Morgantown Dominion Post
28 September 2005.
By Evelyn Ryan
Longview developers Gen-Power of Needham, Mass., expect to have an application to the state Public Service Commission by the end of this week for the last major permit needed to build a power plant in Monongalia County.
Tom Wheble, Longview Power project manager, said Monday that company officials are putting the finishing touches on the application to build a high-power transmission line to carry electricity from the plant to the main electrical grid.
And they're waiting to hear what the state Supreme Court and Kanawha County Circuit Court will do with pending lawsuits involving the power plant.
Longview is a proposed 600-megawatt, coal-fired power plant, to be built at a cost of about $1 billion on a parcel of land at the rural community of Fort Martin north of Morgantown. It will be just over the hill from Allegheny Energy's Fort Martin Power Station.
When they file the transmission-line application, Longview officials will be responding to conditions placed on the site permit issued earlier this year by the PSC. The site permit allows the firm to build the plant.
If the PSC is able to move quickly on these permits, the plant should be ready to produce electricity beginning in about 2008 to 2010, Wheble said. "Things are moving on a lot of different fronts," he said.
An appeal of the air-quality permit issued by the state Air Quality Board is pending in Kanawha County Circuit Court. Nothing has been filed in the case since Aug. 18, a court clerk said.
On Monday, a representative of the state Supreme Court said the high court has yet to decide if it will consider an appeal by a group of more than 50 individuals and organizations challenging the paymentin-lieu-of-taxes agreement hammered out with county officials. The case arrived at the high court in late August.
Longview's lawyers have filed a response, Wheble said.
The case was filed in Monongalia County Circuit Court in October 2003 by Citizens Against Longview Power, Citizens for Responsible Development, Cheat Lake Environment and Recreation Association, and more than 50 local residents. It was dismissed by the local court this past April.
Named in the lawsuit were Longview Power, the Monongalia County Development Authority, the Monongalia County Commission, the Monongalia County Board of Education and the Monongalia County assessor. The four public bodies agreed to the PILOT, which will bring the county more than $100 million in taxes during 30 years.
Longview will be a "merchant power" plant, one that produces electricity when demand is high. That electricity will be sold on the open power market.
The court case challenges the fairness of what it terms a "tax break" not available to local businesses that's being given to an out-of-state firm.
Citizens Against Longview Power spokeswoman Paula Hunt said important issues are involved that will only come to light in the discovery process of a lawsuit.
James Kotcon said the PILOT agreement "is based on a flawed and unconstitutional application of state statutes."
Jarrett Jamison, who lives in the area where the plant would be built, said, "Construction has been put off due to one delay after another; and Longview has repeatedly failed to finalize the required permits."
The transmission-line application was to be submitted in early spring, but was delayed by negotiations for rights-ofway between the proposed power plant and the main transmission lines near the Monongahela River, Wheble noted.