In a joint petition filed today, a coalition of Navajo and conservation groups accused the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of bypassing scientific review and pushing through approval of a permit for the proposed Desert Rock coal-fired power plant.

Both environmentalists who have been fighting a proposed coal-fired power plant on the Navajo Nation and supporters of the project expected it: an air permit for the plant.

While Desert Rock proponents tick away the days on a threatened lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency, opponents are also saying that time may be running out for the massive proposed power plant.

Each year, power plants in the United States collectively kick out enough coal combustion waste (CCW) to fill a train of coal cars stretching from Manhattan to Los Angeles and back three and a half times. It’s stored in lagoons next to power plants, buried in old coal mines and sometimes just piled up in the open where it gets washed into an aroyo or leach into the ground.

The Four Corners Air Quality Task Force will wrap-up up its two years of work next month. While many Four Corners residents blame coal power plants across the New Mexico state line, the science isn't that clear.

For the Navajo nation, energy is the most valuable currency. The tribal lands are rich with uranium, natural gas, wind, sun and, most of all, coal. But two coal-fired power plants here, including one on the reservation, belch noxious fumes, making the air among the worst in the state.

Cortez city councilors unanimously passed a resolution opposing the Desert Rock Energy Project at their regular meeting Tuesday night. The decision came just a week after Durango City Council passed a similar resolution calling on the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs to scrap plans for the 1,500-megawatt, coal-fired power plant south of Shiprock, N.M.

Three environmental groups challenged a government agency over its decision to renew a permit for the coal mine that would supply the proposed Desert Rock power plant in New Mexico.