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Power plant appeal focuses on the technical points
By David Steinkraus
MILWAUKEE - A new and relatively quiet episode in the case of the Oak Creek power plant opened Monday morning.
In a basement hearing room of a state office building in downtown Milwaukee, attorneys came to argue whether the state Department of Natural Resources violated state and federal rules in issuing an air pollution permit for the construction of two coal-fired generators at the Oak Creek power plant.
"The threshold issue," said Philip Karmel, an attorney for SC Johnson, "is: Did the Department of Natural Resources use the correct criteria to issue the air permit for the Elm Road Generating Station?" SC Johnson and Clean Wisconsin say it didn't and are appealing the permit approval.
The law says that the benefits of having some new source of air pollution must outweigh its social, environmental, and economic costs, Karmel said. "DNR did not undertake this analysis required by the Clean Air Act."
disagreed.
Although many opponents of the power plant wanted to see natural-gas-fired generators installed, it is the coal gasification option on which the hearing will turn. Gasification - heating coal to turn it into a fuel gas - produces less pollution than burning coal. We Energies' original plan for the Oak Creek site called for a gasification plant to be installed at the end of a three-phase expansion, but the state turned down that option saying it wouldn't be cost-effective.
"It was essential to pick a technology that had proven availability and proven high operating ability," said Larry Martin, an attorney for We Energies. It would have been reckless to use gasification, he said, building essentially an experimental power plant of that size, he said. "The risks of that would simply have been too great. The stakes are too high."
The hearing proceeds like any process in a circuit court. There are witnesses, sworn testimony, and exhibits. Spectators in the hearing room were relegated to the second row of chairs; the first row was largely consumed by boxes full of documents. Unlike court cases, much of the testimony is very technical and was submitted in writing in advance. For example, SC Johnson filed an affidavit from two Harvard experts who estimated how many millions of dollars in health cost each power-generating method would impose on Wisconsin and the region.
As witnesses took the stand, lawyers examined them on fine points in their written testimony.
Martin spent a couple of hours cross-examining the first witness, Luke O'Keefe, an energy consultant based in White Plains, N.Y., who is an advocate for coal gasification.
He took O'Keefe back and forth through his written testimony, questioning whether gasification was really the same as burning coal in a boiler, comparing the chemistry of what happens in each process, asking whether gasification is really reliable enough for use by a utility that has to have an absolutely dependable method of meeting its base level power demands.
Monday was only the first day of the proceedings. Attorneys expect to be calling witnesses and arguing the case until
Friday.
Coleman's decision has to be rendered within 30 days after the proceeding ends, but that end may not come at the end of the week. Attorneys may choose to file more briefs to further argue some points.
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