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St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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Thursday, February 14, 2008 8:50 PM CST
Tuscola wants FG site freed up for development

By HERB MEEKER, Staff Writer
hmeeker@jg-tc.com

Tuscola is facing insult added to injury with the killing of the FutureGen project, a Douglas County official said.

After the energy project went to Mattoon, Tuscola officials hoped they could “dust the cover off” of documents for future marketing of the proposed FutureGen site west of town. But then on Jan. 30, the U.S. Department of Energy killed the plan for building a coal-fueled power plant at Mattoon and withheld release of the Record of Decision that withholds environmental clearances for all four finalist sites in Illinois and Texas.

Douglas County Engineer Jim Crane said DOE’s lack of action has literally put a lien on future development of the site near Tuscola.

“With the environmental clearances from DOE we could get people knocking on our door,” said Crane. “We need all clearances so we could draw a project from another state. But this could hurt all the finalist communities, including the ones in Texas.”

Crane has written a letter to Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman to clarify the issue. State Rep. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, is also seeking assistance on financing and overcoming the clearances for helping Tuscola move ahead on its FutureGen site.

“We want it so some of this work was not in vain,” Crane said. “We were assured during the meeting in Pittsburgh by DOE [in August 2006] that once the Environmental Impact Statement and Record of Decision (were completed) our site would be over the hurdles. Now they not only pulled the rug on Mattoon but hurt us as well.”

Reimbursement is another issue for Tuscola on its efforts to land FutureGen. A pair of state grants helped reimburse many expenses for the city, but Crane said there are questions on some expenses incurred by county workers on site documentation and infrastructure research, ranging from roadways to carbon dioxide pipeline layout.

“I support what Chapin is doing. But I don’t think the taxpayers of Illinois should be paying for this. It should be the federal government,” Crane said. “If a private company had come in here and made the promises that DOE did to us and then pulled out, then our state’s attorney would be filing charges against them.”

Mattoon Public Works Director Dave Wortman said reimbursement from the state has covered all costs incurred by the city and Coles Together to this point.

Contact Herb Meeker at hmeeker@jg-tc.com or 238-6869.

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The Question wrote on Feb 14, 2008 6:48 PM:

" Why is the Bush administration holding up the environmental clearances? What are they trying to hide?
I would expect that it's evidence that their decision to kill FutureGen was purely political and dirty, like everything else they do.
"