Proposed natural gas plant in Superior gets renewed scrutiny
A long-planned natural gas power plant in Superior is facing new scrutiny from local officials who originally backed it, at the same time labor unions and other supporters are ramping up their advocacy for the controversial project.
Duluth-based Minnesota Power, along with electric power cooperatives based in Wisconsin and North Dakota, are pushing to build the 625 megawatt power plant dubbed the Nemadji Trail Energy Center. Utilities say it is needed to help them make the transition to a renewable energy future.
Environmental groups have fought NTEC since it was first introduced seven years ago, arguing the project would lock in the burning of fossil fuels for decades, and that energy needs could be better met through investing in carbon-free sources.
The utilities originally envisioned starting construction in 2020 and opening the plant this year. But regulatory proceedings, court challenges and a federal environmental review delayed that timeline.
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Project backers have secured more than a dozen key approvals, and now hope to start construction this spring. However, they still need to secure additional permits and a key federal loan and win three approvals from a skeptical city council.
Mayor Jim Paine, who originally supported the project, now says he doesn’t think the power plant will ever get built.
“The community’s really rising up against this,” Paine said.
Done our share
The facility is proposed for a 26-acre site on the banks of the Nemadji River, which winds along the southeastern edge of the city before it empties into Lake Superior.
The site is adjacent to the St. Francis Cemetery and to a mass grave along the eroding river bank, where the remains of nearly 200 Ojibwe people were reburied more than a century ago, after they were dug up from nearby Wisconsin Point to make way for a U.S. Steel ore dock that was never built.
Two years ago the city returned the land at the end of the Point, and at the mass grave site, to the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.
Across the street is the Enbridge terminal, where 45 huge above-ground tanks store millions of barrels of oil. The Cenovus oil refinery, which was recently rebuilt after a massive explosion six years ago, is also nearby.
“The short answer to why we chose this site is that Superior is a hub of energy infrastructure,” said Jennifer Cady, vice president of regulatory and legislative affairs for Minnesota Power, which would build and operate the power plant.
“NTEC will have access to two existing interstate natural gas pipelines, existing interstate electric transmission lines, and will be near neighboring industries.”
There are also three neighborhoods nearby. Paine, the city’s mayor, argues that heavy industry doesn’t make communities prosperous.
It generates pollution, he says, not economic activity.
“The reason that industry tend to get concentrated is because nobody really wants to live around it. We don’t want to be compromised anymore. We’ve kind of done our share,” Paine said.
He walks along the edge of the cemetery, on the edge of the bluff that descends to the river. The earth slopes severely downward toward the water. Erosion has moved graves so that they sit perched at an angle on the hillside.
The city requires a 75-foot setback from the slope. He said the city council would need to waive the bluff buffer ordinance to allow the plant to be built.
“We’ve never had an engineer that didn’t directly work for the developers agree that you can safely build on this bluff,” Paine said. “I’m not exaggerating or being dramatic when I say the risk that that plant will fall into the river is real.”
The river has also experienced two 500-year floods in the past decade, in 2012 and again in 2018.
The utilities plan to install a 40-foot sheet pile wall, along with riprap along the river, to prevent erosion.
In an environmental review completed by the Rural Utilities Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in December, the agency concluded the project would “have no significant effects” to floodplains, wetlands, and a host of other issues.
The “Finding of No Significant Impact” also said “no impacts to traditional cultural properties or Native American cultural sites are anticipated.”
The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa disagrees with that assessment. Band officials did not respond to a request for comment. But speaking before the Superior City Council recently, Bob Miller, whose grandmother lived at the end of Wisconsin Point in the early 1900s, said he fears for his ancestors who were reburied next to the proposed power plant.
“Our bodies are sitting there. What’s going to happen to our cemetery?” Miller asked. “Why are the Natives always left behind with people making decisions for us?”
‘Once in a lifetime’ project
Last month nearly 200 union workers rallied outside Superior City Hall, to put pressure on Paine and others to support the plant.
“We have some local elected officials fighting us every step of the way,” said Kent Miller, president of the Wisconsin Laborers’ District Council. “We deserve fair opportunities, quality jobs, and a future that honors our hard work.”
The power plant is projected to create about 25 permanent jobs, and 350 construction jobs. Minnesota Power has committed to hiring union members to fill those positions.
“So that’s a big deal,” said Kyle Bukovich, president of the Northern Wisconsin Building Trades.
He says there’s a common misperception that these are temporary jobs. “But I can count a large portion of people who have retired with a career in the trades, and never been laid off,” he said.
NTEC would be the second largest private investment in the history of Douglas County, after the oil refinery. Bukovich said the project would allow local union members to work on a single project, close to home, for several years.
“So this is a what you call a ‘once in a lifetime project.’ We’re very excited.”
The utilities view the power plant as a lynchpin in their plans to transition to 100 percent carbon-free electricity, which in Minnesota is now required by 2040.
Minnesota Power provides more than 50 percent of its power from renewable sources. It’s closed seven of its nine coal-fired generators and plans to retire the remaining two in the next decade.
“And so as we bring on significant quantities of new renewable resources onto the grid, a resource like NTEC provides that critical reliability for when the sun isn’t shining, and the wind isn't blowing,” said Cady.
NTEC is designed to ramp up quickly when wind and solar power is not available on the electric grid, and back down when it isn’t needed.
Gavin McCollam, chief operating officer for Basin Electric Power Cooperative in North Dakota, which owns 30 percent of the project and serves 13 member co-ops in Minnesota, said the generator is essentially a jet engine and can produce power 10 minutes after it’s fired up. “So it’ll be able to follow the wind really closely,” he explained.
In its environmental review, the USDA said the plant would increase greenhouse gas emissions near the plant, but would reduce emissions across the broader region.
“It displaces less efficient natural gas and coal, and actually delivers greenhouse gas reductions to the upper Midwest,” said John Carr, Vice President of Strategic Growth at Dairyland Power Cooperative, which would get half the power produced by NTEC.
Carr doesn’t believe his utility can get to 100 percent carbon-free power with just wind, solar and battery storage. Dairyland is also exploring small scale nuclear in the long term. He says at this point natural gas needs to be part of the solution.
Critics of the project, however, argue it makes no sense to invest in fossil fuels at a time when the world is already behind targets to curtail global warming.
“When you look at how the climate crisis is accelerating, we think that spending a billion dollars of ratepayer money on a fossil fuel generator that’s slated to run for 40 years is just the wrong path,” said Evan Mulholland, an attorney with the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy.
Mulholland says modeling has shown that investments in renewable generation, battery storage, efficiency and demand response — the practice of paying customers to reduce their electricity consumption during peak hours — would together equal the amount of electricity produced by the plant.
Earlier this year the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that the country’s battery storage capacity is expected to double just this year.
“So we’re ready to do this,” Mulholland said.
When the project was first proposed seven years ago, it received unanimous resolutions of support from city of Superior and Douglas County. That gave Minnesota Power and its partners confidence to move forward with the project, Cady said.
Now, four of Superior’s 10 council members have gone on record opposing the project. Decisions on federal permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers aren’t expected until later this year. Applications for required local approvals are scheduled to be heard at the city’s Plan Commission on March 20.
Council member Jenny Van Sickle, who represents the neighborhoods near the proposed plant, said she doesn’t believe it would improve her constituents’ health, quality of life or property values.
“And as a public official, it doesn’t feel right to make decisions, knowing it will hurt the residents that I represent.”