LaPahe: Bar the media
EDC member unsuccessful in attempt to hold meeting behind closed doors

By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

ST. MICHAELS — Fearing distortions by the media on issues regarding the Desert Rock Energy Project, Economic Development Committee member Tom LaPahe made an unsuccessful attempt Friday to send a joint committee meeting into executive session for a status report by Diné Power Authority's Steven Begay.

LaPahe, a council delegate from Tachee/Blue Gap/Whippoorwill, told Economic Development and Resources Committee members, "This is a very critical meeting. I'd rather have just the committees by themselves. I don't want to have the information out there that says something other than what will be discussed."

"There were several occasions where this kind of reporting was made regarding this issue and when it came out in the news media, it was distorted. That's why I'm going to raise that concern. If we're going to do it, let's do it. ... Let's speak one-to-one and hear this report like that," LaPahe said.

The motion for executive session was seconded by Harry Goldtooth, council delegate for Coalmine Canyon/Toh Nanees Dizi chapters.

Diné Power's Begay said while some of the information might be sensitive, he preferred to keep the meeting open until those questions arose. "But I'd like to give a status on both the normal project activities that we have and some of the sensitive items that have come up lately that we don't want to get blown out of proportion," Begay said.

Resources Committee member Larry Noble, who represents Jeddito/Steamboat/Low Mountain chapters, said, "The only concern I have is this is a public meeting of both joint committees. ... Are we hiding something? Are we trying to squeeze through something that we don't want somebody to know about?"

The motion for executive session failed 4-7.

Diné Power Authority currently derives funding from three sources, according to Begay.

"We are funded by the Nation. We are also funded to some extent by the federal government Department of Energy, and also are receiving some payments from Sithe during the development period that we have," he said.

Sithe Global LLC, with offices in Houston and New York, became the developer of the Desert Rock project last September when it bought the Texas subsidiary of the German power company, STEAG, along with the Desert Rock project.

Dirk Straussfeld, senior vice president of Sithe Global, formerly was president of STEAG Power. Straussfeld said Friday that the old management of Sithe Energies is basically Sithe Global. The Houston-based STEAG Power planned to build a 1,500-megawatt plant near Farmington to sell power to customers in fast-growing cities in Nevada and Southern California, according to Trans-Elect Inc., the Reston, Va., company developing the transmission line.

The electricity would be shipped from a substation near Shiprock to the Marketplace Substation south of Las Vegas. Connections near Flagstaff and Marketplace also would allow power to be shipped to Phoenix, Las Vegas and Southern California.

Making money
Begay said DPA is beginning to make "a little bit of money" and requested the continued support of the two committees for funding from the Nation. "We are in the middle of the development period. ... We will be continuing to work on getting the land withdrawals which we hope to get in the next few weeks."

"We have an agreement in principle on the water that has been signed by Sithe and DPA, by the division director for Natural Resources, Arvin Trujillo, and as I understand, it will be signed by the Attorney General either today (Friday), or it might have been done yesterday, and the last signature will come from the president," Begay said.

"With that, that initiates the application for a master water use permit, and our anchor source right now is the groundwater. We're working with Sithe on both the Desert Rock Energy Project and the development of segment one of the Navajo Transmission Project just to build the line," he said.

Ownership of the line will be determined later, as it is built, he said. "There is the possibility that there may be other line owners that may own the line along with DPA." He said Diné Power officials will be meeting this Thursday in Washington with New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici.

"We'll be attending his coal symposium, which the technology is incorporated into the design of Desert Rock Energy Project," Begay said, emphasizing that Desert Rock would be 10 times cleaner than the 30- to 40-year-old plants in the Four Corners area.

It is hoped that financing of the project will be completed in about a year, he said, adding that it could take up to 16 months to finish the Environmental Impact Statement process which kicked off in November with the first round of scoping meetings.

A second round is tentatively set for the end of this month, pending publication of a notice in the Federal Register. "Fifteen days after that is when the public hearings would start, by law," he said. "It's been a struggle to get the Secretary of the Interior to send that to the Federal Register; so we've been in a waiting phase for that. Some of these things that are delaying the project aren't really something we have control over, but we're trying to do the best we can."

Water works
In addition to Diné Power reaching an agreement in principle with Sithe Global on the water Sithe reportedly would pay DPA $500 an acre foot the agreement would lead to initiation of the master water supply permit from the Nation. Begay said DPA has been working with the Department of Water Resources, the Division of Natural Resources and the Department of Justice. "Once we get the president's signature ... then we would want to work on the water use."

He said DPA also has a confidentiality agreement with Navajo Agricultural Products Industry and an agreement to start looking at water infrastructure, including the canal system run by Navajo Indian Irrigation Project (NIIP).

Begay said DPA would look at NIIP's existing infrastructure and the volume of water the system can handle to determine whether it can be used or whether a new line can extend the system to carry water to the power plant.

Resources Committee member Norman John II of Twin Lakes Chapter said DPA is looking to get its water from NIIP, however, due to pending federal legislation to settle the Navajo Nation's claims to water in the San Juan River Basin, "If it doesn't happen, I think we're going to look at the groundwater. This agreement in principle, the water is actually in the ground."

Begay said that if DPA uses surface water for the project, "it would be easiest if the settlement is passed and then we work with the Nation-only on the water. If we try to use the NIIP water now ... we're going to need to get the Secretary of Interior to sign off on any of this water use that's going through the NIIP system toward NAPI."

"To use some of that agricultural-use water for industrial purposes, we would need to go through the whole nine yards and possibly go to Congress and get a change in the law by Congress and then get secretarial approval as well as doing hydrologic studies," Begay explained.

"But if we do groundwater, then if we use water that is not impacted if it's like 5,000 feet (down) and there's really no impact on the surface tributaries then we can probably work with the Nation only on that water. But if we use near-surface aquifers, there may be some impact on the surface water that comes into the San Juan Basin. So there's some technical things that we're still trying to find out information on," he said.

Unlike now, according to the proposed San Juan water settlement, the amount of NIIP water that could be used for municipal and industrial purposes is unlimited. Sithe plans to have 600 acres of land withdrawn for the 160-acre Desert Rock plant. The land currently is classified for grazing, but would be reclassified for municipal and industrial use under the planned land withdrawal.