Community News
Builder Pursue's Power Plant Permit
By Hank Rowland, The Brunswick News, Brunswick, GA:
Construction on Sterling facility could begin in 2010 or 2011.
Live Oak Power Facility, an electric power generating plant proposed for a 90-acre site in Sterling, is applying for what could be the final permit needed before construction can begin. Burt Wallace, an engineer with Burt Wallace and Associates in Marietta, the company that will build the plant, said if all goes well and that includes the economy construction could begin next year.
We anticipate construction will start in 2010 or 2011," he said. The date will depend on finding a buyer for the electricty that would be produced, he said. "We're still in the development phase, still in discussion with potential buyers," he said. "The energy markets are subject to the economy as much as anything else." The permit request is for the discharge daily of 1.1 million gallons of water used in the cooling tower of the natural gas fired turbine facility into a tributary of the Turle Creek into the Satilla River Basin.
The deadline for commenting on the permit, now before the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, is Jan. 18. Wallace said the plan outlined almost nine years ago remains the same: The facility would cost about $400 million to build 25 jobs would be created, with an average salary of $50,000. Construction of the plant would involve about 200 jobs. Blueprints call for the plant to be built on a site zoned for industry, near U.S. 341 and Ga. 99, and fed by a natural gas line from Savannah. The actual facility would take up about 25 acres between Green Swamp and Country roads. It will generate about 600 megawatts of power annually. A single megawatt can power around 1,000 homes.
Residents whose homes are in the area of the construction site protested the power plant when it was first proposed in 2002 Wallace said it's been quiet since those earlier days. "We haven't heard from anybody," he said. The Altamaha Riverkeeper, an environmental group that monitors the Altamaha and Satilla rivers, is telling it's membership that it will keep up with the progress on the permit and the project.