I haven’t heard a peep from CWLP, the mayor, the council, or the media about the long-awaited study by Burns & McDonnell Engineering on CWLP’s compliance with effluent and combustion rules. The bottom line is that compliance is going to cost millions upon millions of dollars. Large investments will have to be made in CWLP’s ancient units 31, 32 and 33. If it wasn’t obvious before that those plants should be retired forthwith, it certainly is now.
A now 3-year-old study by Synapse Energy Economic showed CWLP loses more than they make with units 31 and 32, and they usually run the new plant (unit 4) at far less than two-thirds of its capacity. Yet they persist in keeping these old units active. Any Integrated Resource Plan should start with immediate closure of units 31/32. Instead, CWLP told federal regulators they will keep 31/32 operating for 12 more years. No wonder they want to limit public participation in the IRP.
City infrastructure (including CWLP, sewers, roads, water mains, sidewalks and neighborhoods) needs massive funding just to keep from backsliding. Instead of funding necessary compliance at CWLP and needed infrastructure, the mayor and council still plan to pour at least $120 million down the drain for a 60-year-old failed boondoggle project we don’t even need called Hunter Dam.
Don Hanrahan
Pleasant Plains
Joe McMenamin for Ward 7 