LISBON - A local state legislator is upset with comments by an environmental activist group questioning the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency's ability to properly monitor the Baard Energy plant should it ever be built.

State Sen. Jason Wilson, D-Columbiana, said while the National Resources Defense Council is certainly free to attempt to influence public policy in regard to the Baard project, they had better have the facts to back up their claims.

Wilson was responding to a story in which NRDC officials Josh Mogerman and Shannon Fisk said they were concerned about the potential impact of the Baard project given the OEPA's track record when it comes to ensuring companies live up to its environmental regulatory permits.

"What I do oppose is the suggestion the EPA will not follow the law ... I don't want to get into a tit-for-tat, but that is what (Fisk) is saying and, frankly, that's offensive," Wilson said.

The NRDC and Sierra Club have appealed the state and federal decisions to award the permits needed for Baard to build a $6 billion coal-to-liquid fuel conversion plant on property to be purchased by the Columbiana County Port Authority in the Wellsville area.

Wilson said if Fisk or the NRDC have any facts to support its claims about the OEPA then they should produce them.

"Aside from Mr. Fisk's opinion, because that's what it is, I haven't seen any facts," he said.

Wilson has complete faith in the OEPA's ability to properly monitor the Baard plant in a way that protects public health and the environment.

"I think the EPA does its job and has diligent and educated people."

He said there are closed steel mills in the Ohio Valley that stand as a testament to the OEPA's ability to enforce the law, noting these mills are idle due in large part to environmental regulations and fines that were imposed for violations.

Fisk, a staff attorney for the NRDC, was given the opportunity to respond to Wilson's comments. He said there are cleaner energy alternatives available "that would create more jobs and represent a better investment of the more than $6 billion at stake here."

As for the OEPA, Fisk said the permits issued Baard "fail to comply with basic requirements of the Clean Air Act or Clean Water Act. In addition, claims that the facility would be clean rely on purported elements of the facility that are not required by any of Baard's permits."

He cited the following examples:

- During malfunctions, the plant would emit 28,160 pounds of sulfur dioxide and 31,800 pounds of particulate matter every hour. "Baard's permit application acknowledges that such processes upsets and malfunctions occur, and the Ohio EPA's air permit allows them to occur," Fisk said.

- The OEPA failed to evaluate whether large pollution spikes during startups, shutdowns and malfunctions at the plant would violate the Clean Air Act.

- Although Baard said 30 percent of the fuel used for the conversion process will consist of environmentally friendly biomass, its permit is based on the use of 100 percent coal.

- While Baard claims it will recapture and sequester 80 percent of the 12 million tons of carbon dioxide created annually, "the Ohio EPA's Air Permit does not require the company to do so."

- Finally, the OEPA has failed to evaluate whether proposed pollution-control technologies would eliminate or reduce mercury discharge into the Ohio River below the maximum amount allowed by water quality standards.

"While the NRDC opposes the costly and polluting Baard liquid coal facility, we would welcome the opportunity to work with state Sen. Wilson and other officials in Columbiana County and Wellsville to help bring true clean energy development to the area," Fisk concluded.

Wilson said he supports the Baard project because it will create jobs as well as an alternative to foreign oil in an environmentally safe manner that involves the reuse of carbon dioxide discharged from the plant to recapture oil in abandoned oil wells.

"Baard Energy will be the most environmentally friendly plant of this sort ever devised," he said.

Wilson questioned the motives of the NRDC.

"They're not interested in an environmental solution; they're interested in eliminating industry," he said. "We can solve these problems, but we can't have guys like this Mr. Fisk telling us what to do."