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. -J ~.. .1 ;-1 w, ~I ~'l w- ; O~'! w....2'i. ~ CC_~. . President Bush should pay more attention to the Canyon's majesty than to those who claim to be the Canyon's saviors. ., , , ,..,.". .';";";"".' Awe, w.onder Bush to visit Grand Canyon When President George Bush stands at the rim of the Grand Canyon Wednesday, drinking in the col- ored patinas that have been layered by the millennia, he will feel the spell of this Arizona wonder. Meanwhile, people from the National Park Service or the Environmental Protection Agency or the Environmental Defense Fund are likely to be whispering in Bush's ear about how they finally caught and brought to heel one major Canyon polluter: the Navajo Generating Stalion near Page. Prodded by litigation from the Environmental Defense Fund, the EP A studied wintertime haze at the Grand Canyon, trying to determine if it could "reasonably be attrib- uted" to NGS, a 2,2S0-megawatt, coal-fired power plant operated by the Salt River Project and owned by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (21.2 percent), Tucson Electric Power (7.5 per- cent), Arizona Public Service Co. (14 percent), Nevada Power Co. (11.3 percent), the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (24.3 percent! and SRP (21 .7 percent). Park Service personnel are likely, too, to show President Bush the equipment they used to catch NGS, monitoring devices that were part of a laughably inept study in 1987 that concluded NGS con- tributed significantly to Canyon haze with its sulfur dioxide emis- sions. Exactly how much NGS contrib- uted to Canyon haze - and for how long - were never deter- mined. In fact, a review of the 1987 study by the National Acad- emy of Science's National Re- search Council disparaged the earlier findings, concluding the methods were invalid and much of the data questionable. .. The only credible, scrupulously scientific study of Canyon haze was done in SRP's own 514 million survey. It concluded, aiter harvesting extensive data, that there is no credible evidence to show that after billions of dollars are expended to install sulfur dioxide scrubbers at NGS, visitors to the Canyon would be able to see any benefit. None at all. In short, even with the scrubbers in place, Canyon visibility is unlikely to improve dramatically, even perceptively. Still, NGS part- ners continued a dialogue with all parties until a compromise was struck that provided for the instal- lalion of sulfur dioxide scrubbers at NGS - devices that become operational over a three-year pe- riod beginning November 1997, devices that will remove 90 per- cent of the NGS emissions by 1 999, measured on an annual compliance basis. The eSlimated annual cost over 20 years is $90 million - 10 percent to 1 3 percent less expen- sive than the 70 percent reduction, 30-day averaging; $50 million less expensive than the EPA's proposal for 90 percent reduction, 30-day compliance. The flexible monitoring require- ments obviate the need to con- struct and maintain redundant emissions control units, saving ratepayers millions of dollars in construction and maintenance. While those men are whispering in Bush's ear, the president will understand that pure science suf- fers when infected by politics. He will understand that compromise is the essence of his business and that both sides of the issue of Canyon haze worked honorably and in good faith to achieve an Arizona solution to a regional problem. As the president inhales the - grandeur of the Canyon, he should ignore those whispering in his ear about the wonderfulness of their triumph. over evil Canyon pollut- ers. There are no bad guys in the Canyon haze compromise, simply reasonable people who set their differences aside for the panorama that awaits George Bush.