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Show Ioiparonits dead ? So. Oalif. Edison ouf Southern California EdU son announced Monday that they would pull out of the Kaiparowlts project, according accord-ing to Sen. Dixie Leavltt. Leavitt said Mr. Robert S. Currie had notified him that the California utility company would withdraw from the 3, 000 -megawatt southern Utah coal -fired power plant project, due to the pressure of environmentalists environ-mentalists and the obvious move by the National Park Service to delay the project even further. The NPS announced this past week they would undertake under-take to rewrite the air quality qual-ity part of the Kaiparowlts environmental impact statement. state-ment. This move could easily delay the long, overdue project pro-ject for another year or more. Currie -said that in light of this move by the NPS, and the suits brought by several sev-eral environmental groups, the project could be delayed until inflationary costs make construction prohibitive. The project has been de-. layed for 10 years already. Southern California Edison Edi-son will withdraw for a year, Currie told Leavitt, at which time they will evaluate the project again. There was no indication whether the decision would effect the progress of the E.I.S., which is now in the hands of the EPA (Environmental (Environ-mental Protection Agency) and was set for Interior Dept. action early in 1976. Kaiparowits was one of three huge power plants (includes (in-cludes Warner Valley project pro-ject and Intermountain Power Pow-er project) being considered to utilize the vast reserves of Southern Utah coal and bring jobs and prosperity to the desert. All have drawn fire of the environmentalists. The alunite project, which includes a 70 -mega watt coal -fired power plant, has so far escaped the wrath of the environmentalists. en-vironmentalists. Two reasons rea-sons are apparent. One is that the plant is small compared com-pared to the other three, which are rated at 3,000-me 3,000-me gawatts. The other is that the power would be used right at the alunite project and not be exported to other states. Sen. Leavitt said, "This is a blow to Southern Utah and will cost us many jobs and industry." It's a simple case of people from other states dictating to Utahs how we may use our natural resources. |