State appeals court to consider SW Ga power plant issue

The state’s court of appeals will review a lower-court ruling that stopped plans for Georgia’s first coal-fired power plant in more than 20 years. The court will look at whether the state’s Enviromental Protection Division should have legal limits on carbon dioxide emissions by the plant. In June, a ruling by a Fulton County Superior Court judge sided with environmental groups opposing the project—she stated permits are invalid because they do not regulate CO2.
The planned 2-billion dollar facility in southwest Georgia is a project of Houston, Texas-based Dynegy Inc. Both Dynegy and the EPD moved to appeal the decision.

Builders still banking on SW Georgia power plant

LS Power, the company seeking to build a coal-fired power plant in southwest Georgia, says it will appeal a recent court ruling that halted construction.

Mike Vogt, project director with LS Power told the Dothan Eagle newspaper,

“We’re 100 percent committed to staying the course to begin construction.”

In a landmark ruling on June 30, the Fulton County Superior Court reversed an earlier administrative court decision on an Environmental Protection Division (EPD) permit that had okayed the $1.2 billion project in Early County.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore reversed a previous decision by Atlanta Administrative Law Judge Judge Stephanie Howells, giving the go-ahead for the project.

LS Power will appeal the decision to the Georgia Court of Appeals in August.

Proponents say the project will provide hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars in tax revenue for the poor rural area.

A group of area residents and environmentalists fighting the project say the plant will emit unchecked amounts of carbon dioxide, harmful amounts of dust, and other pollutants.

The Longleaf Power Plant would be the first such facility to be built in Georgia in the last two decades.

Click here for more GPB News coverage of the issues at stake in the case.