SRP has completed its 400 MW Springerville Coal plant.   The Republic has an interesting article about the plant and is speculating that this plant may be the last coal plant build in Arizona.

Arizona's last new coal plant?

Experts wonder if costs, climate issues will discourage future projects

"Salt River Project customers will begin paying about $6 more on their monthly bills this spring, most of which will pay for a new $1 billion coal-fired power plant near Springerville in northern Arizona.

Unit 4 at the Springerville Generating Station began commercial operations in December and has been running at full throttle since then, burning about 60 rail cars' worth of coal a day from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming.

The plant supplies low-cost electricity to the non-profit utility, but because of the stiff fight required to get it built, cost overruns and threat of global warming, some experts wonder if it will be the last new coal plant built in Arizona.

Not only did the plant overshoot its original cost estimate by $350 million, but legislation proposed by Congress to limit greenhouse-gas pollution could also make running the plant even more expensive, because coal has more of those emissions than natural gas or other power sources.

David Areghini, SRP's associate general manager of power, said it would be nearly impossible to permit another coal-fired plant.

Read the whole thing here.

Well, the "normallly dry" Salt River is running and with the coming snow melt, you ain't seen nothin' yet...but is the drought actually over?

Check out this ariticle from today's Republic.

"For parched state, wet winter means quenched thirst

Winter storms plastered Arizona's high country with snow and soaked the lower deserts with rain until the ground was almost sloshing, but that was just the first half of an increasingly wet story.

As temperatures rise this week, the snow will start to melt, gushing down streams and rivers into reservoirs that, in many cases, are already full. The overflow on the Salt and Verde rivers alone could exceed a year's supply of water for Valley residents.

The runoff will ease drought conditions across much of the state, rejuvenating parched forests and rangelands and replenishing groundwater aquifers. Whether the winter has ended the drought, now more than a decade old, probably won't be known for another year or more. It's already clear that drought conditions will persist on the Colorado River.

The bringer of the bounty was almost certainly El Niño, an ocean-warming phenomenon that typically steers wet weather across Arizona and New Mexico. Storms have delivered nearly record rain and snow in some areas, with precipitation totals as high as three and four times the seasonal average."

Click Here to Read the Whole Thing.