By Janet Jacobs
Pin Oak Creek Energy, the larger of the two proposed power plants for Navarro County, has officially announced it is canceling the project, according to Phil Klazynski, associate project manager for LS Power.
“We’ll be informing TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) next week, to formally withdraw our application for the Pin Oak Creek Energy project and terminate our efforts on the project,” he said Thursday.
Klazynski said the decision was a business decision based on power-need projections, competition from government-subsidized wind farms in West and North Texas, and the credit market, Klazynski said.
“This was purely a business decision,” he said. “The economic downturn pushed out the need for this plant for at least a few more years. In addition to that, the PUC late last year approved a $5 million transmission line build-out from the Panhandle and West Texas to cities like D-FW, and our market analysis shows that’s decreasing power prices going forward.”
The LS Power representative thanked local supporters of the project and insisted that detractors and opposition groups did not influence the decision. However, he added that the company is keeping alive the Fannin County project, which was filed at the same time as the Navarro County project and is roughly the same size. Facing no local opposition, the Fannin County project already has its final air emissions permit.
“The relative time and effort to get our Fannin County facility is frankly a little less than it would take to get Pin Oak to the finish line,” Klazynski said.
The decision is disappointing for county officials, who were hoping to add the plant’s estimated $1 billion value to the tax rolls.
“We were looking at the fact that it would be a significant help to us, tax-wise,” said County Judge H.M. Davenport. “This was the bigger of the two (power plants), and would have made the most significant impact on county finances as far as taxes go.”
The defeat of the first and largest proposed power plant could be considered a victory for the Copps Opposing Power Plants, led by Vicky Prater and a group of local environmental and property-values activists.
“Hell yeah, I’m happy,” Prater said, adding that it wasn’t just activism that stopped the plant. “Everything came into play — the economy, the Obama administration, the EPA’s attitude towards Texas, the TCEQ, everything came together at exactly the right time.”
Her group will now turn its full attention to the other proposed plants, Navarro Generating, a smaller plant that wants to build in southern Navarro County, and a Freestone County project, meant for a site just south of the Richland Chambers Reservoir, she said.
Prater said she has thought hard about the loss of tax money, and said she believes it isn’t where the county’s future should lie. Instead, the county should pursue industries and companies that employ more people than the plants would have. Pin Oak Creek would only have employed about 25 to 30 people.
“I believe that lost tax money was not the true future of Navarro County,” she said. “I’m more concerned that 90 people lost their jobs at Jeld-Wen this past week. It (power plant) was not in the best interest of the people of this county.”
The plant would have been located in southern Navarro County, and the option to purchase the land will expire in about a month, Klazynski said.
The only impact on the City of Corsicana would have been water sales. The city controls most of the water rights in the county, and power plants need lots of water.
“There’s no damage to the city with regard to the pipeline or the pump station decision because we didn’t rely on their coming to make our decisions,” said Connie Standridge, city manager. “However, it is disappointing that in the future we won’t be able to sell water to them.”
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