Wolverine Power's air quality permit denied by DNRE
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment (DNRE) today denied Wolverine Power Supply Cooperative’s air quality Permit to Install application for a new 600 megawatt power plant, fueled primarily by petroleum coke and coal, in Rogers City. The decision follows a thorough review of the permit application under state and federal law. The state’s decision is based on findings of the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC), which said the company failed to demonstrate the plant was needed to meet future supply needs. The MPSC staff also determined that building the proposed plant would increase electricity rates paid by average residential customers by 59.2 percent, costing the average residential customer $76.95 more each month. Only Hawaii has a higher average kilowatt-hour rate. “We are protecting hundreds of thousands of Michigan homeowners, businesses, and farmers from paying a whopping increase in their electric bills, which would have been among the highest in the nation,” Governor Jennifer M. Granholm said. “The cost of doing business in Michigan would have skyrocketed, and despite the short-term gain from its construction, this project would have been a job-killer and a roadblock in our efforts to bring new economic development investments to Michigan.”

The Air Quality Impact Comment Period has ended
We will take water quality impact statements as soon as the DEQ is ready to accept them. Thank you for the hundreds of letters to the DEQ you have submitted to date.

• For official Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) announcements & times click here

• Notice of Comment Period and Public Hearing click here pdfs

The “Clean Energy Now” Complete Step by Step Guide to Submitting Public Comments

Clean Energy Now is pleased to offer you common sense guides on how to submit public comment. Public Comments may be submitted in person, or via letter, or email. Here's how...

News and Letters

Wolverine Bets Its Ash on Lake Huron
Perhaps the biggest unknown in Wolverine Power Cooperative’s Rogers City coal plant proposal is how the firm will dispose of toxic coal and petroleum-coke fly ash, on site, without poisoning the waters of nearby Lake Huron. Coal fly ash is laden with mercury, among other heavy metals. Pet coke ash has no mercury, but its list of toxic heavy metals is longer, and they show up in larger amounts. But there are few details on how Wolverine will contain the ash with cancer-causing contaminants in a land fill in either its Presque Isle County special use permit or in the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality’s draft Permit to Install, the subject of last Tuesday’s final agency hearing in Lansing. When coal ash gets wet, it forms a thick, dangerous sludge like the one that ruined the Tennessee River near Knoxville a few weeks ago. When coal ash gets wet, it forms a thick, dangerous sludge like the one that ruined the Tennessee River near Knoxville a few weeks ago. That bothered former county planning commissioner Tom Harkleroad when he questioned Wolverine closely about the landfill during his panel’s consideration of the plant in 2006. Mr. Harkleroad noticed that the landfill was originally proposed for an elevation below Lake Huron’s water line, even though lake water continually leaks into the quarry. “I’d never heard of a landfill below the lake level, right next to the lake,” Mr. Harkleroad told the Great Lakes Bulletin News Service. “How do you put that fly ash, with all that mercury and heavy metals, down in that hole below the lake level? They are pumping water out of (that) hole constantly. How are you doing that without putting that mercury and heavy metals back out into the water?” “They wouldn’t answer the questions,” Mr. Harkleroad said of Wolverine.