Oregon OKs sewer agreement with power plant

        Oregon council on Monday approved a Master Agreement for reimbursement of engineering and construction costs for a sanitary sewer between Oregon and Clean Energy Future-Oregon, LLC, of Massachusetts, for the Clean Energy Future-Oregon project.
        Clean Energy Future-Oregon, LLC is developing a 960 Megawatt capacity combined cycle power generation facility within Oregon’s municipal boundaries which will require an interconnection with Oregon’s sanitary sewer system for the discharge of the project’s industrial process water. In order for the city to be able to provide sewer service to the project, certain infrastructure improvements will have to be designed, permitted, and constructed, which Clean Energy Future-Oregon, LLC will agree to pay for 50 percent of all costs under the terms of a Master Agreement for reimbursement of engineering and construction costs.
        “We have agreed to split the costs of the sewer as it is our wish to make it a public sewer,” said Public Service Director Paul Roman. “Originally, Clean Energy Future was planning on constructing a private sanitary sewer a quarter mile long. But it would have been a shorter route for them to do it. We felt it would be more prudent to construct a public sewer in what will become the Parkway Road extension.”
        Council a few weeks ago hired Poggemeyer Design Group to design the sewer as part of the Parkway Road extension project, he noted.
        “It only makes sense to have this power plant be served by a sewer from the road they are going to front on, which would be this Parkway extension. Considering they were going to spend money on a sewer that was a quarter mile long and the public sewer option is a half mile long, they agreed to pay for half the cost. To me, it’s very fair and very wise to do.”
       
Grants
        The city hopes to obtain grants to fund its share of the sewer project, said Roman.
        The city received a $750,000 grant from the Ohio Development Services agency that will go towards the roadway project.
        “We still are applying to the Economic Development Administration for other grant funding that could pay up to 50 percent of the project cost,” said Roman.
        The total cost of the sewer project is $470,000.
        The road project, which includes a waterline, sewer, storm drainage and asphalt, curb and gutter, will cost about $3.2 million.
        “I think the power plant, and what it brings in in terms of revenue as well as economic development, attracts economic development dollars. We think we can obtain close to 50 percent of the remaining cost from the Economic Development Administration for this project,” said Roman.
        Councilwoman Sandy Bihn noted that there are some residential properties to the south of the project on Wynn Road.
        “Are we planning any buffer now, and are the people there aware of this project?” asked Bihn. “Is there some kind of a buffer we can do for them?”
        “No doubt. We can do that. And there’s already zoning law for buffering out industrial from residential. That doesn’t mean we can’t add more buffering,” said Roman.
        The $900 million natural gas-fired electric power plant will be located on N. Lallendorf Road. It will be the second natural gas-fired electric power plant in the city.  The first, Oregon Clean Energy, is located on a 30-acre parcel on N. Lallendorf Road. Startup operations of the $900 million facility is expected in 2020.
        Similar to Oregon Clean Energy, the plant will have a cooling tower that would require about 3.5 million gallons of untreated water daily from Lake Erie and would dissipate about 85 percent of that into the atmosphere during the cooling process. The rest would be piped to the city’s wastewater treatment plant.