SUPERIOR, WIS. — The future of a controversial plan to build a gas-fired power plant in this northwestern Wisconsin city grew uncertain Wednesday night, after a city planning commission rejected land-use requests intended to move the project forward.
Superior's City Council chambers overflowed with opponents and supporters of the Nemadji Trail Energy Center (NTEC), expected to cost roughly $1 billion, according to the latest estimate. The commission heard nearly three hours of sometimes emotional public comments before making its decisions, with 4-2 votes in opposition to each request.
Both Superior Mayor Jim Paine and a spokeswoman from Minnesota Power said the city and NTEC owners could end up in court over the controversy.
"We have lived with worry ever since we heard of NTEC," said Randy Nevala, whose home is just a few blocks from the proposed site.
Seven years in the making, NTEC is touted as a job creator and is intended as a back-up power provider to support expansion of wind and solar energy plants. It would be owned by Minnesota Power, which will build and operate the plant, Wisconsin's Dairyland Power Cooperative, and North Dakota-based Basin Electric Power Cooperative.
Several city leaders who previously supported the project now oppose it, including Paine. The project is contentious for its location — bordering a Lake Superior estuary and an Anishinaabe mass grave — and for its potential harm to public health and the environment. It has cleared more than a dozen regulatory and legal hurdles, with construction expected to start this year.
Utilities question fairness
Representatives from Minnesota Power spent time Wednesday speaking to what they called misinformation about the 625-megawatt facility. An attorney for the utilities said that with their state approval deeming it a public necessity, the city doesn't have the power to stop it.
Paine, a member of the commission, disagreed.
"I don't appreciate any kind of veiled or direct threats that we're going to have [a city] decision challenged," he said, noting he would expect a positive relationship to continue whether or not the land-use requests were approved. "If it's not, I cannot be bullied out of that and we will see you in court."
He said he didn't believe the gas plant would be built "regardless of our decision."
The Plan Commission decision sends the land-use requests, one for street vacation and another for rezoning, to the City Council for a final decision. But that's not all that stands in the way: a U.S. Army Corps wetlands permit, outstanding legal rulings and a federal loan to help pay for the project still need to be addressed.
Minnesota Power spokeswoman Amy Rutledge said the commission's decisions about what she deemed routine applications were disappointing. She questioned whether the utilities will be treated fairly as the decision moves to the council, and said they'd explore "legal remedies" if necessary.
Environmental and ratepayer groups, as well as some area tribes, have opposed the plant since it was first proposed, saying the threat of climate change is too great to build new fossil-fuel plants.
Minnesota Power and the other owners see natural gas as a way to support the transition to clean energy and away from coal, with coal-fired plants retiring faster than replacements can connect, threatening grid reliability. Minnesota Power expects to retire its two Iron Range-area coal-fired power plants by 2030 and 2035.
A recent federal ruling by the USDA Rural Utilities Service found no significant impact to air quality, land and other resources, including an Anishinaabe cemetery of nearly 200 bodies. The bodies were moved from Wisconsin Point, a peninsula a few miles east, more than a century ago to make way for ore docks that were never built. The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa owns that land and has declined to comment on its position.
A hit to city credibility?
Speakers Wednesday night ranged from physicians and people who live near the site voicing their opposition to union laborers and economic development boosters who support the project and questioned the message a denial sends to other prospective businesses.
"This would negatively impact the credibility of the city of Superior who advocated for this development for years," said Kyle Bukovich, a local union leader.
Opponents raised concerns about noise and air pollution and fears about the power plant's effect on the Nemadji River, which is prone to erosion. A massive sheet pile wall is planned to stabilize the area. Some recalled the 1992 train derailment in Superior that spilled cancer-causing chemicals into the Nemadji, and the 2018 oil refinery explosion that led to the evacuation of much of the city of 27,000.
The plant may eventually lower greenhouse gas emissions across a larger region, but it won't happen in Superior, said resident Andre LeTendre-Wilcox.
"When this gets turned on, we're going to be adding pollution," he said.
