Kinder Morgan kills power plant project

Kinder Morgan Power Co. has terminated its plan to build a $300 million power plant between Crump and Whitewater in rural Cape Girardeau County. The company cited "repeated, unexplained delays" by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources as the reason it is ending the project.

The company filed an application to build the plant in 2000. The DNR denied the company's air permit application in September 2001, stating design changes were needed to reduce smog-producing emissions. Kinder Morgan contended the changes would not be cost-effective and appealed the decision to the Missouri Air Conservation Commission.

A decision on the company's appeal originally was scheduled to come in July, but delays have postponed a final ruling. The next hearing had been set back until December because of an illness in the family of the hearing officer.

Larry Pierce, the company's director of corporate communication, said Kinder Morgan had no choice but to move on because of the numerous delays. "We have no reason to believe they would issue that permit," he said.

"... This goes on and on and on. It could be one to three years from now before we resolve the issue. Meanwhile, the marketplace is continuing to change and not for the better.

"We had to make this decision. Our responsibility is to our shareholders."

Both Cape Girardeau County Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones and Senate President Pro Tem Peter Kinder, R-Cape Girardeau, worked to bring the plant to Cape Girardeau County. The county was set to issue bonds to finance the project.

The Delta, Mo., school system stood to see its annual tax revenue increase by a net of $400,000, and the Whitewater Fire District would have received $780,000 over the next 15 years. The plant would have provided 250 construction jobs.

Kinder, who championed the plant at the state level, blamed the hearing officer for Kinder Morgan's decision and said it isn't likely the company will reconsider. He said concerns about the proposed plant's air quality control were unfounded and pointed to approvals for the same plant design in other states.

"The DNR had an agenda," he said. "They are alleging that I put all this political pressure on them. I used my office to try to help this company make this investment. At one point I thought I had the governor's ear on this.

"I don't know how many hundreds of millions they want to run out of the state."

In an Oct. 28 letter to Jones, Kinder Morgan's director of site development John C. Gibson wrote, "We regret that the Missouri Department of Natural Resources has seen fit to kill our proposed power plant by delay and frustration of our efforts at every turn."

Jones said supporters had encouraged Kinder Morgan "to stick to their guns. We were afraid at some point they were going to have to make a decision. They've got people wanting to buy energy."

It's disappointing and frustrating to lose a business that desperately wants to come to Cape Girardeau County, he said. "It will probably be a long time before anyone else wants to locate here."

Mitch Robinson, executive director of the Cape Girardeau Area Industrial Recruitment Association, was critical of the DNR. "The company had worked and provided them with all the documentation. They met their guidelines but the department fought them every inch and every step."

Pollution opponents

The DNR was not alone in its dissatisfaction with the project. Opposition surfaced in the form of a group of residents who called themselves Cape Citizens Against Pollution. Cheryl Kieffer, who lives near Whitewater, greeted Tuesday's news with near disbelief. "I am overjoyed," she said.

Kinder Morgan's withdrawal signifies a bigger victory for the state, she said.

"If this company had its way and was allowed to bypass what Missouri considered its own standards, it would have opened the door to other plants doing the same thing."

Her husband, Glen, was saddened only that one of the plant's strongest opponents, Alvin Seabaugh, didn't live long enough to hear the news. Seabaugh, whose farm was next door to the proposed site of the plant, died Oct. 22 at age 81.

"They were going to plant an industrial complex in one of the most beautiful parts of Missouri and destroy lives," Glen Kieffer said. "They don't have to do that."

The company notified the Missouri Air Conservation Commission that it is withdrawing its appeal in a letter dated Oct. 28. Paul Steinway, the company's vice president of engineering and site development, wrote that Kinder Morgan's efforts to have a hearing before the Missouri Air Conservation Commission have been frustrated and delayed. He also charged that the DNR issued the formal denial of Kinder Morgan's application four months after the statutory deadline.

"Its efforts have finally convinced us that no just resolution of this matter will ever be granted," Steinway wrote.

In a response to those allegations, DNR program director Roger Randolph said the state has invested an extraordinary amount of time into the Kinder Morgan application. "... The prolonged negotiating with Kinder Morgan was a major factor in the amount of time lapsed between the initial application and the denial of the application in September 2001," he wrote in a letter sent to the chairman of the Air Conservation Commission on Tuesday.

Randolph said the denial was issued once it became clear that no resolution between DNR and the company was possible and that DNR has been awaiting the decision of the hearing officer as well.

Connie Patterson, a spokeswoman for DNR, expressed surprise at the company's decision. "At its December meeting, the commission was expecting to hear a recommendation from the hearing officer. Basically, this kind of circumvents all that because they now have nothing to decide."

Asked whether the company might change its mind if there were political fallout from the decision, Pierce refused to speculate. He said the company did not withdraw its appeal for that purpose.

Richard D. Kinder, a Cape Girardeau native, is the company's chairman of the board and CEO. Sen. Kinder, who is distantly related, said he did not think Kinder Morgan's decision was a ploy. "I think they are washing their hands of Rich Kinder's home county."

Southeast Missourian reporter Marc Powers and managing editor Heidi Hall contributed to this report.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

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