Chimneys of the Salt River Project power plant near Randolph, Arizona. Kaitlyn O’Hara/The Guardian
This story was originally Guardian is reproduced here as part of the climate desk collaboration.
handful Exhausted residents gathered in the windowless Randolph Church to ponder the power company’s latest effort to expand the plant. This is a polluting gas-fired power plant next to a community that state regulators have blocked for environmental and health reasons.
Randolph is a historic black community in central Arizona A small dusty area adjacent to a railroad and heavy hazard industry, residents are exposed to some of the worst air quality in the state, but lack basic amenities such as fire hydrants, garbage collection, and medical care.
Last year, when state regulators rejected a proposal by the utility Salt River Project (SRP) to more than double the size of the power plant, determined it would do more harm to Randolph residents, the community Celebrate a historic victory. for the public good.
It was a big win for clean energy and environmental justice in Arizona, according to the Sierra Club, an environmental group that denounced the proposed expansion as: “Textbook of environmental racism”
Ron Jordan’s family has lived in Randolph since the 1930s.
Kaitlyn O’Hara/The Guardian
But the SRP has refused to take no as an answer, and residents fear state regulators will reverse the decision. “We won, they lost, but they don’t take it and they come back. This is not democratic,” said his 77-year-old, who has lived in Randolph with his family since the 1930s. Ron his Jordan said. “They have good things hanging in front of us, but the community doesn’t want it. We already have too much pollution. This is not right.”
At a recent community meeting held at a modest church, the SRP announced that if residents withdrew their opposition to the plant expansion, they would invest $50,000 in landscaping and signage in addition to a new community center, air quality monitoring, and other projects. Offered to fund. “Whatever they offer, we won’t give up,” said her 45-year-old Guadalupe Felix, whose family has lived in Randolph for three generations. “This plant is trying to kill us. We are already suffocating.”
Communities say they won’t back down, but utilities across the country have a track record of getting what they want. energy and the Policy Institute (EPI). “Refusing to say no is incredibly common.”
randolph is The unincorporated town of Pinal County was first settled in the 1920s and 30s by mostly black families who came to the Gila River Valley to pick cotton from Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. One of the only places where black families could buy real estate, and by the 1960s, home to Mexicans and Native Americans, the tight-knit farming community was thriving with shops, bars, churches and gas stations. was proud of
The mechanization of the cotton industry led to economic and demographic decline in the community, after which the nearby town of Coolidge began annexing land around Randolph, turning it into an industrial area.
Today, only about 150 people live in an area the size of seven football fields and three widths, some of whom live in homes or plots purchased by their ancestors. No shops, no bars, no gas stations, no parks. Only churches have tall palm trees for shade.
The farmlands and desert plains where children rode bikes to chase roadrunners are long gone, and Randolph now manufactures gas plants, pipelines, hazardous waste dumps, and Donald Trump’s border wall. surrounded by polluted infrastructure, including steel companies that have contracts to
Communities are literally surrounded by cumulative and serious dangers.
Pinal County has the worst air pollution in Arizona, according to the American Lung Association and the Environmental Protection Agency. It also bears the brunt of the climate crisis as drought and water shortages continue, forcing farmers to fallow their farms or sell them to solar power plants. In August 2021, gas pipeline explosion He threw the residents of Randolph out of their beds, lit a giant fireball, and killed farm worker Luis Alvarez and his 14-year-old daughter Valeria.
“Whatever they offer, we will not give up,” said Guadalupe Felix, pictured with her husband Esteban Valencia.
Kaitlyn O’Hara/The Guardian
ACC is the state utility regulatory agency responsible for approving rate increases and new energy projects for SRP power plants and transmission lines, as well as private energy, water and telecommunications operators. Every state has a version of the ACC, most commonly called the Public Utilities Commission (PUC).
As communities, the Sierra Club, and other organizations opposed to the expansion of the factory, the SRP plans to help fund road paving, landscaping projects, scholarships and vocational training programs, and efforts to have Randolph recognized as a national historic site. announced.
In April 2022, the ACC rejected SRP’s expansion plans after concluding that utilities had not considered viable green energy alternatives such as solar cells and storage batteries before proceeding with plant expansions. Did. (The Commission rejected the recommendation by the Power Plant and Transmission Line Siting Commission for the granting of environmental certificates.)
The SRP requested a new hearing, which the ACC refused. The utility then filed a lawsuit in Maricopa County Superior Court and lost. ” [ACC] We decided that the environmental impact was more important than the needs of the proposed project. The SRP has not shown its decisions to be illegal or unreasonable,” the court ruled in January 2023.
