Wednesday, April 10, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
Mirage Resorts has gained Clark County Health District approval to build a $30-million, natural gas power plant, but still must clear environmental hurdles before the Public Service Commission.
An April 6 letter to Mirage from Air Pollution Control Director Michael Naylor grants permission to build the plant after agreeing to meet air control standards set by the county.
A public hearing held March 15 raised no issues that the project "would violate local or federal regulations or air quality standards, or that it would jeopardize public health or welfare," Naylor said.
The plant is planned for the southwest corner of Spring Mountain and Industrial roads and will be used to provide power to The Mirage and Treasure Island resorts.
The company must still go before the PSC for environmental approval. The agency, which regulates public utilities, acts as an environmental clearinghouse for off-site power plants that don't plan on selling their power to other entities.
"It's almost a mirror image of the approval we just got from the Health District," Mirage spokesman Alan Feldman said. "It's a fairly perfunctory step. It is a required step, but one we should move through fairly quickly."
Feldman anticipated that if all the permits fell into place, construction could begin by the end of summer and be completed 18 months later.
Timothy Hay, general counsel for the PSC, said the regulatory agency would help the company with any questions it had regarding regulatory requirements.
"We've offered to meet with them, explain any regulatory requirements there may be depending on how they structure the project," said Terry Page, director of regulatory operations for the PSC.
Page said it's not unusual for the PSC to be at the back end of the process for projects that clearly don't fit the definition of a jurisdictionally regulated power company.
"It appears they're building the facility for their own needs," he said. "Other companies in the state have done it before."
Mirage applied for permission to build the cogeneration plant last November, after failing to gain approval from the PSC for a special reduced rate from Nevada Power Co. The issue for Nevada Power is lost revenue. Although it will continue to provide backup power, the utility must make up for the lost business in providing primary power either by increasing rates to consumers or reducing returns to stockholders.
At the public hearing three weeks ago, Mirage agreed to modifications of its proposed application to reduce emissions.
"It meets our various regulations," Naylor said. "It means the amount of air-quality degradation caused by the plant is within acceptable limits."
During testimony, Mirage disclosed that the cogeneration plant would release 30 tons a year of nitrogen oxides and 5 tons a year of carbon monoxide. It takes 700 cars to generate 30 tons of the nitrogen oxides, and 50 cars to generate the 5 tons of carbon monoxide, Naylor said.
Clark County has already exceeded federal limits for carbon monoxide, Naylor said. Any new source must release no more than 10 tons of carbon monoxide annually, he said, to prevent further deterioration.
The Mirage plant would release half that amount, and is using about 30 percent of the growth allowance for nitrogen, Naylor said.
By comparison, a 2,000-room hotel is the source of about 440 tons a year of carbon monoxide because of cars used by employees and customers, he said.
Mirage must obtain a permit from the health district before it can turn on and operate the plant, Naylor said. "We inspect it to make sure it's the same make and model they said they were going to build."
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