Where There’s Smoke, There’s Coal Ash — and a Solar Solution
Published in Indian Country Today in 2012. For more on topics like this, see my book, American Apartheid: The Native American Struggle.... Muddy River on the Moapa Paiute reservation , north of Las Vegas, Nevada A t the August 7 National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) called Nevada Energy’s Reid Gardner Power Station a “dirty relic” and called for its closure. The coal-burning electric plant, some 50 miles north of the city, borders the Moapa Band of Paiute Indians’ reservation, producing what they describe as immense environmental pressures and chronic illnesses. The tribe has not only vociferously criticized the plant but also has found what members see as a better way—one Tribal Chairman William Anderson says is in tune with nature. In June the Interior Department gave the Moapa Paiutes fast-tracked approval to build the first-ever utility-scale solar-energy project on tribal lands—which seems especially suitable in this region of year-round sc