Following reviews by the Environmental Protection Agency, which found that the Desert View power plant in southern California had repeatedly emitted illegally high levels of mercury and other dangerous pollutants in the eastern Coachella Valley, its operator Greenleaf announced that the plant will immediately pause its operations as it seeks a path forward.
The shutdown comes after the plant lost its sole current customer, the Imperial Irrigation District, when the IID board cancelled its PPA. IID stated that all of the concerns raised ahead of the contract’s renewal in 2022 by a majority of the board were “completely vindicated.” A spokesperson for IID said the district’s board has authorised its general counsel to pursue legal action related to the agreement, if necessary.
The power plant, which burns agricultural waste and other waste from across Southern California for conversion into a renewable source of electricity, has been operating since 1992 and was purchased in 2011 by Greenleaf. But it seems that residents have been complaining for years about billowing smoke plumes blowing from the plant over their homes and a school and the plant has been under investigation by the EPA, whose inspectors issued a notice of violation in June 2022 against the plants’ owners. They found illegally high levels of mercury, hydrochloric acid, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides were emitted at various points from 2016 through 2021, in violation of the Clean Air Act’s hazardous air pollutant standard.
The EPA also concluded the owners had not carried out obligatory performance tests for mercury emissions from two plant boilers in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, and that they exceeded legal levels of mercury from the boilers in both 2016 and 2021. A spokesman for Greenleaf Energy, stated that the company ‘continues to work to resolve the prior notice of violation issued by the EPA’, and that the company had provided ‘substantial amounts’ of records and responses to questions as part of the EPA’s inquiry. It has also retained an outside consultant to review the plant’s continuous monitor readings and inspection reports.
