outside LeChee, Arizona, a small Navajo commu-
nity near Lake Powell. In the distance, silhou-
etted by a dying sun, was the Navajo Generating
Station. With its trio of columnar stacks, the larg-
est coal plant west of the Mississippi resembled
a beached riverboat.
This 45-year-old plant, which had produced
enough electricity annually to supply two mil-
lion homes—Los Angeles got some of its power
from here until 2016—was shutting down
because it could no longer compete with cheap
gas and renewables. The closure would elimi-
nate hundreds of jobs, almost all held by Native
Americans. And while the Navajo and Hopi tribes
didn’t own the plant, they received millions in
royalties and lease payments, money that will
be hard to replace. But the plant had been a
big polluter, generating 14 million metric tons
or more of CO 2 a year. Galling to some in the
Navajo Nation: That bad air came from energy
that mostly went elsewhere. “A lot of people here
still don’t even have electricity,” said Benally, a
retired Navajo plumber.
We followed him home to meet his wife,
Shar on Yazzie. She grew up in LeChee and
remembers life without the station. She said58 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC