North Dakota coal plant proposal withdrawn!

[Carrie La Seur]

According to today's announcement:

"Westmoreland Power Inc. has been developing a 500-megawatt electric power station near Gascoyne, in Bowman County. The company is a unit of Westmoreland Coal Co., which owns coal reserves in the area.

Westmoreland Coal's executive chairman, Keith Alessi, says uncertainty about future carbon dioxide regulations has slowed the development of coal plants.

He says the company cannot predict when it will start construction of a Gascoyne plant or find a long-term customer for its electric power.

The company is repaying $562,500 in state aid it got for the project. It's been in the works for about seven years."

In partnership with Dakota Resource Council, Environmental Defense, Sierra Club, the National Parks Conservation Association and other great allies, Plains Justice has been fighting this plant for over a year, filing extensive comments twice with the North Dakota Department of Health to emphasize the flaws in this dirty coal proposal 50 miles from Theodore Roosevelt National Park in southwestern North Dakota.  The proposal was for a circulating fluidized bed lignite coal boiler.  Earlier in 2008 we received a 280 GB hard drive from the National Park Service in response to a Freedom of Information Act request regarding NPS's adverse impact determination on this plant.  With the assistance of an expert witness, opponents crunched the data and argued that issuing this flawed permit would compromise protections for all national parks.  The final permit had not yet issued.

Thank you so much everyone, for all your support!

--
Carrie La Seur, Ph.D., J.D.
President
Plains Justice
100 First Street SW
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52404
Work: 319-362-2120
Fax: 866-484-2373
http://www.plainsjustice.org

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