Gas-fired plant proposed on Cumberland Township site
A combined cycle natural gas-fired power plant has been proposed on a 41.7-acre site near what the state Department of Environmental Protection calls an EJA or “environmental justice” area along the Monongahela River in Cumberland Township, Greene County.
If all goes as planned, landowner and technical expert Bill Derby said, the Hill Top Energy Center LLC project along Thomas Road just outside Nemacolin “is going to be a very clean, very high tech natural gas-fueled facility,” hiring 25-30 people to generate 290 megawatts of electric power.
An informational public meeting is scheduled at 7 p.m. April 25 at the United Mine Workers Union Hall along Pershing Boulevard in Nemacolin, near the Hill Top site between Carmichaels and the Monongahela River.
Regional DEP spokesman John Poister said the meeting will be an “environmental advocate hearing to explain the project” as well as take comments, questions and concerns from local residents, particularly in nearby environmental justice areas.
Census tracts meet the DEP definition of an EJA if there is a poverty rate of 20 percent or more or a non-white population of 30 percent or more. Cumberland isn’t an EJA but borders on EJAs in Monongahela Township and across the river in Masontown and German Township.
Poister said it is similar to other gas-fired plants being proposed or built in Pennsylvania, such as the 550-megawatt combined cycle gas-powered plant Invenergy LLC would like to build near Buena Vista in Elizabeth Township, Allegheny County.
Poister said the only other plant approved at this point impacting an EJA is the 925-megawatt Tenaska plant being built over the next three years in South Huntingdon Township, Westmoreland County. Next door is East Huntingdon Township, part of which is regarded as an EJA.
“We are seeing quite a few of them because they are very flexible and because of the price of natural gas and the availability of natural gas, as it becomes more and more difficult for coal-fired plants to meet regulatory requirements,” Poister said.
Derby lives in Maryland, just over the state line from Hanover and Gettysburg, but has long-term ties in the Mon Valley and is an owner of the property which was eyed more than a decade ago for a “resource recovery project” that would have turned coal waste into electricity.
Derby said the proposed gas-fired plant would utilize gas drawn from Marcellus shale wells in Fayette and Greene counties as well as “provide a tax base and jobs,” though “nowhere near the size” of the plant that would have used coal waste.
Still, the proposal calls for “an average of about 250 skilled construction workers” for a two-year period beginning early in 2017, with 25 to 30 skilled workers to be hired for plant operations. Proponents believe it in turn would produce 110 new jobs in nearby communities.
Derby is a contact person for the gas-fired project along with Stanley M. Sears of Fairmont, W.Va. Sears could not be reached for comment but Derby said he has technical background in electrical projects.