Great Falls Tribune

 

August 6, 2009

 

Highwood coal option 'off the table'

By KARL PUCKETT
Tribune Staff Writer

The state has revoked the air quality permit Southern Montana Electric Generation and Transmission needed to build a 250-megawatt coal-fired power plant east of Great Falls — at the request of SME, not critics of the plant.

"Assuming there is no appeal, the coal-fired plant would be off the table and they would be just proceeding with a gas-turbine plant," said Brent Lignell, an environmental engineer in the Department of Environmental Quality's Air Resource Management Bureau.

SME can't construct a coal-fired facility without the permit, which was first approved in 2007, he said.

General Manager Tim Gregori said it should be clear to the public now that SME intends to focus its efforts entirely on constructing a 120-megawatt natural gas-fired facility in an effort to provide a predictable source of affordable electricity for its customers.

Facing challenges over emissions and financing obstacles, SME announced plans to build the smaller natural gas plant in February, but it held onto the air permit for the coal facility, which made critics nervous.

"We're cautiously optimistic," said Richard Liebert, chairman of Citizens for Clean Energy.

The Montana Environmental Information Center, Citizens for Clean Energy, the Sierra Club and the National Parks Conservation Association have been trying to get that same permit thrown out for months, arguing it should require better emissions controls.

Challenges to the permit remain before the Board of Environmental Review and in district court.

Jenny Harbine, an Earthjustice attorney for the groups challenging the coal-fired facility, welcomed the permit revocation.

"This coal plant has been an inch from dead for months now and it appears as though the final nail in the coffin has been driven," she said.

Gregori described the request to have the permit revoked as a realignment of "our order of build-out" of generation, not necessarily the death of a coal-fired facility, although he acknowledged that construction would now require a new permit from the DEQ.

SME is made up five rural electric cooperatives and the utility arm of the city of Great Falls. Its request to have the DEQ revoke the permit was made in a letter received Monday, Lignell said.

The DEQ then sent a letter revoking the permit Tuesday, Lignell said.

The permit revocation will become final after 15 days on Aug. 20 assuming SME doesn't change its mind and appeal its own request, Lignell said.

Lignell anticipates the release of an air quality permit for the natural gas plant for public comment later this month.

Lignell also said SME informed the agency it no longer is planning to put up wind turbines at the Highwood Generating Station site.