Proposed Power Plant in Kemper County Meets With Opposition

The Public Service Commission holds hearings on Mississippi Power Company's proposed Coal Power Plant.

Officials for Mississippi Power are hoping to build a 2.2 billion dollar coal powered plant in Kemper County. But as MPB's Lawayne Childrey reports, opponents call it unnecessary, dirty and expensive.

Barbara Correro's organic farm is less than 3 miles from the proposed coal plant in Kemper County. She says her main concern is the environmental impact on the air, earth and water or other parts of the environment.

“Because some people have leased their lands, they’ve already cut their timber and the critters such as owls and the deer come to my place. That’s ok but you’re displacing animals and consequently you’ll be displacing people.”

Correro was one of dozens of people who packed the Public Service Commission Hearings in Jackson yesterday. They were there to discuss Mississippi Power Company's proposal to build a a state of the art power plant that will use Mississippi's natural resources. Cindy Duvall is the company spokesperson.

“Lignite is in abundance here in Mississippi. There are four billion tons of it. We only need to tap into about 4% of it. We’ll be able to take that goal, turn it into a gas thereby making it as clean as a natural gas combined cycle plant.”

While the proposed plant is expected to incorporate the latest technology it does not have the support of Brown miller with the AFLCIO in Hattiesburg. Miller says his concern is that the new plant could force existing plants on the gulf coast out of operation.

“That’s loss of jobs. Folks this is America but this is not America allowing Mississippi Power, a corporate giant greed to build this coal plant in kemper County for the sake of this, dollar bills.”

However, if the plant wins the approval of the PSC, Kemper County Board of Supervisors President, James Granger believes it could be an economic boom for the county.

“We’ll have people that can get jobs and jobs are really hard to find. If you can get 2 or 3 hundred jobs to come to your county at one time that’s just something unbelievable that would come to your county.”

The public hearings will continue through Thursday at PSC headquarters in Jackson. For MPB News, I'm Lawayne Childrey.