Fight rages on over plan for gas-fired Elizabeth Township power plant
As signs posted along Route 48 indicate, plans for a 550-megawatt combined cycle gas-powered plant remain alive in Elizabeth Township — despite a fight with the township’s Zoning Hearing Board that now is before Allegheny County Common Pleas Court.
“The Allegheny Energy Center project enjoys widespread support in Elizabeth Township, thanks in part to the jobs and tax revenue it will generate for the community,” said Mary Ryan, senior manager for public relations at Invenergy LLC. “The signs you’re seeing are (a) reflection of that support.”
So is a Facebook “Elizabeth Citizens for Progress” page, a self-styled “online community of committed citizens for new jobs, greater revenue and cleaner energy for Elizabeth Township,” that has more than 400 “likes” for the project Chicago-based Invenergy calls the Allegheny Energy Center or AEC.
“Support local business, bring in revenue, start new careers in the township,” wrote township resident and McKeesport firefighter Dave Baumgartner. “I support Allegheny Energy Center. So should you.”
On the other hand, township resident David Lloyd posted a change.org petition stating that “we the people do not want the pollution, sound, eyesore, and risks that come with a power plant in our residential neighborhood.” It claims 518 signatures.
Invenergy is promising 200 to 300 jobs during a two-year construction period generating over $30 million in payroll on a portion of the former Fiore landfill near the township’s Buena Vista neighborhood, and to hire 21 full-time employees at an annual payroll topping $2 million.
However, on June 14 the zoning board voted 4-1 to reject Invenergy’s request for a variance that would allow construction on 22 acres of a 544.71-acre site that is now zoned residential.
“To be clear, the (Zoning Hearing Board) did not reject the project, rather the process that would allow for an application for the project,” Ryan said. “The grounds upon which the ZHB made its decision were not, in our opinion, legally valid.”
A decision may come soon about whether the board made a valid case. Common Pleas Senior Judge Joseph M. James gave all parties until last week to file required briefs.
“(We) are confident the court will decide in our favor,” Ryan said. “Following that, we look forward to continuing the development of this project.”
According to the Invenergy court filing on July 12, the variance would have allowed construction in spite of noise and height limitations found in the township zoning ordinance. Invenergy found the board’s decision “capricious, arbitrary, contrary to law” and an abuse of the board’s discretion.
As pointed out in that filing, up until 1983 the Fiore landfill was a dumping ground that still today is “contaminated with various volatile organic and inorganic compounds,” particularly coal tar materials.
The property belonged to the late William Fiore until February 2010 when J.J. Oil & Gas Inc. of McMurray had the high bid of $1,326,000 for it in an Allegheny County Orphans Court auction.
That sale was registered with the county recorder of deeds on Jan. 31, 2012, then Fiore’s son David W. Fiore Sr. purchased the property back for $1 in a deal registered with the county on Aug. 10, 2012. The property remains in Fiore’s hands today.
“I see this is a great investment for the community,” township resident Bradley Hurlburt testified at the April hearing the board conducted regarding the variance request. “They’re going to invest $350 million to build the plant … using a source of energy that is created by probably residents here in the township that work for drilling companies, that work for construction companies.”
However, others begged to differ, as pointed out in a transcript of the April hearing, the third of three zoning board hearings that became part of the court record, that showed Hurlburt as the only witness who didn’t oppose the project.
“(A) new $500,000 community center and the Mount Vernon ball fields will be in a three-quarter mile radius of, no matter, how small, a carbon-emitting power plant,” Mika Long testified. “And our elementary school, Mount Vernon, will be just barely outside the one-mile radius.”
A neighbor along Henderson Road, not far from the former landfill, didn’t want a power plant next to a 200-year-old farmhouse his family is rehabilitating.
“What about the stigma of living near a potential power plant?” Anton Miller asked the board. “What about the home owners in the area who will watch their property values drop? What about the home owners who will watch the quality of their neighborhood suffer as families leave?”
The proposed Invenergy site also is about three-quarters of a mile from the Youghiogheny River, while much of the Fiore property borders the Great Allegheny Passage which runs along the Yough.
Opponents include a nonprofit “Protect Elizabeth Township” corporation as well as Mountain Watershed Association and its Youghiogheny Riverkeeper affiliate, which seek to preserve the Indian Creek and Yough watersheds.
“AEC’s argument — that they should be allowed to evade the more traditional route of requesting a re-zoning — relied heavily on comparisons to a Pennsylvania Supreme Court case which allowed a variance for a parking lot to be developed on a brownfield,” wrote Krissy Kasserman of Youghiogheny Riverkeeper in an October post on Mountain Watershed Association’s blog. “Board members and residents agreed that a power plant is wildly dissimilar to a parking lot and denied AEC’s variance request.”
MWA’s bid to intervene in the court case stated that the watershed is “encompassing the site where AEC is proposing to build the power plant.” That bid was accepted by Common Pleas Court on Sept. 19.
Despite what he said was traditionally a “pro-industry, pro-jobs, pro-economic development” stance in his 45th Senatorial District, state Sen. James Brewster, D-McKeesport, felt compelled to support those who sent “numerous emails and phone calls” to his office opposing the idea, Brewster chief of staff Tim Joyce said in April.
“Invenergy has challenged the Elizabeth Township Zoning Hearing Board and filed an appeal on their decision,” Joyce said last week. “It has become a legal issue and therefore I am not able to comment on it.”
The February hearing was dominated largely by the Invenergy/AEC presentation, though there was cross-examination by Oday Salim, a Pittsburgh environmental lawyer representing Mountain Watershed Association, while at the March hearing included Salim leading a presentation in opposition to the AEC plan.
One resident testified her concern at the February hearing about the potential for pollution — and what happens if the former landfill were to be abandoned.
“This particular property is a mess,” former Elizabeth Forward school director Mary Scarry observed at the March hearing. “I think that’s the one thing everyone in this room can agree to. The question is, what will become of it in the future? Do we let it sit the way it is, or do we try to find out a solution on how it should or could be best used?”