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Contact: Jeanne Zokovitch,
jeanne@wildlaw.org, 850-878-6895
July 12, 2007
Today, the Taylor Energy
Center (TEC), a consortium of JEA, Florida Municipal
Power Agency, Walt Disney World's Reedy Creek
Improvement District and the City of Tallahassee,
officially withdrew their permitting application for
a proposed 765 MW supercritical coal-fired power
plant with the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC)
and Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).
The plant would have been built in Taylor County,
Florida, where the local residents would have
received a majority of the environmental impacts
from the power plant but none of the electricity.
WildLaw represented a City of
Tallahassee utility customer in the PSC
proceedings. On behalf of John C. Whitton, Jr.,
WildLaw argued that TEC did not submit sufficient
data upon which the PSC could determine that the
proposed pulverized coal power plant was needed and
the most cost effective alternative available.
Because all the TEC members did not adequately
considered demand-side management (DSM), energy
efficiency and conservation, and innovative
alternatives such as woody biomass utilization, TEC
did not adequately attempt to mitigate the need for
this proposed coal power plant.
Further, given the current
volatility in the costs associated with constructing
coal power plants and the commodity prices of coal,
the undetermined costs of transportation to deliver
coal to Taylor County, the reasonably anticipated
future carbon costs as well as the direct health and
environmental costs of operating a coal power plant,
it was impossible to determine if this proposal was
indeed the most cost effective.
NRDC, the Sierra Club and
several other individual utility customers also
played a large role in the PSC efforts.
Although the PSC and
environmental permit applications have been
withdrawn, TEC has announced that intends to
continue with the land use designations changes to
Taylor County’s Comprehensive Plan, which would add
new designations for Electrical Power Generating
Facilities. Because no one is sure what type of
power plant facilities will be proposed next at this
site and because having a power plant designation
already existing in a Comp Plan will be attractive
to utilities throughout the State, WildLaw and our
clients are gravely concerned with these continued
efforts.
Typically, a Comp Plan
amendment provides local governments and citizens
the best opportunity to have a real voice in the siting of power plant in their community. WildLaw
has been representing a local environmental group,
Taylor Residents United for the Environment (TRUE),
and several individuals at these land use hearings
to date. We will continue to work on this important
issue to insure that any changes to Taylor County’s
Comp Plan are in full compliance with existing law.
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