Cogentrix Plant Construction To Begin Opponents Wanted Better Pollution Controls For Gas-Fired Power Plant

Construction of a second natural-gas-fired power plant on Rathdrum Prairie will start next week, backers of the project announced Tuesday.

Cogentrix Energy and Avista Power have secured the financing and permits for the $140 million project, which will generate 270 megawatts of electricity for a region nearing the limits of its power supply.

“We have the surveyors on the site as we speak,” Cogentrix spokesman Curt Humphrey said Tuesday.

The plant will be built on a 108-acre site at the intersection of Greensferry Road and Lancaster. A smaller gas-fired turbine also owned by Avista is about one mile away.

Humphrey said the new plant’s General Electric turbine should be producing electricity in the third quarter of 2001.

Avista Power, a subsidiary of Avista Corp., will own 49 percent of the facility.

Avista Energy, another subsidiary, will buy the energy for resale to other utilities. The company also will purchase and deliver the natural gas needed to fuel the plant.

Cogentrix will be the majority owner, contractor and operator.

Humphrey said The Industrial Co. of Steamboat Springs, Colo., will be the general contractor. Industrial is a nonunion employer, which concerned members of a coalition that appealed the plant’s air quality permit.

REBOUND, a Seattle-based labor group with a Spokane chapter, also said the Rathdrum facility will be equipped with air-pollution-control technology that is not the best available.

REBOUND representatives were unavailable for comment Tuesday.

But project opponent Kristy Johnson of Post Falls said she and others were frustrated by their inability to get their concerns regarding air quality into the record during hearings last year.

“I’m not fighting the need for additional electricity,” Johnson said. However, she said, Cogentrix misled Avista about the suitability of technology that would remove more waste for less money over the long term.

REBOUND’s appeal of the air quality permit awarded to the plant in October was dismissed last month by a state board of health.

Neither REBOUND or its members have the standing to sustain an appeal, the board ruled.

Officials have said the plant owners are not required to install the best available technology because it will not emit more than 100 tons of any one pollutant annually.

Dismissal of the appeal and completion of the financing cleared the way for construction.

The funding comes from two sources.

Credit Lyonnais will be the administrative agent and lead arranger for a 20-year loan provided by multiple banks.

The Teacher’s Insurance and Annuity Association will add a 27-year package.

Humphrey said the willingness of the financiers to get behind the project was spurred by recent reports indicating the Northwest, once awash in megawatts, could run short during critical periods in the near future.

“We had to have a market forecast that justified the cost of a new facility,” he said.