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OFFICIALS: $780M WHITE BLUFF PROJECT WOULD PROVIDE JOBS

By Wes Clement/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Saturday, November 14, 2009 12:01 AM CST

Area residents and other interested parties will have an opportunity Tuesday to comment on a matter that will impact continued operation of the White Bluff coal power plant at Redfield.

The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Redfield’s American Legion.

Two years ago, the Environmental Protection Agency created the Clean Air Visibility Rule requiring coal plants built between 1962 and 1977 to be equipped with flue gas desulfurization equipment (scrubbers) by Oct. 15, 2013.

At a Monday meeting of the Redfield City Council, White Bluff Plant Manager Rick Perryman said the cost of building a scrubber system at the plant would be about $780 million.

White Bluff employs 147 workers full-time and generates enough electricity to power about 1.5 million average Arkansas homes.

The construction project would employ about 800 workers, Perryman said. Some work would begin during late 2010 and construction would peak during 20011-2012, he said.

Entergy Arkansas owns 57 percent of White Bluff. Other owners include Arkansas Electric Cooperatives Corp., and the cities of West Memphis, Conway and Jonesboro.

The new system would use scrubbers which remove sulfur from coal plant emissions by spraying a mist of limestone solution that adheres to sulfur. The system catches the captured sulfur in “bag houses” preventing about 95 percent of sulfur emissions from entering the atmosphere.

Perryman said the plant must have a permit from Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality and the approval of Arkansas Public Service Commission before beginning the project. Otherwise, White Bluff would have to shut down its coal burning operations.

He said Alstom (a transportation and energy infrastructure company) would build the scrubber system.

At the council meeting Alderman Darrell Hedden shared his opinion of the plant’s continued operation.

“Entergy is our community friend here.,” Hedden said. “You all are a great corporate citizen for Arkansas not to mention around here for people who work there. They come from Sheridan, they come from Redfield, they come from White Hall, they come from Jefferson ... they impact our economics here.”

Similar opinions were expressed by others at the meeting including Alderman Tony Lawhon. The council informally appointed Lawhon to speak on behalf of the aldermen at Tuesday’s public hearing.

Perryman said natural gas power company representatives might attend the hearing with an interest in discontinuing operation of White Bluff.

“Natural gas is so much more expensive than coal,” Perryman said. “Right now natural gas is running about $4.35 per million BTUs. We’re $1.80. A year ago natural gas was about $8.80 per million BTUs, so that’s four times the cost of our fuel. The reality is almost 48 percent of our electricity in the United States today is generated by coal plants. Some day we’ll have to find alternative methods of generation because of CO2 (carbon dioxide) and other things going on in the environment and everybody intends to do that, but you can’t just turn that spigot off today.”

Representatives of groups such as Sierra Club, and those who believe there should no longer be coal plants in the United States also could attend the hearing.

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