Colorado’s governor and attorney general pledged Monday to work to reduce air pollution in the Four Corners region after a state lawmaker asked for help resolving a decades-old dispute over emissions from a power plant on American Indian land.
Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter and Republican Attorney General John Suthers told the Environmental Protection Agency that ozone problems in San Juan County, N.M., could be mitigated with pollution controls at the plant on the Navajo Reservation.
Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, asked state officials for help last week, saying pollution has crossed into southwestern Colorado.
Ritter urged the EPA to reconsider its decision to permit the proposed Des ert Rock power plant and also asked the EPA to require the installation of emissions controls at the existing Four Corners Power Plant nearby.
A spokesman for Arizona Public Service, one of the owners of the plant, didn’t immediately return a call Monday.
The Associated Press
