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We are saddened to hear that Bechtel Corp. is pulling out of a plan to build a natural-gas fired, electric generating station in Renovo.
Our belief is that Bechtel and the ultimate plant operator would invest in the best available technology to significantly reduce the release of organic compounds from the plant's emissions.
Further, ongoing testing and upgrading that emissions scrubbing technology over time would prove that the plant posed no direct health threat to area residents.
We also are very disappointed with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for the snail's pace of regulatory review and hearings for appeal of the air quality permit.
The regulatory review and approval process by the state Department of Environmental Protection took way too long and our state representatives should visit the process to see how it can be improved.
Meanwhile, Bechtel spent tens of millions of dollars on the plan already.
Moreover, Bechtel pledged to make donations to area communities to improve their infrastructure and to organizations -- including the Bucktail Medical Center -- to strengthen their missions, programs and causes.
The plant would also have been built on a site polluted years ago by the railroad industry -- a "brownsfield" site.
That site will now just sit there and not be cleaned up.
But the opposing agencies -- those who appealed the air quality permit issued to Renovo Energy Center LLC by the DEP – were intent on doing everything in their power to fight the project and have deep pockets to do so.
In the end, it's another huge economic loss to Clinton County, following on the heels of the loss of inpatient hospital care and consolidation of the local, state-run university.
Do you see the pattern here?
Outside organizations and institutions are making or having influence over decisions that affect the county's economic and future well-being.
The REC project, we believe, would have injected much-needed investment in Renovo by way of upgraded infrastructure, motivation for investors to buy and improve housing stock, and clearly would have opened the door to new business start-ups to serve workers on the project.
It also would've helped preserve one of the most historically significant coal tipples left in America.
The tipple on the railyard site is at risk, according to the statewide non-profit Preservation Pennsylvania.
The coal-sand wharf (tipple) was built by the Pennsylvania and Erie Railroad in the early 1800s and was used to stock steam locomotives with coal, sand and water.
Lastly, our nation needs to be and must always stay energy-self sufficient for our own well-being and security, lest we put ourselves at great risk.
All of that said -- and with the prospects that the power plant is now dead in the water -- it is our opinion that the state of Pennsylvania's Tourism Office should revisit the idea of building a new visitor center in or near Renovo.