Damage Control

Wegner says he trusts the government's environmental regulations and KCPL's word that any new plants will be built using the most current technology. But had the Weston plant been proposed as a regulated one, Wegner admits, "it would have been a completely different ballgame." Nonetheless, he says, "We like to have electricity when we turn on the computer and when we go home at night."

Wegner also leans on the assumption that a new plant will create jobs for his county, as KCPL's Web site boasts, both in the construction phase and afterward, when skilled workers move to Platte County to operate the plant.

But Great Plains' December 2003 environmental assessment says, "No significant population increases would occur with construction of the proposed Weston Bend I power plant, as workers would either commute from outlying areas or temporarily relocate."

And in its environmental assessment, the company admits that, after it's built, the plant would require approximately 85 employees to operate. "It is also unlikely that a permanent population increase would be expected for long-term operation of the plant, given the available workforce in the communities surrounding the plant," the report states.

By the end of June, the benefits Great Plains first proposed, in order to get the county to help fund its plant, had evaporated.

Corporate spin No. 6
You want wind? So do we!

KCPL spokesman Tom Robinson wouldn't comment for this article, and the Pitch's requests for an interview with CEO Chesser were denied. However, Great Plains Energy has created a short film that explains how open and honest the company really is. It's now playing at a series of public forums.

One such forum was on June 17 at West Platte High School in Weston. The school's cafeteria had been transformed into what looked like a KCPL science fair. Booths displayed information, and KCPL employees were there to answer questions about their charts, pie graphs and maps. A shiny, white model of a windmill spun in a corner, where it was plugged into a wall outlet. One station touted KCPL's record for keeping electricity rates low. Another described the company's plans to control its emissions of mercury, nitrogen oxide and sulfur.

About 35 people came to this public forum, KCPL's first on this issue. More are scheduled for July 8 in Atchison and July 13 at the Discovery Center in Kansas City.

The forums demonstrate that Great Plains has been paying attention to issues raised by Concerned Citizens.

A little bit, anyway. "You probably can't impact the building of this one as much as you can future ones," Chris Giles, a senior director of regulatory and resource management, told Brown at the June 17 event.

The flurry of forums comes only after the company has spent three years avoiding the public while it sought permits to build coal-burning power plants.

In fact, if the Missouri Department of Natural Resources Air Pollution Control Program hadn't lost a Great Plains computer disk containing "air dispersion modeling" information, the company might have had a permit to build the Weston plant a year ago.

No public forums to address Great Plains' "comprehensive energy approach to future energy needs" were scheduled back then. Perhaps no such forums would have taken place without the fluke of a lost disk, the sharp eye of the Sierra Club and the loud mouth of Brown.

By last week, the Star was reporting that Great Plains Energy had "backed off" its proposal to build two power plants and was focusing all of its attention on the Weston site. Additionally, the company pointed to its offer to retrofit its existing La Cygne and Iatan plants with newer pollution-control technology, as well as a proposal to get 200 megawatts of wind power up and running at the same time as the new Weston plant. These details had been the main focus of the public forums in June.

Close observers note that these improvements shouldn't be seen as Great Plains doing any favors for the community -- the Clean Air Act requires a power company to add new pollution-control technology when it modifies an old plant anyway. Great Plains might also be feeling pressure to help the region comply with the EPA's new ozone standards, the ones Kansas City is expected to exceed in the coming months.

"It's very difficult to get these companies looking in another direction," says Charles Benjamin, a Sierra Club lobbyist and lawyer based in Lawrence. "These interests come in and ask for the moon, the stars, the sky and the universe, and then they settle for the moon and sun and say, 'Aren't we nice guys,' when they need to be doing this anyway. They say, 'We'll clean up our existing act, look at this wind stuff, but only if we're allowed to get our new coal-fired plant.'"

Last week's announcement came as a surprise to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, which is in charge of permitting for the Atchison plant.

"We have had no direct contact with Great Plains on that issue," says Clark Duffy, the bureau director of air and radiation for the KDHE. He says he learned about Great Plains' new position only when he read about it in the Star. "We see that the CEO was quoted saying that their plans are changing. I'm sure they will [let the KDHE know their intentions] in due course."