Locals to see how power plant impacts small Louisiana town
by Richard Lamb, Advance Editor
A group of Rogers City and Presque Isle County officials are getting a first-hand look at a coal-fired power plant in central Louisiana. The plant is of a similar design and engineered by the same company Wolverine Power plans for its Clean Energy Venture, planned for construction in part of the Calcite quarry.
Wolverine asked various county, city, township and media officials to visit the Cleco Power plant in Boyce, Louisiana and meet with their counter-parts in the town. The group arrived Tuesday and will return home Friday.
THOSE INVITED to make the journey with representatives from Wolverine include city manager Mark Slown, council member Deb Greene, county commissioner Mike Grohowski, Economic Development Corporation executive director Bill Valentine, Sheriff Bob Paschke, Rogers City Area School board president and businessman Mike Marx, Rogers Township trustee David Grulke, Presque Isle County Planning Commission member Jerry Counterman, local real estate agent and businessman Mike Eustice, Presque Isle Newspaper publisher and Rogers City Chamber of Commerce board member Richard Lamb, and former Rogers City mayor David Nadolsky who remains active in a number of community groups.
With Tuesday as a travel day, the group was scheduled to meet with law enforcement and local government officials in their first session on Wednesday. Next up is was meeting with health care officials and emergency response teams until late afternoon at the parish (county) seat.
FROM THERE THE group travels to Boyce to meet with police and school officials. ?We will drive up to Boyce, which is a couple of miles from the power plant and talk to their mayor and chief of police and kind of get a flavor of what that construction process has meant to that local town,? Bradstreet said.
After that a dinner meeting with officials from CLECO and the Shaw Group, which is the construction company used for the Louisiana site and to be used in Rogers Township, is planned.
Both groups were scheduled give an overview of the Boyce project to the Wolverine board of directors and the 11 representatives from Presque Isle County.
THURSDAY WILL be a tour of the power plant and a session on economic impact with Central Louisiana Chamber of Commerce representatives. The session will include an expert on housing in the area who will share what impact the flood of workers had on the local economy and how the area prepared for that.
?I suspect at the end of the day, the housing issue will be the most major nut to crack in the construction phase,? Bradstreet said. The day will conclude with a wrap-up session to review what was learned in the two busy days.
?We have a lot that we can learn from this experience. It is an opportunity to learn a lot about what happens in a small community when a project like this takes place,? Bradstreet said.
About the Shaw Group
The Shaw Group, a Fortune 500 company, has constructed major power facilities in six continents and 50 countries. Based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the company employs approximately 26,000 people worldwide.
According to its website Shaw is a ?global provider of turnkey, value-added engineering design, procu
Cleco Corp. is an energy services company based in central Louisiana, which has been in business since 1934. Cleco Power LLC serves approximately 276,000 customers in Louisiana, and Cleco Midstream Resources LLC, is a wholesale energy business.
In July 2005, Cleco Power announced the planned construction of a new $1 billion, 600-megawatt solid-fuel generating unit using circulating fluidized-bed technology at the company’s Rodemacher Power Station site in Lena near Boyce, Louisiana.