LITTLE ROCK — Environmental groups on Monday said they have requested a court-ordered temporary restraining order to stop construction of Southwestern Electric Power Co.’s $2.1 billion, 600-megawatt coal-fired power plant being built in Hempstead County.
The groups - the National Audubon Society, Audubon Arkansas and the Sierra Club - in a release said the order is needed because destruction of wetlands on the site means a situation of “immediate danger.” The motion requesting the order was filed Friday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas.
The request was the second for a restraining order against construction in just one week. On July 13, the Hempstead County Hunting Club also filed for a restraining order in the same court to stop construction. The club owns property nearby and has concerns about the plant’s effect on the environment.
Lev Guter, a Sierra Club spokesman, said Monday the requests were made on different legal grounds, but it’s possible a judge eventually will consolidate them.
The Sierra’s Club’s and Audubon groups’ request is part of a lawsuit filed earlier this year alleging a permit issued by the Army Corps of Engineers is void because of failure to follow requirements related to the National Environmental Policy Act and Federal Water Pollution Control Act.
An attorney for the groups said earlier this year that the Corps relied on data supplied to it by SWEPCO instead of doing its own research. In addition, he said the Corps failed to involve the public in a comment process.
The environmental groups want construction stopped until the issues in the suit are resolved.
SWEPCO spokesman Pe-ter Main in a prepared statement called such an order “an extraordinary remedy rarely ordered by the courts.”
“We do not believe the plaintiffs have satisfied the high standards required to support such an order,” Main said. “Construction on the [John W.] Turk Plant has continued with environmental permits from state and federal agencies.”
In addition, he said, the company also has commitments and regulatory approvals to serve its retail customers in Louisiana and Texas with the plant.
“We will vigorously defend our permits,” he said in the statement.
Without a temporary restraining order, Guter said in a release “the impairment or destruction of the wetlands and surrounding ecosystem will be irreparable.”
The groups said that building the plant would destroy eight acres of wetlands and fill in 8,150 feet of stream.
Meanwhile, the hunting club’s request for a restraining order relied on its claim that the plant does not have all the necessary approvals from the state.
SWEPCO, however, has said it won’t recover any costs of the Turk Plant in rates subject to regulation by the Arkansas Public Service Commission, making it exempt under Arkansas law from needing the approval of state utility regulators.
That is because the utility announced June 24 that it would seek “merchant plant” status for the facility and sell electricity to other utilities wholesale and to customers outside Arkansas.
In May, Arkansas’ Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the state Public Service Commission erred in 2007 in approving construction of the plant.
The Turk plant is scheduled to start operation in late 2012.
Business, Pages 21 on 07/20/2010