By L. Parsons At 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 24, PacifiCorp Unit 4 at Cholla Power Plant in Joseph City went permanently offline. Cholla has been running on three of four units since 2016, and the closure of Unit 4 brings the operation to half its original operation. It was an Obama era plan for cleaner air that forced the units to close along with other coal burning facilities nationwide. Last week, the three 775-foot reinforced-concrete smokestacks of the Navajo Generation Station located on the Navajo Nation near Page were demolished in a controlled blast that was part of the site’s decommissioning process. In an official statement from APS, Lily Quezada with media relations stated, “The unit’s retirement does not change APS’ plans for the remaining two units at the plant (Units 1 and 3). As previously agreed with the Environmental Protection Agency to comply with regional haze rules and in support of our clean energy commitment to provide 100 percent clean, carbon-free energy by 2050, APS’ units at Cholla will stop burning coal by 2025.”
