The push for a new coal-fired power plant in western Kansas has ignited a fierce debate about energy policy in Kansas. Now a similar proposal in the 805-person town of Norborne, Missouri, is setting the stage for a fossil-fuel showdown in the Show-Me State.
Last month, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources issued preliminary approval for a new coal-fired power plant in the small city 60 miles northeast of Kansas City. The project would be built by Associated Electric Cooperative Inc., a Springfield-based company that provides power to 56 local and regional cooperatives in Missouri, Iowa and Oklahoma. The new plant would be 780 megawatts -- about half the size of the Sunflower Electric Power Corporation proposed plant, which was rejected by Kansas officials last month. On Tuesday, supporters and opponents packed a lively public hearing that pushed the capacity of the city’s community center.
At 5:30 p.m., AECI’s trailer was still lighted up, and a half-dozen company officials were huddled around a table framed by the front window. Just down the street, a homemade sign warning, “Dirty Coal: Do you want to be downwind?” hung from a chain-link fence outside a modest white home. Across the road, a banner inscribed “Concerned Citizens of Carroll County” stood in front of the entrance to the Home Savings and Loan of Norborne. In the basement, dozens of citizens from surrounding towns and as far away as St. Louis put on black-and-white T-shirts denouncing coal-fired power and lined up with placards with messages such as “Don’t turn Missouri into Bejing.”
Melissa Hope, development director for the Missouri Sierra Club, outlined the hazards of the proposed plant. The coal-fired boiler would belch thousands of tons of pollutants that add to ozone problems. The facility would eject nearly 7 million tons of carbon dioxide into the air every year — the same global-warming effect as adding 1.2 million cars to Missouri roads. Moreover, Missouri is ranked 46th in the nation when it comes to energy efficiency, so simple conservation efforts could eliminate the need for a new plant altogether.
With a handful of police keeping watch, the anti-coal contingent marched across town (a short two blocks) to the public hearing, where scores of men in suits and families in flannel and jeans filled the community center. Brent Ross, AECI’s manager for environmental health and safety, began by telling the crowd that demand among the company’s 850,000 consumers was growing, and the company had already considered and rejected alternate forms of energy, including wind. Not only would the plant adhere to environmental standards, Ross said, but AECI’s local investment would create 1,000 temporary jobs during the construction of the $1.3 billion facility and 139 permanent positions to keep it operational.
Officials from the county and nearby towns also touted the economic benefits of the new plant and their confidence in the DNR’s environmental protections. Several rural residents supportive of the plant drew laughs from Norborne locals when they boasted about their continued good health despite living near other coal-fired power plants. One man even criticized the younger coal opponents, saying they didn’t appreciate their electricity and had no idea the hardship of living in a home with no power.
Despite sporadic heckling and sarcastic laughter, dozens of Norborne residents and citizens from around the state testified against the plant. Four students from Washington University Law School in St. Louis dissected the alleged legal failings of the DNR permit and argued that the state was letting AECI pollute more than it should. A pregnant mother and member of Concerned Citizens of Carroll County said AECI would endanger children by spewing harmful toxins, such as mercury, into the air. A Norborne property owner, with land just two miles from the proposed facility, worried that her family’s hundred-year investment would be choked with ash.
Three DNR officials scribbled notes and looked awkwardly out at the crowd, many of whom started shifting uncomfortably in their steel folding chairs as the 6:30 p.m. hearing continued past 9. The DNR will likely be poring over written comments in coming weeks before making a decision that will surely spark protest and, possibly, litigation.
The deadline to submit feedback is November 21. To view the draft permit and address for written comments, click here.
If Kansas is any indication, this fight is just warming up. – Carolyn Szczepanski
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The Missouri Night Sky Protection Act provides the opportunity to start talking about energy conservation measures that may reduce our state total electric consumption by around 1%.
Perhaps it's time to invest in our future?
No Coal Power Plants. Be part of the solution , not part of the problem. Yes to renewable energy
Over two years ago the phone rang, and we were off to a meeting at a local house about someone buying up farms west of Norborne. They said they represented investors interested in farmland, leaving out their true intentions. Turns out it was a third party buyer representing Associated Electric Cooperative Inc.
After word got around, the Concerned Citizens of Carroll County was formed. After AECI had obtained about 1,500 acres, people stopped selling to them. Not having aquired enough land they eminent domained an adjoining farm for their fly ash landfill (about 160 acres including the families home) and continued to contact other nearby residents in an attempt to bring their total to 3,000 acres.
After many trips by C4 members to Jefferson City, and one trip to Washington D.C., and hours of testimony, eminent domain legislation was passed that would help local land owners, however more land will have to be aquired for railroad spurs and transmission lines. More legal battles to follow.
Over the past two years the Concerned Citizens of Carroll County, a realitvely small group of diligent folks, have been to countless public hearings regarding economic development agreements, jobs, landfills, water issues, air permits etc. with little support from an economically strapped county, full of people promised local jobs, added revenue to the county, and a good neighbor policy from AECI. Until now.
It seems after the denial of coal fired power plants in Florida, Oklahoma, and Kansas, some people now believe it not only possible to affect our future concerning climate change and the health of future generations, but consider it their right and responsibility to be heard. And heard they were Tuesday night in a small community center in Norborne MO. Groups and organizations from all over the area, represented by individuals specializing in the fields of biology, health, geography, and environmental law, showed up in solidarity, and came with documented statistics and empirical evidence, (most published by the very government that has rubber stamped an O.K. on this project,)and gave testimony on why the air permit should not be granted.
This testimony on why the air permit should be granted was countered with mere votes of approval by a few local residents, city and county officials needing to boost their economy to stay in office, and numerous current and former employees of AECI and their affiliates, on the basis that the DNR must know what they are doing, along with reasons like we need jobs, and more electricity, and others that did not pertain to the issuing of the air permit.
The denial of this coal fired power plant is bringing together a lot of people from very diverse walks of life, showing me that people can overcome their differences to achieve a common goal on behalf of us all. Having spent the last two years out of my comfort zone, so to speak, studying everything from climate change to rural sociology to learning all the species of at risk flora and fauna in our area, I have expanded my circle of friends to a lot of people I did not understand or accept.
The Concerned Citizens of Carroll County has a motto, "To Protect the Rights of the Individual", which to us has a lot bigger meaning than it did at our inception. We are a small group with limited resources, but by combining resources and lending each other a helping hand, we hold a larger voice in the public domain.
With that we would like to extend our thanks to those who came to our need and look forward to working with those people and associations for the common good of us all. Please feel free to visit our website at www.c4assoc.org and check out our absentee picket line project at www.c4yardplots.com
As Karen notes, it is difficult for the ordinary person to analyze these permits and weigh in on the technical and legal merits. However, substantial comments were made, including those that critiqued the modeling of impacts - when the modeling was based on non-local data. In the common tongue, the modeling is bad because the data on which it is based is bad - or in bumper sticker parlance: garbage in, garbage out.
In Missouri, we have fish consumption warnings on nearly every body of water in the state because of mercury pollution. Mercury- that potent neurotoxin that is spewed from MO's 18 coal-fired plants- in a nation that has seen autism and neurological problems on the rise...
The DNR's water program will tell you that they don't want to even bother listing streams polluted by mercury anymore because it is from air deposition from coal fired power plants - and that's beyond their authority. So we raise this issue at hearings for air permits for coal-fired power plants - and time will tell what happens.
The proponents of the plan emphasized "affordable" electricity. Coal would not be affordable if the cost of cleaning up our streams, treating our sick, and repairing environmental damage were included in the cost. Frankly, Missourians are strong conservationists and have demonstrated again and again their willingness to pay a little extra to preserve the natural wonders of our home state. It is ridiculous to say that we must base our decision on price alone. As one of the speakers noted, "Missouri is not a poor state." The one alternative that AECI did not boast about considering was conservation and efficiency. That is something we can all get behind. Why invest billions in something that takes us so far in reverse?
Missouri - once the western frontier - needs start showing leadership. We need new, clean, renewable industries based on locally-available resources - wind (in some places) and the sun. These are jobs. In-state, non-off-shoreable, keep-the-money-in-MO-and-not-in-Wyoming jobs. If Germany can do solar, what's our excuse? Others are watching. Will we step up?
I live in Austin, Texas, and was at the meeting. While it is true, the lay person has a difficult time addressing speciic points in the permit, there were both scientific and legal challenges made to the permit application, and most opposing comments did address items left out of the application: Particulate Matter2.5, which is much more dangerous than PM10 and now has control technologies; CO2, which is a grave danger to the earth, is not mentioned in the app, and will likely be regulated in a manner which makes the plant prohibitively expensive to operate in the future.
And the proponents made "intelligent comments?" They were much less likely to be "on topic" as they mostly said they like AECI, like cheap electricity, and implied they don't care how much we damage the planet and future generations to get it. Now there is a long term outlook!!!
Were you even at this meeting? I don't think the opponents helped their cause much in the final analysis. There were very few intelligent comments that pertained to the permit itself. Most of it was emotional diatribe and half truths, or outright mis-statements.
Would it be possible to all see the great benefits to mankind to move to renewable energy and sustainability?
The hearing was supposed to be specifically re the Draft DNR Permit. The "off-topic" comments, including those of AECI's Brent Ross, might explain the DNR's disgust.
There were basically two major arguments: Con- The permit itself fails to follow the EPA's guidelines as to pollutant handling and deposition (fallout), which it did not.
Pro- We would be without electricity unless the permit was approved. This is absurd, and those who made such comments obviously had not read the draft permit in preparation for the hearing.
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