DICKINSON A Second Meeting to Tell Local Folks About… [Derived Headline]

By LAUREN DONOVAN

DICKINSON A second meeting to tell local folks about a proposed gasification plant and coal mine near South Heart drew about half the people as did the first one last month.

There were some familiar faces among 140 people at the second public meeting held by Great Northern Power Development, and then there were guys like Dean Doolittle and Derald Payne. They live in Dickinson, about 10 miles from South Heart, but they wanted to hear about the project first-hand.

Payne said he’s heard bits and pieces around town, and it was time to get the low down, straight from the company’s mouth.

He said he sees a lot of pluses for the idea, but acknowledges he won’t be among those living “out there.”

Great Northern Power Development plans to spend $1.4 billion to build a coal mine and gasification plant out on the South Heart crop land and prairie, using coal reserves its parent company purchased from Burlington Northern Railroad.

It would be the biggest industrial complex in southwestern North Dakota.

Aaron Metz, who runs cattle near where the mine would be, said he needs more answers, especially about what mining will do to water for his cattle, and he said he believes the company is “changing their wording” to its favor in public.

The company has been planning a power project near South Heart to capitalize its coal reserves since 2001. It announced a few months ago that it’s planning now to gasify coal like at the Dakota Gasification Co. plant near Beulah, rather than burn it to make electricity.

Rich Voss, company vice president, said an uncertain regulatory situation, plus the problem of enough transmission capacity, were the main reasons to switch from making electricity to a synthetic natural gas.

The gas can be dumped into the nearby Northern Border Pipeline.

A new voice at Wednesday’s meeting was Beulah city planner John Phillips.

Phillips said environmental issues are a non-issue, based on Coal Country’s nearly 25-year history with a much larger gasification plant. He said communities haven’t compromised for industry and companies are accountable.

“The quality of life is great where we live,” Phillips said. He said the gas plant in Coal Country has never failed any state standards.

“This is a huge opportunity,” he said.

The economic impact is estimated at $33 million for each construction year alone.

However, nearly 600 people signed a petition asking for an environmental impact statement before any zoning is approved by the Stark County Planning and Zoning Commission.

The commission tabled the zoning to give people time to learn more about the project and will rehear the zoning application for a 17-section mine area on March 3.

Great Northern countered by starting its own petition two weeks ago in support of the project. The petition was passed around after Wednesday’s meeting, and it will likely be presented at the zoning hearing.

At the public meeting, Rich Southwick, company permit manager, said the mine and plant will require more than 10 separate permits, some with federal standards, for air quality, water discharge and appropriation, zoning and waste.

Southwick said there will be two public hearing opportunities with the Public Service Commission’s review and action on the mine permit application. The PSC also has to approve the company’s application to site the plant a South Heart, after holding a public hearing in Stark County.

In addition, there are public comment opportunities in the State Health Department’s highly technical air quality review, which will take up to a year.

Great Northern plans to file an application for a permit to mine South Heart coal next month.

If all goes as planned, the project would go into construction in the 2009 timeframe and online in 2012.

Dickinson Mayor Dennis Johnson said he supports the project, but came to the meeting to learn more.

He said the plant would add stable economic diversity to the region.

Johnson said he doesn’t get a sense of division over the project. “I’m not getting any calls,” he said. Second meeting on gasification plant taps Dickinson crowd

(c) 2008 Bismarck Tribune. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.