Farmington first stop in 2-week series of public meetings on controversial power plant.

A series of public hearings on a draft Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed $3 billion, 1,500-megawatt, coal-fired Desert Rock Power Plant begins tonight from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Farmington Civic Center, the Farmington Daily Times reported.

The controversial plant would be built by Sithe Global Power and the Navajo Nation's Dine Power Authority and is backed by the Navajo Tribal Council and Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. but is strongly opposed by a determined group of area residents who call themselves "resisters" and a host of environmental groups, according to an overview by Leslie Linthicum in this week's Sunday Journal.

The document lays out how the Bureau of Indian Affairs expects the proposed plant to affect area residents and the land surrounding the plant site in Burnham, south of Farmington, and it also considers the effects of a smaller plant or no plant at all, according to the Times story.

The BIA will accept letters or e-mailed comments until Aug. 20 and will take oral and written comments at each of the hearings scheduled over the next two weeks in New Mexico and Colorado, the Times reported.

Comments must be on the specific content of the draft statement, and the BIA says it won't respond until it has time to evaluate each comment and will then respond in writing, according to the Times.

Harilene Yazzie of the BIA's Navajo region told the Times that comments should be on the specifics of the draft EIS rather than opinions about the project.

"It's not a vote for or opposing the project. It's basically (a chance to discuss) the technical aspects of the draft EIS. Have we not discussed something that we didn't consider thoroughly in the draft EIS? That's the kind of scrutiny we're looking for," Yazzie said.

Public hearings were held last fall on a draft air permit, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has yet to release its response to the comments, the Times reported.

Both the air permit and the completed EIS are needed before the project can proceed, the paper said.

Here is a list of the scheduled hearings:

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