By Tony Davis | Arizona Daily Star
A deal that was in the works for months is now official: The last coal-fired unit at Tucson Electric Power’s south-side power plant will run totally on natural gas by the end of 2017.
But plans are much murkier for the short-term use of coal vs. gas at the Sundt Generating Station’s Unit 4, on East Irvington Road just east of Alvernon Way, which the EPA says has no pollution controls.
About 160,000 tons of coal are now stacked up on the plant’s east side — enough for four to five months of coal burning. Right now, the plant’s not burning coal, although it was for most of the year until June 1.
