NEW CARLISLE – It could bring hundreds of jobs and lower your property taxes, but it's been a point of controversy before. Another company wants to try and build a power plant in New Carlisle.
The company proposing what would be called the St. Joseph Energy Center says the project would bring about 700 short-term construction jobs, at least 35 permanent, high-paying ones at the plant and hundreds more for maintenance and other support.
But we've seen big plans like this before with little progress and lots of controversy.
The sights and sounds of industry are tough to miss on the western edge of St. Joseph County, especially for Don Hales who lives along U.S. 20 near huge power lines and close to New Carlisle’s industrial park.
“I think that’s just the price of progress in this area,” he said.
The potential for hundreds more jobs lies just west of the controversial car shredder and a steel plant in the industrial park.
“In having biked through that area, you still see the remnants of what was there. You can't use it at the moment for farming and obviously you can't build houses on it, so it's already been zoned, I guess, for the original. Why not just go ahead and finish what's been started in the first place?” Hales asked.
It’s the third proposed power plant at the corner of Walnut and Edison Roads in Olive Township. The first began in 2002, but the company ran out of money before it could finish construction. You might remember the very controversial 2005 Tondu proposal to build a coal gasification plant in the same spot.
The county wouldn’t approve some of the necessary permits for that project.
St. Joseph Energy Center is based in New York. Company spokesman Willard Ladd told WSBT the plant would produce electricity using natural gas, helping meet projected needs to power Indiana homes and businesses in the future. Its plans are very similar to the 2002 project, Ladd added.
“I’m actually OK with it because it would bring jobs and would have an economic impact as far as taxes and things like that,” Hales said.
“I would like to see more employment, more jobs,” added Skip Parmley, who lives nearby in New Carlisle. “I think we need help as far as that. We’re losing too much here.”
Ladd said if all goes well in the current permit process, construction could start by the fourth quarter of 2013.
One of the necessary permits is an air quality permit from Indiana’s Department of Environmental Management. IDEM is hosting a public meeting Thursday, Oct. 4 at New Prairie High School. The meeting begins at 6 p.m. Eastern Time and the public hearing is scheduled to being at 7 p.m.
