Mounting anger and feelings of unfair treatment fill the air.
As the year 2009 came to a close, many in and around Rogers City were waiting with anticipation for what was promised for the future of the town. The Michigan DEQ had promised, over and over again, that the air permit for Wolverine’s Clean Energy Venture would be either allowed or rejected. Instead, the area learned that a power company in the Saginaw area was approved for their permit.
To say that the decision by the DEQ has miffed more than a few people in the area is a huge understatement. A resident I questioned put it this way,
“Figures. It just figures. Every time something comes our way, it becomes a let down. It’s not over yet, but they keep promising they’ll get to us. It’s getting harder and harder to believe the State cares about it’s joblessness here in the north.”
The Consumers Power plant, a 930 MW base load plant was approved on the contingency that Consumers will retire up to 7 older plants. I’m sure that means losses of jobs as well. It really is stunning how the state of Michigan’s focus is not on jobs when Michigan Unemployment tops the charts for 46 months. According to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy,
Michigan’s unemployment rate of 14.6 percent was the highest in the country, according to today’s release from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The next closest state was Nevada, which increased to 13.0 percent.
Michigan’s rate actually decreased by 0.1 percentage points from November. But before calling the recession over in Michigan, the rate fell because there were fewer people looking for jobs, not because there were more people finding jobs. The BLS estimates that, when including marginally attached workers and people employed only part-time for economic reasons, Michigan’s rate is above 20 percent.
The unavailability of jobs, and more and more losing hope of finding one is taking Michigan in a downward spiral, and in the mean time, the Governor and her administration continually cut more opportunities for employment. I recall, and I discuss it in Part 8, what the DEQ said about how long Wolverine might wait for the air permit.
“The average time for a permit right now is running at about 70 days,” Dolehanty said. “But these applications for power plants have been in house as long as a year and one-half.” Wolverine submitted its air permit application September 26 of last year. Consumers Energy submitted its application October 15, Mid-Michigan turned in its application September 12 while Holland Board of Public Works submitted its application January 17, 2007. PI Advance 7/3/08
The permit has now been in the works for exactly 2 years and 4 months. With the acknowledgment by Dolehanty that the air permit could take as long as a year and a half, the people of this underemployed area have a right to be angered. We kept hearing that we would hear something before 2009 had ended, and we have yet to hear anything.
Minority leader in the Michigan House of Representatives, Kevin Elsenheimer put it this way:
“This may have been the first time the people of Michigan actually wanted coal for Christmas. Unfortunately, Santa Claus delivered it only to the Tri-Cities area and not to Northeast Michigan.” — State Rep. Kevin Elsenheimer (R-Bellaire), the state House Minority Leader, demanding
that Gov. Jennifer Granholm and her Dept. of Environmental Quality cease their nearly three years’ procrastination over whether to allow a new ‘clean coal’ technology power plant, opposed by environmentalists, to be built near Rogers City. Elsenheimer argued that Granholm’s dithering means that millions of dollars in matching federal stimulus money will be “left on the table” (1/20).
The Conspicuous Omission in the State of the State Address
Who does Jennifer Granholm think she is?
What is really going on with the air permit?
Granholm Gets Raked Over The Coals
7 Comments
Nice post!
Are you going to post about Rogers City's need for a coal ash waste facility and how that benefits our children?
Bart Stupak is bragging about $18 million for the old Abitibi plant in Alpena and how it is going to add 10 people to the payroll. That plant should have been torn down years ago but current and past owners could not afford to do that because estimates were put at $18-20 million to tear it down and clean it up. What a waste of taxpayer money for 10 additional jobs. Wonder why Bart isn't rallying for the Rogers City coal plant? He claims to dance to his own tune but I think the leader of the band (Pelosi) would never allow him to request money for a (eh Gads) coal fired power plant. Bart is a puppet for his party and has no intention of helping Michigan. His goal is to retain his seat in Washington. End of story.
Jen – According to the WATZ news site Bart Stupak sent a letter to the governor encouraging her to issue the permit. Any thoughts? My first thought is that Bart is trying to save his job. Hope the good people in his district send him packing!
Yes, Stupak has inserted himself into this story several times, and his stance has been perplexing. He is not on the same page as the radical environmentalists, but yet believes wholeheartedly in man-made global warming. I am working on condensing this story and have not yet been able to keep the story up to date, I hope to by the end of this week. The urgent deadline he suggests as well as does Wolverine is the deadline of March 15th, the date chosen by the federal government for winners of the first round of carbon capture funding to move to the second round. They compete in rounds for the money with other projects, presumably. This whole discussion turns my stomach. The massive government involvement over complete nonsense such as global warming which is quickly becoming the biggest scandal in history.
It is a major scandal and major news but unfortunately the MSM refuses to report it as they gleefully support this nonsense. The progressive movement infiltrated the major journalism universities years ago and the result is extremely progressive MSM personalities who adore the ilk of Al Gore and his cronies. It will never get reported. It will be forced down our throats as fact just because they say so.
Jen – Because of your excellent reporting and follow up on this – is there a chance that you can forward this to someone like Breitbart. He is so looking for people like you reporting on issues like this and maybe getting some exposure from the national new media can help get the word out.
Post a Comment