Status of Wolverine Power Plant

Below is an exerpt from Richard Lamb on the status of the Wolverine Power Cooperative's "Clean Energy Venture:"

Hurdles yet to be cleared if Wolverine is to build in Rogers Township 2/27/2009 11:07:21 PM by Richard Lamb-- Advance Editor(Alexandria, Louisiana)-- It is good to make plans for the logistics ofthe construction phase of the $1 billion power plant planned for theCalcite quarry property in Rogers Township, but Craig Borr,Wolverine's executive vice president, cautioned that all plans areoff if Wolverine does not get its air quality permit from the MichiganDepartment of Environmental Quality. "Until and if we get an airpermit is really the key to all of this. There are really two keys. Weare hopeful the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) willtake action on the permit sometime this year. We don't know that andwe have no guarantee of that, but we are optimistic we are going to seesome action by the agency this year," Borr said while in Louisianawith 11 community leaders from Presque Isle County."And from our perspective we have to kick it into high gear withregards to our final financial evaluation in terms of sitting down withour members face-to-face and saying what it is going to cost to do thisand here are the economic impacts. Is this the right decision or not? "The Advance spoke to him between meetings with government, business,schools and law enforcement in the central Louisiana communitiessurrounding the nearly-completed power plant the community leaders werevisiting last week.

BORR SAID WOLVERINE is still in the development phase, not the decisionphase, which comes later. "We need to be very careful that we do notset the expectation levels of the community too high. Certainly gettingan air permit is job number one from our perspective right now." If that is obtained, Borr said, a detailed financial evaluation would bedone as part of the decision phase of the project. If it is the bestlong-term financial decision to meet the membership's power supplyneeds, the board will likely approve the construction, Borr said.

Thanks to Richard Lamb for covering this subject so well!