More Power To Ya

A Texas power producer wants to bring Athens two things that we don't need: more electricity and more air pollution.

originally published September 26, 2001

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Chances are relatively few people in Athens have ever heard of the Enron corporation, a multi-national power company based in Houston, Texas. But if the company, ACC officials, and local business boosters have their way, an Enron power plant will soon be adding its emissions to Athens' already dangerously dirty air.

Dazzled by the promise of $3 million in annual tax revenues, and on the recommendation of a committee formed by Mayor Doc Eldridge, ACC Commissioners voted in May to "partner" with Enron North America "regarding the potential siting of an electrical energy production center." That site turned out to be on Newton Bridge Road, along the North Oconee River, where Enron wants to build a 560 megawatt natural-gas fired plant it calls the "Athens Energy Center."

Enron recently filed for an air quality permit from the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD), using the name "Athens Development Company, LLC." The permit application came just after Commissioners were "briefed" on the project by Enron representatives. For those briefings, organized in mid-August by Chamber of Commerce president and ACC-Enron committee member Kevin Johnson, Commissioners were asked to meet with Enron "in small groups" in the Chamber Board room. Enron then flew four committee members and a consultant to Syracuse, New York, to visit a plant similar to the one the company has in mind for Athens.

Enron isn't the first power producer to flirt with Athens-Clarke. Government documents show that since the summer of 2000, the county has negotiated with three "international energy companies" looking to locate here. Two of those, Duke Energy and Texas Utilities, had bowed out as of this April. Enron, says an ACC Public Utilities report, "is aggressively pursuing the project and is anxious to partner with ACC."

So who are these guys, anyway?

The Enron Story

Enron is the top energy wholesaler in the U.S., and as such is one of the largest companies in the country. Though a little known brand in the Athens area, Enron is a household word in its native Texas. The Houston Astros now play at Enron Field, a spiffy new ballpark with a retractable roof, built with $100 million of the company's money. (In return, according to The Progressive, Enron received a $200 million contract to power the stadium, along with the obligatory tax break.)

Of course the Great American Pastime is just a hobby for Enron. As The Progressive article reads: "The Enron Methanol plant in Pasadena, Texas, lies in the Houston Ship Channel area, the nation's largest concentration of petrochemical plants just east of the city. The plant has won special concessions from [then-] Governor Bush, allowing the company to pollute without a permit, as well as giving it immunity from prosecution for violating some environmental standards."

Enron has been accused of using its influence over President Bush to profit from this year's California energy crisis. After Bush refused to intervene in order to control energy costs in that state, the Boston Globe wrote that Enron, "more than any other company, has helped bankroll President Bush's political career." Having been the largest contributor to Bush's campaigns for the House of Representatives (which he lost) and the Presidency, wrote the Globe, "Enron ... is among several brokers and producers of electricity that have reaped giant profits from California's power shortages and higher natural gas prices nationwide."

Enron is known outside the U.S. too, most notably in India, where the company is still entangled in the controversial Dabhol Power Corporation project.

A joint venture of Enron, General Electric, and engineering-construction firm Bechtel, Dabhol is a 2,015 megawatt plant 100 miles south of Bombay, in the state of Maharashtra. According to the San Francisco-based non-profit CorpWatch, the project was immediately opposed by locals, who feared its impact on their health and environment. Protests ensued, and were met with violence from police, who raided homes of protesters. Amnesty International found that several women were "beaten severely by Indian police paid for by Enron." Hundreds of other protesters were arrested and temporarily detained.

"The Dabhol Power Corporation pays the state forces that committed human rights violations," reads a 1999 report from Human Rights Watch, "it provided other material support to these forces; and it failed to act on credible allegations that its own contractors were engaged in criminal activity that rose to the level of human rights violations due to the failure of the state to investigate the crimes."

Enron denies complicity in the actions of Indian authorities, contending the company has no control over them.

Enron has other problems with the Dabhol project. The Indian government claims Dabhol energy is exorbitantly expensive, and the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) is no longer drawing power from the plant. The Dabhol Power Corporation is pursuing legal remedies, and wants to sell the plant to the state or to its Indian investors.

In The Air Tonight


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Athens, too, is holding its own. As of this writing, EPA monitoring reveals that the county has exceeded safe quantities of ozone on six days in 2001. August 23 data clocked Athens ozone at .123 parts-per-million, well above the "unhealthy" level, at 11 p.m. - nearly unheard of for a reading at that time. And 2001 has been a mild year. By August of 2000, Athens had racked up 16 exceedences. Meanwhile, the latest data available on particulates - tiny airborne particles that accumulate in the respiratory system - shows that Athens, along with the rest of the state of Georgia, surpassed federal standards for the year 1999.

But those are abstractions, numbers on a chart. In the real world, particulates from power plants contribute to the deaths of 1,630 Georgians annually - a higher toll than from drunk driving accidents and homicides combined, says PIRG. Power plant smog contributes to 240,000 asthma attacks in Georgia during the summer months.

"Athens' air is really bad," says Robert Ukeiley, an attorney with the Georgia Center for Law in the Public Interest, a non-profit watchdog group, "so [the EPD] actually shouldn't be issuing any new permits."

Athens' air problems are likely to be exacerbated already by another power station so close by that it may as well be in Athens-Clarke. Southern Company's new plant Dahlberg is just inside Jackson County on Hwy 441 near Sandy Creek (see sidebar). Dahlberg is also gas fired, and at 1200 megawatts is over twice the size of the proposed Athens Enron facility.

When asked how much an Athens Enron plant would contribute to local ozone and particulates, Enron spokeswoman Lea Sooter replied: "I can't speak to the specifics on that."

It's Like, Natural

Natural gas fired plants are heralded by power producers as clean, almost green. Says Sooter: "I can tell you that the Sierra Club and some of the environmental organizations and groups believe that as far as power generation, if you must use a fossil fuel, then a combined cycle technology, using the highest emission controls... is the way to go."

Colleen Kiernan, of the Georgia Environmental Enforcement Project, agrees - to a point.

"Most environmentalists see us getting to a renewable energy situation, where our energy needs are met by a combination of solar and wind and fuel cells," she says, "and natural gas is an important transition to those. But natural gas in and of itself is still a fossil fuel, and still [causes] dangerous emissions into the air."

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that the Mayor of Union City, in Fulton County, has asked another power generator, the Tulsa-based Williams Companies, not to build a gas fired plant there. Fearing "plant emissions would endanger the health" of the 1100 residents of nearby Christian City, a community of foster children and the elderly, Mayor Ralph Moore wants Williams to rescind its request to rezone 288 acres for the facility. Moore says "the prospect of the plant is creating 'high levels of public anxiety,' especially among senior citizens."

Duke Energy recently reached an agreement with environmental groups to lower emissions at a gas fired plant in Dalton, Georgia, according to the Georgia Sierran, the newsletter of the Sierra Club. This spring, the Georgia Center for Law in the Public Interest challenged the air quality permit issued to Duke by the state EPD, a permit it says did not meet standards set by the federal Clean Air Act. In response, Duke sued the environmental groups. The groups claimed the suit was an attempt to drain their financial resources and sought to have it dismissed. A preliminary court ruling favored the environmentalists, and Duke settled, saying it would reduce discharges of nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide and particulate matter.

"Another thing that I would want to point out is that in Georgia it's not like coal fired power plants, which are dirtier than natural gas, are being retired in favor of natural gas," adds Kiernan. "The proliferation of new natural gas fired power plants are being built in addition to the existing dirty coal fired power plants, and aren't really serving Georgia at all."

EP Who?

Ukeiley is the Georgia Center for Law in the Public Interest attorney who filed the petition contesting Duke's Dalton permit. In the Sierran, Ukeiley said, "We are extremely pleased that we were able to reach an agreement on this particular plant... However, the citizens of the state of Georgia should not have to appeal every single permit to ensure that the Georgia EPD is carrying out the Clean Air Act...."

ACC documents regarding the proposed Enron plant make vague references to its effects on air quality, but do not address specifics, leaving that task to EPD.

"We haven't really gotten to that point," says ACC Commissioner Tom Chasteen, who serves on the county's Enron committee. "That's part of the thing we're going to be getting from EPD at the appropriate time."

"We are going to meet all of the guidelines set forth by the local, state and federal regulatory agencies," says Enron's Sooter. But Ukeiley says EPD, which is responsible for enforcing federal EPA regulations, consistently proves itself more interested in accommodating power companies than protecting air quality.

"You have to look over their shoulder every single time they do anything," he says. "I think they're under the misguided view that their job is to promote economic growth at any cost."

"But having areas have poor air quality has significant economic consequences in terms of lost work or lost agricultural production," Ukeiley continues. "Ground level ozone, which is what Atlanta's problem is and what Athens' problem is, has a significant effect on vegetation. If you're a farmer or a tree grower or whatever, it's just not good for your business. Or if you own a Kinko's or a pizza store or whatever and your workers are missing work because their kids are having asthma attacks, it's just not good for your business. But EPD, I guess, thinks it's their job to help large corporations make a quick buck."

It's The Money, Stupid

Scanning the stack of documents associated with the project, one finds several references to an Athens Enron plant helping with potential shortages in the region's energy supply. The ACC Public Utilities report, presented to the Commission before its May vote to partner with Enron, lists the "ability to mitigate possible electrical constraints in the area" as a benefit. An Enron-produced booklet distributed to ACC officials also employs that refrain, in nearly identical language: "The Energy Center will help mitigate electricity constraints in the area."

Does Enron have evidence of a power shortage in Athens, especially in light of its proximity to plant Dahlberg?

"I wouldn't define it as an energy shortage, but there is a need in that area," says Sooter. "I know that there are areas - well, I'm not even going to go down that road. I can get you some more specific information on need. I just don't have it."

Enron has yet to present Flagpole with specific information on need, perhaps because there isn't any.

"Georgia is an exporter of energy," says Colleen Kiernan. Of the approximately 23,000 megawatts of power generated in the state annually, Georgia consumers use only about three-fourths of it. The rest is sold out of state. That doesn't stop power companies - or government officials - from using scare tactics and rhetoric to place plants in areas where they aren't needed. Even with Georgia's energy surplus (and filthy air), there are dozens of plants - like Enron's "Athens Energy Center" - awaiting EPD permits.

Contrary to Enron's response to Flagpole and the ACC Public Utilities report, Commissioner Chasteen says the company has been "candid" about what will become of power generated by a local plant. "It's going to go on their power grid, and whoever buys it just buys it. It could be brokered all over the country," says Chasteen. "We have not looked at it from the perspective that it would make the availability of power here better, worse or indifferent."

An Enron plant could come to the rescue in a "worst case scenario," Chasteen says. Otherwise, it's about the money.

"These sorts of facilities are especially appealing in rural parts of Georgia where county commissioners are often so desperate for economic development that they'll essentially shoot themselves in the foot for it," says Kiernan. "What winds up eventually happening is the economic development comes from people getting sick."

Wastewater, Want Water

If Enron does come to town, Athenians supporting the smog economy will at least know they have a super-sized wastewater treatment system to rely on.

In addition to augmenting the local tax digest, the Enron project would bring a $20 million upgrade to the county's wastewater infrastructure, most of it to be paid by Enron. The improvements would give Athens-Clarke County assistance in financing a project it had its sights set on anyway, and would allow Enron to use treated wastewater for cooling purposes, rather than water drawn directly from the North Oconee.

"The extraction from our raw water supply would not be increased at all because they're going to be getting gray water," says Chasteen.

Not necessarily so, says Robert Ukeiley.

"From a downstream user's point of view, there's less water in the river," he says. "And it's actually worse, because you're treating more water than you need if you were just taking the water right out of the river. I think gray water systems are a good idea, but not to the point where you're using so much water that it's starting to affect the flow of the rivers."

As far as impairing the river's water level, Chasteen acknowledges, "It would mean that a little bit more of it would be evaporated and would not be going back in the river, so we're checking to see what impact that's going to have down the road too."

Fast Track

For Enron to build its plant here, the company will have to secure a special use permit from the ACC Commission. The company's proposed timetable for the project has that happening in February 2002, which Chasteen calls "awfully optimistic."

However, he adds, "Now that's not to say that it might be possible if everything fell in place, the February date might hit."

Given normal procedures, the public will be given one chance to comment on the "Athens Energy Center" - on the night of the Commission vote.