including the Navajo Nation, where poverty and joblessness already are exponentially higher than national averages. Just weeks ago, Hawaii’s last coal-fired power plant closed after 30 years, and more retirements are scheduled around the U.S. President Joe Biden also has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. It’s part of the latest wave of coal-burning units to be retired as New Mexico and other states try to fight climate change by requiring more carbon-free sources of electricity. The remaining workers will spend the coming weeks draining water from the plant, removing chemicals and preparing to tear down what has long been fixture on the high-desert horizon. The San Juan Generating Station burned its last bit of coal Thursday. The plant and mine had provided electricity to millions of people across the southwestern U.S. ![]() (AP) - The clamor of second graders breaking away from lessons to form lunch lines has gotten quieter in a rural New Mexico community, where families losing coal jobs have been forced to pack up and leave in search of work.Īt Judy Nelson Elementary, 1 in 4 students have left in an exodus spurred by decisions made five years ago to shutter a coal-fired power plant and mine that sit just up the road from the school in a largely Navajo community.
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