Baard awaiting final air permit

WELLSVILLE - State and local officials are looking at how a ruling Nov. 14 by the federal appeals board for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency may impact plans for Baard Energy's proposed coal-to-liquid fuel plant in Wellsville.

"Whether that case will have an impact on it, time will tell," Ohio EPA media relations coordinator Mike Settles said. "As of today, we don't expect it to have an impact on the Ohio River Clean Fuels final air permit."

The Sierra Club went before the federal Environmental Appeals Board in May to request the air permit for Deseret Power Electric Cooperative's proposed waste coal-fired power plant in Utah be overturned because it failed to require any controls on carbon dioxide pollution. The Deseret Power plant in Bonanza, Utah, would have emitted 3.37 million tons of carbon dioxide each year, according to a press release from the Sierra Club.

By comparison, representatives from the Sierra Club say as much as 26.59 million tons of carbon dioxide could be produced by the Ohio River Clean Fuels plant.

The Sierra Club believes the ruling Nov. 14 means the EPA had no valid reason for refusing to officially limit the carbon dioxide emissions - that it contends causes global warming - from new coal-fired power plants. The appeals board sent the issue back to Utah for further study and to consider carbon dioxide emission levels.

"The implications of this ruling for Ohio are huge," Nachy Kanfer, with Sierra Club's National Coal Campaign in Ohio, stated in the press release. "This federal ruling underscores the necessity to invest in green jobs in Ohio, rather than building more coal plants that create air pollution and increase global warming."

Two of the largest new coal proposals for Ohio, the AMP-Ohio power plant in Meigs County and the Baard plant, are likely to face setbacks from the Utah ruling, Kanfer contends.

However, Ohio is different from Utah, according to Columbiana County Port Authority C.E.O. Tracy Drake.

"In Utah, the U.S. EPA is the entity to issue the air permits," Drake said. "On the appeal from the Sierra Club, the matter was sent back to the office in Utah for further consideration. The Sierra Club would like you to think this has an impact here in Ohio on this plant, but that would be too broad of a reading."

Settles agreed saying the Ohio EPA didn't have a lot to say on the federal ruling. "There's not currently any limits in place for carbon dioxide emissions ... there's no federal limits on those, but we will take a look at that ruling. How it might effect future decisions, time will tell."

Drake said there is another significant difference in the Utah comparison. "Baard has a plan to capture carbon dioxide - they anticipate capturing at least 80 percent of it." The captured material might then be sold for other purposes. One possible use for sequestered carbon dioxide emissions is to inject it into oil wells to get more oil in a process known as enhanced oil recovery.

"Other people might want to cast dispersions in any shape or form," Drake said. "We are trying to find a methodology to use our natural resources in an environmentally safe way and bring jobs to this area."

The final decision on the state air permit was supposed to be handed down by the Ohio EPA last week, but the delay in announcing the decision is not unusual, according to Settles.

"We do expect a final order in the next couple of weeks here," Settles said. "We received voluminous amounts of public comments following the air permit hearings we had. We will be making some revisions to the permits based on the comments, we hope, that will reduce the overall emissions coming from the plant if the permit is approved."

Reports of the Ohio River Clean Fuels Plant losing a $5 million grant from the state were not confirmed by Drake on Monday.

He said a meeting is scheduled with state officials to determine the status of several grants requested. Drake said there is a $2.7 million grant request for road funding, $5 million for water and sewer work and another $5 million for property work and improvements among others.

The meeting will be held in the next few weeks to determine the status of those grant requests.

"We're trying to find out from the state just where we are on all of this," Drake said.

(Review staff writer Jen Matsick contributed to this report.)