SIXTEEN TONS

I made arrangements to have coal hauled by truck to SRP's Navajo Generating Plant in 1975, an interim action that lasted far longer than anyone could have imagined. 03/10/2016

SIXTEEN TONS

I had experienced considerable job stress working to obtain diesel and Bunker C fuel oil for SRP’s gas fired steam generating plants during the OPEC oil embargo that began in 1972, leaving me with enough memories to last a lifetime. In late May 1975, a new stressor came my way. A strike by union workers at the Peabody Coal Company’s Kayenta mine threatened to shut down SRP’s Navajo Generating Station, the sole source of coal for the plant.

When the strikers shut down the coal mine, an SRP executive made a hand-shake deal with an Arizona Public Service counterpart that would allow us to purchase coal from their Four Corner’s Generating Station located near Farmington, New Mexico.

My phone rang. The SRP executive said, “Joe, please arrange to have the coal hauled by truck.” 

“We can’t haul much coal by truck.”

“I know. We need to demonstrate that the strike can’t shut us down. But we need to start hauling at once. Time is of the essence.”

   No prior work experience prepared me to execute this direct order. I learned that SRP would have to obtain a license to haul coal across state borders. The truckers I contacted inundated me with questions about how the operation would function. Would they be paid by weight, and if so, who would provide, set up and operate the requisite platform truck scale? Who would oversee this operation?  I had no immediate answers.

One trucker stepped up. He offered to serve as the prime contractor for the entire operation. He outlined a plan of action and proposed a flat rate to haul the coal based on tonnage. It seemed like a perfect solution, and I authorized him to proceed post haste.

In short order he applied for and obtained the interstate license, installed a platform scale, and hired just about every other trucker in the state to start working for him on this job, hauling coal around the clock, seven days a week.

Few people in SRP appreciated the magnitude of this undertaking, and were impatient at the delays we experienced initially. A week or so after the strike began, the first truck shipments of coal began to arrive at the Navajo plant. Given the disparity between the amount of coal needed and the tiny amounts each truck delivered, one could only say our stop gap efforts were both heroic and a laughable,

   I needed to find an SRP employee willing to move to Farmington to oversee the operation. To my surprise, a number of Supply Department personnel volunteered. That took a load off my mind. Now we had on-site presence.

The strike lasted well past Labor Day. It had been a harrowing summer, filled with problems and anecdotes. One of our warehousemen assigned to the job site thought he had unlimited phone privileges, and called relatives every night for hours on end. The phone bill knocked me for a loop.

   Truckers killed many animals while driving across the deserted road to Page from Farmington. The Navajos claimed we had killed their most prized livestock. Some truckers began to paint icons of sheep on their trucks to indicate how many they had run over, the way pilots marked up the sides of their planes during war to indicate opponents shot down. We paid many claims.

When the strike ended in early September and coal once again began moving by rail from the Peabody mine, we shut down the truck hauling operation whose costs were enormous. Monday morning quarterbacks began to question my actions in hiring this contractor without oversight by other SRP executives. Truckers who worked for the prime contractor complained that they were underpaid compared to how much money he made for this job.

I had to defend my decisions. Yes, I had struck a quick deal that made sense to me at the time but in retrospect, allowed the one trucking firm to make a small fortune while running this operation. To my credit, I had managed to have coal delivered quickly, as mandated.

   Months afterwards the trucking contractor tried to “reward” me for having obtained this lucrative job.  He sent me and my wife tickets to fly to Honolulu, which I quickly returned. Thereafter, he became persona non grata. I had negotiated the price with him in good faith. His actions made me feel as though I had conspired with him and had expected a payoff. It made me ashamed of the entire episode instead of making me feel rightly proud.

   ▀

.