Details murky on proposed plant's location

By JAMES E. LARCOMBE

While its backers are calling it the "Salem site," details about where a proposed $470 million coal-fired power plant might be located are sketchy.

Salem, once one of many small communities perched along a now-abandoned rail line, is largely grainfields and pastureland these days. The area is about eight or nine miles east of Great Falls as the crow flies.

The area was tabbed for a 350-megawatt coal-fired power plant dubbed Resource 89 by the folks at the Montana Power Co in 1981.

Because of permit work done by MPC, the general Salem area may give the new 250-megawatt plant proposed by the Southern Montana Electric Generating and Transmission Cooperative Inc. a head start, said Tim Gregori, the group's general manager.

"It's going to take approximately 190 acres," said Gregori, adding that engineering work will help determine the actual site. No property has been purchased, he said.

Gregori said air quality studies may have been done for the area as part of the Resource 89 project. The availability of water, presumably from the Missouri River, and relative proximity of a rail line also make the site appealing.

"It seems to present itself as a logical location," Gregori said of the Salem area. If barriers arise, "we may look at other sites down the road."

A rail line seven to 10 miles long may need to be constructed to link the plant site with existing rail lines, Gregori said. Details about the rail line have not been firmed up, he noted.

Plans for the Resource 89 plant were announced in 1981 to a standing ovation and champagne at the downtown Rainbow Hotel, which is now a retirement home.

The plant would have helped Montana Power meet future electricity needs, especially if the big industrial users landed in the state, Montana Power officials said. The name reflected the projected completion date, some eight years after the announcement.

But the plant never sprouted. Late in 1982, Montana Power officials said a dwindling demand for electricity would delay construction until at least 1996. At the same time, plans for an additional MPC dam on the Missouri River near Carter also slid to a back burner.

In 1988, MPC officials said upgrading the capacity of the company's hydroelectric dams and using power from the Colstrip 4 plant made more sense financially than pursuing the Salem Project, a later name for the proposed plant.

The Montana Power project was to be built on land belonging to Stella Urquhart, who has since died.

"It was right on my grandmother's place," said Scott Urquhart, who farms in the area with other family members these days. "There was all sorts of property bought and exchanged. It was supposedly all set up."

Despite all the talk about the project, not a shovelful of dirt was ever turned. Urquhart said he hopes the newest proposal has a more solid future.

"The last go-round was kind of a joke," he said Friday afternoon.

Larcombe can be reached by e-mail at blarcomb@greatfal.gannett .com, or by phone at (406) 791-1463 or (800) 438-6600.

Originally published Saturday, June 19, 2004