Sierra Club details coal objections

Group sees alternative to planned SWEPCO power plant

By Bill Hornaday

AKKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

LITTLE ROCK — About a dozen members of the Sierra Club of Arkansas voiced their opposition Tuesday to a $1.4 billion, coal-fired power plant that Southwestern Electric Power Co. plans to build by 2011 in Hempstead County.

In a news conference at the state Capitol, organizers decried the use of coal to meet growing electricity demand and called for more efforts to harness renewable resources such as wind, solar, water and geothermal energy.

The conference coincided with the group’s release of a report titled “The Dirty Truth About Coal,” which outlines the “societal, economic and environmental tolls” of coal-driven energy.

“The coal industry marketing machine is working overtime to convince Americans that coal isthe magic solution to our energy needs,” said Dina Nash, vice chairman of the Sierra Club’s Central Arkansas Group

“From the time it is mined to when it is burned in power plants like the new plant proposed for southwest Arkansas, coal leaves a path of pollution and destruction - damaging public health, tearing up the land, polluting our waters, devastating communities andmaking global warming worse.”

The carbon dioxide emitted from coal-fired power plants is considered by some scientists to be a major contributor to global warming, a phenomenon that threatens to melt polar ice, raise sea levels, flood coastal areas and prompt shifts in global climate patterns.

Skeptics say evidence to support such theories is scant at best and that global warming is actually part of a natural environmental cycle that is thousands of years old.

Supporters of the proposed 600-megawatt plant near Fulton - about 15 miles northeast of Texarkana - include civic leaders, business leaders, school officials, economic development officials throughout SWEPCO’s serviceterritory in western Arkansas, as well as thousands of customers.

Among that group is the publisher of the Texarkana Gazette, a sister paper of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Until recently, landowners and hunting clubs near the plant have offered the most scrutiny. They want SWEPCO to explain how mercury emissions, acid rain and global warming could affect adjacent land that hosts some of Arkansas’ last cypress swamps and stands of virgin timber.

But a growing corps of activists want the Arkansas Public Service Commission to force utilities to capture all carbon emissions from any new coal-fired plants built - if they allow them to be built at all.

Sierra Club members cited data from the Apollo Alliance, a Washington, D.C.-based clean energy advocacy group, which estimates that Arkansas couldsee an extra $1.6 billion in economic activity if “clean energy” opportunities are pursued. Such activities could produce up to 27,000 new jobs, including 5,984 in manufacturing and 3,155 in construction.

But plant supporters say the boost would come from more than $500 million in wages paid to 1,400 construction workers who would build the plant over four years, more than $30 million in state taxes, nearly $13 million in local taxes and 111 SWEPCO employees who will run the plant once it is built.

“There are folks who are against just about everything these days. I guess it’s just part of the process,” Jerry Sparks, director of economic development for the Texarkana Chamber of Commerce, said in a Monday interview.

“I think not having a plant would retard development and growth in our area. That’s just my opinion - they have theirs as well.”

Sierra Club officials disagree.

“It may not be the same dirty jobs, but there can be new jobs,” associate regional representative Glenn Hooks said. “You can have both a clean environment and a healthy economy.”

The proposed plant is a key part of SWEPCO’s plans to add 2,100 megawatts of capacity to its power grid by 2011. Without the plant, more than 469,000 customers in Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas could face a capacity shortage.

A public hearing on SWEPCO’s air permit for the plant is set for 6 p.m. July 12 at the University of Arkansas Community College in Hope. State regulators will consider testimony in hearings tentatively set for July 19 and Aug. 9 at the Arkansas Public Service Commission offices in Little Rock.