FutureGen 2.0 gets clean environmental impact statement

Apr 28 - Jake Russell Jacksonville Journal-Courier, Ill.

The Department of Energy identified no significant environmental impacts from FutureGen 2.0 in an environmental impact statement draft released for public comment.

The 62-page document considered 19 environmental resource areas in Morgan County and surrounding counties, including air quality, climate and greenhouse gases, physiography and soils, geology, groundwater, surface water, wetlands and floodplains, biological resources, cultural resources, land use, aesthetics, materials and waste management, traffic and transportation, noise, utilities, community services, human health and safety, socioeconomics and environmental justice.

The FutureGen 2.0 project would have no impacts on them, it said, except for climate and greenhouses gases. That category was identified as having no direct impacts, though greenhouse emissions would probably be greater in the absence of the project.

FutureGen 2.0 is a $1.65 billion public-private partnership that will use an oxy-combustion technique to generate electricity at a power plant in Meredosia and then pipe carbon dioxide in liquid form to a sequestration site in northeast Morgan County.

The environmental impact statement will inform the Department of Energy's decision on whether to additionally fund the project's final design, construction and initial operation.

"The FutureGen Alliance is pleased that the Department of Energy has released the Futuregen 2.0 environmental impact statement draft for public review and appreciates the hard work the department has done to fully analyze the potential environmental impacts," FutureGen Alliance spokesman Lawrence Pacheco said.

A public hearing will be held May 21 at Jacksonville High School, with a workshop at 5 p.m. and the hearing at 6 p.m., Pacheco said.

In cumulative impacts, the statement said the project would have a minor cumulative impact to the soil resources of the region, but that the amount of permanently affected prime farmland soil in Morgan County would be negligible.

Both the FutureGen 2.0 project and the Illinois 104 bridge replacement project would obtain water locally in the Meredosia area during construction, but these impacts would be minor, the statement said.

Because the shallow groundwater aquifiers are not directly connected, any near-surface contamination from material spill during construction or operation would not add incrementally to the impacts at other project sites.

The Department of Energy, which is partially funding the project, has already spent money for the purpose of project definition, cost estimating, preliminary and front-end engineering design activities and to facilitate environmental review. None of these project had an adverse impact on the environment or limited the choice of reasonable alternatives.

"We look forward to the Department of Energy finalizing the environmental impact statement and issuing a record of decision, which will allow the FutureGen Alliance to keep the project on track," Pacheco said.

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