By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — Southwestern Electric Power Co. on Monday petitioned the Arkansas Supreme Court to review the state Court of Appeals’ decision last week to deny a permit for a proposed coal-fired power plant in Southwest Arkansas.
SWEPCO’s president announced the appeal in a news conference, during which he said SWEPCO has already spent $713 million on construction and said opposition to the plant is coming from “elite hunting clubs.”
An attorney for hunting clubs that oppose the plant said SWEPCO’s decision to start construction before receiving final approval was the fault of SWEPCO, not his clients.
SWEPCO is appealing a ruling Wednesday by the appeals court that overturned the state Public Service Commission’s decision to approve the company’s plans for the proposed John W. Turk Jr. Plant near Fulton in Hempstead County.
The Hempstead County Hunting Club and other landowners had appealed the PSC’s November 2007 decision to grant Shreveport, La.-based SWEPCO a certificate of environmental compatibility and public need, or CECPN, for the $1.6 billion, 600-megawatt plant. The landowners claim the plant will harm the local environment.
The Court of Appeals found that the PSC was required by state law to consider all matters related to SWEPCO’s application in a single proceeding, but instead it considered several related issues in separate proceedings.
The court also said the issue of alternative locations for the plant was not adequately addressed before the PSC granted the certificate.
SWEPCO’s filing Monday argues that the Court of Appeals misinterpreted state law. SWEPCO President and Chief Operating Officer Paul Chodak told reporters the PSC followed the law and employed procedures that have been in place for decades.
“The practice of separate dockets and the practices and procedures that were employed in the Turk’s CECPN process are the same that have been employed for power plants over the last 30-plus years, so basically they’re rewriting the way the (PSC) does business if this decision is allowed to stand,” Chodak said.
He said in addition to spending $713 million on construction, which began months ago, SWEPCO has entered into $1.3 billion worth of contracts for the plant. SWEPCO has already erected 700 tons of steel and laid 17,000 cubic yards of concrete at the site, and has bought 90 percent of the major equipment for the project, he said.
SWEPCO currently employs 732 people in construction jobs at the site and eventually plans to employ more than 1,000 construction workers, Chodak said. Those jobs will be lost if the project is killed, he said.
“Although I am deeply moved by the elite hunting clubs’ heartfelt concern for the health of their ducks, I am much more concerned about the economic development in the communities in which we serve,” Chodak said.
Rick Addison, the hunting clubs’ attorney, said SWEPCO has only itself to blame for beginning construction of the plant before it had final approval.
“Now they’ve found out that in going forward without a completed legal process these folks may no longer have jobs if they have to stop construction. That’s entirely their fault, their corporate decision making,” Addison said.
Addison also said SWEPCO promised previously it would not use its construction expenditures as an argument for approving the plant, but “that’s exactly what they’re doing.”
In December, attorneys for SWEPCO told the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission that SWEPCO would not to argue in future proceedings that the plant should be approved because of the company’s expenditures.
The commission subsequently issued a ruling that allowed SWEPCO to continue with construction, on the condition that “any actions and any and all expenditures incurred by SWEPCO … are strictly at SWEPCO’s own risk and SWEPCO agrees it will not argue that the costs it incurs or the status of construction should be considered by the commission in deciding the permit appeals.”
Chodak made his comments Monday to reporters, not to the commission or the Supreme Court. SWEPCO’s filing with the Supreme Court does not mention the company’s expenditures on the plant.
Glen Hooks of Little Rock, regional director of the Sierra Club’s national anti-coal campaign, attended the news conference and said later that construction of the plant should halt immediately. Chodak said construction will continue.
Hooks also said he was amused by Chodak’s remark that opponents of the plant are an elite group.
“They are making interesting attempts to try to turn this into some sort of a class issue between Arkansans and a multimillion-dollar corporation. I think (it) is a little bit hilarious,” Hooks said.
SWEPCO is a subsidiary of Columbus, Ohio-based American Electric Power, one of the largest electric utility providers in the nation.
