Power plant power play hits snag

Apr 29 - McClatchy-Tribune Content Agency, LLC - Kelly'S World The Times-Tribune, Scranton, Pa.

 

Invenergy LLC is suddenly more desperate than Jessup.

How else to explain the Chicago-based corporation's unexpected concession to cool the turbines of a proposed gas-fired power plant in Jessup with air rather than 4.5 million daily gallons of local water? Monday's revelation was a win for the organized, ornery opposition to the 1,500-megawatt plant Invenergy wants to build in the borough.

At Valley View High School, Jessup Borough Council hosted a Monday hearing on the proposal. Council must grant a zoning amendment for the project to go forward.

Despite its money and political power, Invenergy entered the hearing as the underdog. With its first witness, the corporation bit itself in the butt.

Invenergy called engineer and employee John Niland. In testimony establishing his expert status, he said his career started with the Beaver Valley Nuclear Generating Station in Shippingport, just outside of Pittsburgh. I grew up near there and remember evacuation drills that simulated a disaster. We never had an actual emergency, but the worry was always there. Invenergy's proposed power plant isn't nuclear, but Mr. Niland's testimony proves it's a small world, after all.

Numbers rule

Big or small, the world is governed by numbers. From an everyman perspective, they don't favor Invenergy. Attorney Donald Miles attacked the corporation's insistence that the property in question is its only option. Mr. Miles destroyed that argument with simple math and common sense. The site Invenergy is fixated upon is a Keystone Opportunity Zone, the Orwellian name for inviting corporations to make mountains of money at the expense of taxpayers.

Mr. Miles was less lurid than me, but I translated his words this way: Invenergy is a vampire whose only interest in Jessup is getting rich while bleeding it dry. Neither of the company's two witnesses convincingly contested Mr. Miles. Fiction sells best when honestly labeled.

I support development of cleaner energy sources. Gas-fired plants retire coal-fired counterparts. I want to support the Invenergy project, but I don't believe in building it within range of homes and Little League fields in a small community where no coal-fired power plant exists.

Opposition

On a molecular level, I oppose Keystone Opportunity Zones. Invenergy's interest in building "A stronger Jessup" is obviously confined to the tax-free portion. I don't blame corporations for behaving like corporations. They are in business to make money, not friends.

Invenergy's glossy public relations materials boast that the plant would generate $30 million once the facility pays property taxes. Invenergy stands to make billions in half that time.

The road to renewable energy will be bumpy. I balked when Invenergy pushed a host community agreement (bribe) offering $500,000 annually -- split between Jessup, Valley View School District and first-responders. The offer is an insult. It exposes Invenergy's ignorance of how many times Jessupians have been shortchanged.

Memo to Jessup Borough Council: If you decide to sell out your neighbors, at least haggle for a fair price. What is Jesssup's future worth to you?

Hug your grandchildren before answering.

CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, could back this project if it wasn't so clearly skewed against everyday Jessupians. Contact the writer: kellysworld@timesshamrock.com, @cjkink on Twitter. Read his daily blog at blogs.thetimes-tribune.com/kelly

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