Navajo community hurt in coal plant shutdown in New Mexico

This Sept. 20, 2022 image shows a sign in Navajo on the fence surrounding the San Juan Generating Station near Waterflow, New Mexico. The closure of the coal-fired power plant and the adjacent mine is resulting in the loss of hundreds of jobs and tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue for a local school district that serves mostly Native American students. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)

 

Last week’s shutdown of the San Juan coal-fired generating station in Farmington, New Mexico might have been cause for celebration by environmentalists and others who contend the plant merely polluted the atmosphere.

However, the shutdown did a few other things. It put hundreds out of work and harmed the nearby Navajo community where families who lost coal jobs were forced to move elsewhere in search of work, school enrollments dropped and school district revenue plunged.

It’s the by-product of the Biden administration’s pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 reported the Associated Press.

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