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• For background information and other MEIC efforts to stop the proposed Highwood Generating Station, click here.
• See a short video on how the Montana Environmental Information Center is helping Great Falls residents and local ranchers and farmers protect their clean water, productive soil, and pure air from a dirty coal plant.

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The future of the proposed Highwood Generating Station (a 250-megawatt coal-fired power plant proposed for east of Great Falls) seems to become more obscure by the day.  One might think that it could not possibly be built.  Southern Montana Electric (SME), the developer, has had an impossible time finding financing in today’s markets.  The four rural electric co-operatives that belong to SME were unsuccessful in obtaining federal funding, and SME has fared no better in the private markets.  But SME does not appear ready to abandon the proposed plant.

photo by Ryan Hall, Great Falls Tribune

SME recently proposed “modifying” its coal plant air pollution permit to cover an added natural gas-fired plant at the site that would be built first.  It is not clear if the Montana Department of Environmental Quality will approve such a change in an already-issued permit.  Equally unclear is why SME would want to add a natural gas plant to a coal plant permit, instead of just filing a new and separate application.

It may be, as SME’s general manager has said, that SME thinks the environmental review completed for the coal plant will suffice for the natural gas plant as well.  Of course that should not be the case.  For example, the coal plant analysis settled on the current location because of the availability of water from the Missouri River.  The location happens to be in a national historic landmark, and in the midst of some of the state’s most productive farmland.  A natural gas plant does not have the same water requirements, so it could and should to be located in a place with fewer impacts and closer to the co-ops that need the electricity.

One thing is clear, though.  The Highwood coal-fired plant is permitted to emit so much air pollution that a natural gas plant could not be operated at the same location at the same time. Instead of just giving up on the coal plant, SME says that the natural gas plant will not operate when the coal plant does, and vice versa.  MEIC will be closely reviewing SME’s modified permit application, and encouraging DEQ to conduct an environmental review that includes an analysis of more appropriate locations for a gas plant.

As long as SME continues to hold a permit for a coal-fired power plant, the threat of the plant being built is very real.  MEIC is actively engaged on many legal fronts to try and stop the development of Highwood.

First, MEIC has joined with the Great Falls-based Citizens for Clean Energy, Sierra Club, and National Parks Conservation Association to appeal the State’s decision that SME complied with the deadline to begin construction on the coal-fired plant.  DEQ made a decision in December 2008 that SME had met its November 30th deadline for the start of construction.

However, SME was in violation of the law most of the time it was constructing because it did not have a valid air pollution permit.  The law does not allow an entity to gain an advantage by violating the law, and allowing SME to count illegal activity toward its construction requirement clearly is inconsistent with that principle.

Second, MEIC is awaiting a decision by the Montana Supreme Court on whether it will grant an expedited appeal of a lawsuit challenging the rezoning of land for the plant.  MEIC and about 60 farmers and ranchers had challenged the rezoning of the farmland to allow for the coal-fired power plant as illegal spot zoning.  After receiving an unclear but probably unfavorable decision at the district court level, the plaintiffs are asking the high court to expedite its review of the case.

Third, and fourth, at SME’s request, two other cases have been put on hold until at least mid-June.  In one instance, the Board of Environmental Review granted SME’s request to postpone action on MEIC’s appeal of its air pollution permit for hazardous air pollutants and fine particulates.  MEIC filed this appeal because DEQ had not required SME to install new control technology for the dangerous small particulates, and it had allowed SME, on a pretext, to escape the stringent requirements for hazardous air pollutants.

In the other case, a district court recently granted SME’s request to postpone MEIC’s lawsuit on whether carbon dioxide and other global warming pollutants to be emitted by Highwood should have been regulated under the federal Clean Air Act.

Finally, MEIC is still waiting for a district court to decide whether to enforce its decision giving the public access to the City of Great Falls’ records on its involvement with SME and the Highwood plant.  Despite an earlier ruling that the City must allow the public to examine these documents, the City continues to refuse to release many of the documents covered by the judge’s order.

IN THE NEWS:

• Southern Montana Electric Generation and Transmission has scrapped plans to build a $950-million coal-fired power plant east of Great Falls (by Karl Puckett, Great Falls Tribune, Tuesday 2/3/09)
• Co-op gives up trying to build coal plant (by Jan Falstad, Billings Gazette, 2/3/09)
• Why Was the Highwood Coal Plant Abandoned? (by Thomas M. Power, Guest Writer, New West, 2-22-09)