Expected job losses create worry in remote Utah town


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NAVAJO MOUNTAIN, San Juan County — The recent decision to shut down a huge coal-fired power plant at Lake Powell is sending shock waves along the Utah-Arizona border and into the most remote town in Utah.

"It's a place that's so beautiful and peaceful and quiet," said Ellouise Yazzie, a resident of the tiny town of Navajo Mountain.

The loss of jobs at the Navajo Generating Station in Page, Arizona — and at the Arizona coal mine that supplies it — could devastate an already hard-pressed region.

Navajo Mountain is a nearly two-hour drive from either workplace, but even so, it will likely feel some of the side effects.

The town has about 300 residents who are mostly members of the Navajo Nation. The community is nestled in the eastern slopes of a huge dome of volcanic rock — also known as Navajo Mountain — that looms over the south shore of Lake Powell.

To call the town "remote and hard to get to" is an understatement.

"There's only one way you can come in here and one way out," said longtime Navajo Mountain resident Kee Natoni.

In fact, a glance at a map shows it's impossible to drive to Navajo Mountain from anywhere else in Utah without traveling through quite a bit of Arizona.

To get there from the Utah capital requires eight or nine hours of driving, the last two hours of it in Arizona. A Utah driver would cross into Arizona at either Page, Arizona, or Mexican Hat in San Juan County and then drive a couple of hours on some of Arizona's most dramatically lonely highways before crossing the state line again into Utah.

The road to Navajo Mountain wasn't even fully paved until a couple of years ago.

The town itself is a collage of old and new. Traditional Navajo hogans sit side by side with modern homes. There's even a well-tended subdivision of up-to-date, single-family dwellings. All around the town are spectacular vistas of ancient sandstone.

Like many Navajos, Yazzie moved back to Navajo Mountain from the big city because, she said, it's a place "like a heart."

"Yeah, it's beautiful," Yazzie said. "It's just nice to live here, even though there's no store, no gas, no laundromat."

Her sister Ella came back, too.

"Just to be with my tribe," she said, "and just to help volunteer with the community."

Jobs have always been scarce around Navajo Mountain. Some residents travel long distances to work; others take up residences far away while supporting family members back home.

Plant worker Jerry Williams said there are "nine or 10" workers on the power plant's payroll who moved to Page from Navajo Mountain.

Williams himself is not from Navajo Mountain; he holds the office of Lechee Chapter president in a portion of the Navajo Nation near Page. But he said it's common for each job on the reservation to support many family members long distances away.

"We support our parents, our grandparents and other relatives," Williams said. "So … they are going to feel it" when the power plant shuts down.

Earlier this year, the utilities that own the coal-fired Navajo Generating Station voted to shut it down and demolish it, most likely at the end of 2019. The primary driver of the decision is the marketplace; natural gas prices have been falling for years.

"Today, those prices are at record lows and continue to drop," said Scott Harelson, a spokesman for one of the plant's owners, the Salt River Project. "Forecasts suggest that they will remain low for a considerable amount of time."

The result is that it's now much cheaper for utilities to buy electricity from power plants fueled by natural gas instead of coal.

"Bottom line," Harelson said, "the economics of natural gas compared to coal generation completely turned around, fundamentally changed, the energy industry. When you compare coal to natural gas, it just simply doesn't make it economically reasonable to continue to operate."

Earlier this year, the utilities that own the coal-fired Navajo Generating Station in Page, Arizona, voted to shut it down and demolish it, most likely at the end of 2019. The loss of job at the station and the coal mine that supplies it could be devastating on an already hard-pressed region. (Photo: John Hollenhorst, Deseret News)
Earlier this year, the utilities that own the coal-fired Navajo Generating Station in Page, Arizona, voted to shut it down and demolish it, most likely at the end of 2019. The loss of job at the station and the coal mine that supplies it could be devastating on an already hard-pressed region. (Photo: John Hollenhorst, Deseret News)

As he walked a dusty road in Navajo Mountain, Natoni said he retired after working 36 years at the Peabody mine, which supplies coal to the power plant. His round trip commute was about 150 miles. Now he's worried about future generations of Navajo if the coal mine, too, goes out of business.

"Keep it open," Natoni said. "They got a rich coal layer in that mountain."

Unfortunately for the Navajo and Hopi Nations that derive much of their revenue from the coal mine, it's not likely to find customers elsewhere. The mine is a long way from other coal-burning facilities, and it's only railroad line goes to the apparently doomed Navajo Generating Station.

Although the owners of the plant have pledged to help plant workers find jobs elsewhere, the region is bracing for the loss of around 1,000 jobs. And even before that happens, unemployment is already a severe problem.

"The Navajo Nation has the highest unemployment rate in the country," said Page Mayor Bill Diak. "I just look at the dollars and cents, and I can't see how they'll recover from this."

Diak is deeply worried about his own town's future, too.

"Devastating," he said. "It's moving toward the unknown."

Brian Kellar, chief executive officer of the Banner Health Hospital in Page and an official with the Page-Lake Powell Chamber of Commerce, worries about psychological impacts when so many jobs are on the line.

"Anxiety can eat away at a person and at a community," Kellar said, "not knowing exactly what's eventually going to happen and how that's going to affect all of us."

Negotiations are underway for the exact timetable of the shutdown; it could come as early as the end of this year. Many in the region are hoping for a last-minute rescue, possibly with a new ownership arrangement involving the federal government and the Navajo Nation.

But the future looks grim and unpredictable.

One ray of hope in the area is that a recent boom in tourism will take up some of the slack. Scenery lovers, especially foreign travelers, have flocked to the area in recent years to enjoy the spectacular views around Lake Powell.

Bill Diak, mayor of Page, Arizona, is deeply worried about his town's future with the closure of the coal-fired Navajo Generating Station. He said the shutdown of the plant is devastating and he doesn't know how the town will recover. (Photo: John Hollenhorst, Deseret News)
Bill Diak, mayor of Page, Arizona, is deeply worried about his town's future with the closure of the coal-fired Navajo Generating Station. He said the shutdown of the plant is devastating and he doesn't know how the town will recover. (Photo: John Hollenhorst, Deseret News)

"It's great," said Dutch tourist Henk Jansen as he gazed across Wahweap Bay at the lower end of Lake Powell. "It's overwhelming. It's, uh, how do you call it? It's the greatness of the nature that surrounds us."

In fact, just across the highway from the power plant there's a tourist attraction that has begun generating big revenue for the Navajo Nation. Tourists pay for walking tours into world-famous slot canyons known as Upper and Lower Antelope Canyon.

Williams, in his role as Lechee Chapter president, has reviewed the flow of revenue.

"Navajo Nation parks and rec runs that," he said. "They charge $8 per head, and last year they had 830,000 visitors."

But no one has any illusions that the tourism industry can fully replace lucrative jobs at the power plant and coal mine.

"Those are extremely high-paying jobs with extremely good benefits," Diak said, while tourism jobs tend to be seasonal and minimum wage.

Kellar agrees that tourism alone isn't the answer.

"It can be a major part of it," he said. "But I think you're still going to have to diversify outside of just tourism."

Tourism may not even be a partial answer in an out-of-the-way place like Navajo Mountain. It's unlikely many tourists will ever drive that lonely highway and cross the border into Utah.

"We always knew that they were going to shut down the jobs," Ellouise Yazzie said. "There's going to be no jobs later."

That's why some traditionalists say it's time to re-emphasize the old ways of the Navajo. Yazzie said she's teaching her children to survive by planting crops for food.

Ella Yazzie agrees and said she is not worried about the future.

"You can always fall back on livestock, and then, if you know how to do crafts," she said, it's possible to get by.

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