City Power Needs Have Hefty Price

(January 22, 2006, as appeared in the Columbia (Missouri) Daily Tribune)

Improvements by ’27 valued at $1 billion.

The Columbia City Council will take a closer look at how to increase the city’s energy output after a consultant recommended several expensive options in a report last week.

Each of the options was included in a power supply study released Friday by consulting firm Black & Veatch of Overland Park, Kan. The options feature improvements to the city’s energy infrastructure worth about $1 billion over a 19-year period beginning in 2008, including the value of the electrical output.

Recommendations for increasing power over that time include buying power from other power plants, upgrading existing municipal utilities and purchasing ownership stakes in out-of-state power plants.

An agreement with St. Louis-based AmerenUE to buy more than 50 megawatts of power is scheduled to end in 2008, and a growing Columbia population is expected to push energy needs higher in the future. The city’s Water and Light Department had asked for the study to evaluate Columbia’s power needs.

It’s now up to the city council to decide how it wants to beef up its energy infrastructure, and work sessions on the topic are slated to begin next month.

Although city officials say all options for power upgrades remain on the table, one that is sure to be examined closely includes building an addition to the city’s Municipal Power Plant on Business Loop 70 as well as buying power from Ameren and a planned power plant in southern Illinois. The city talked about similar plans last year.

Water and Light Director Dan Dasho said the city will consider all the plans after receiving more information from Black & Veatch on how the options would affect consumers’ utility rates. That information is expected next month.

"I would anticipate the lowest-cost option would be a major influence" in the decision-making process, Dasho said.

Options listed in the study range in cost from about $950 million to more than $1 billion through 2027 and likely would be paid for by bonds issued by the city. Voters will be asked to approve a bond issue worth about $40 million for other utility upgrades sometime next year.

Environmentalists have lobbied against building the planned Prairie State Energy Campus, a coal-fueled power plant near Marissa, Ill., because of its proximity to the Mingo National Wildlife Refuge in Missouri.

The refuge would be threatened by air pollution from the plant, they say, and it recently was listed among the 10 most endangered wildlife refuges in the nation by Defenders of Wildlife.

Chris Hayday of the Ozark Chapter Sierra Club said his group would urge the city to avoid buying power from the Prairie State plant, which is owned by St. Louis-based coal company Peabody Energy.

"It’s located just across the Illinois border from Mingo … and U.S. Fish and Wildlife" Service "has commented on the proposal, saying Prairie State is a threat to Mingo," Hayday said in an e-mail.

City Manager Bill Watkins said the Prairie State option will be reviewed by the city council.

"It looks like we have several very good options," he said. "They will bear some study."

The Columbia Water and Light Department, which provides power to about 40,000 Columbia businesses and households, paid for the $110,000 power study.

Copyright 2006, Columbia Daily Tribune