An Ill Wind Blows in Moapa

Paiutes point the way to a better future, beyond toxic coal ash

From her perch, Vickie Simmons, a resident of the Moapa River Reservation, can see the coal ash blowing. Photo: Chris Jordan/Earthjustice

21 July 2011 - It starts with a warning. Then it's just a matter of which way the wind blows.



In the evening, someone will go from house to house and tell the neighborhood that tomorrow will be a windy day and perhaps, a bad air day. The next afternoon—if the conditions are just wrong—a toxic dust called coal ash picks up from the landfills and slag ponds of the coal-fired Reid Gardner Power Station and heads towards the reservation like a sandstorm.

"But this is a sandstorm that burns your skin, buries in your lungs and kills your neighbors," says Calvin Myers, a tribal elder who lives on the reservation, the tribal home of a band of Paiute Indians that sits about 30 miles north of Las Vegas and about 300 yards from Reid Gardner. read more>>>