Yellowstone County inches closer to Laurel power plant, while residents fume

Signs being held by protestors of a natural-gas fired power plant in Laurel, Montana. (Photo by Darrell Ehrlick of the Daily Montanan).

As temperatures outside climbed toward triple digits in Billings, the comments directed at the Yellowstone County Commissioners and the state’s largest public utility, NorthWestern Energy, were every bit as hot.

The all-Republican, three-member commission of Montana’s largest county was considering another critical step in what residents described as a years’-long inevitability: A 175-megawatt, natural gas electrical generation station that sits just beyond the Laurel city limits, and on county-controlled land.

The official action on the agenda was to pass a zoning resolution that corrected what Yellowstone County staff said were a series of errors and problems with the zoning maps that have been amended and changed since 1979. Throughout the lengthy process, which has bounced from the courts to the county, different maps of the proposed property had been used, creating confusion for residents and officials.

But, the public hearing Tuesday was another chance for residents to express their concerns and, at times, outrage at the process and the way NorthWestern has handled the project.

Like at many other meetings, more than a dozen people spoke.

No one spoke in favor of the project or in favor of NorthWestern Energy.

And the final decision to move forward with the zoning process was as anticlimactic as it was disorganized.

When Yellowstone County Commissioner Chairman John Ostlund called for a motion on the zoning process, fellow commissioners Mark Morse and Don Jones looked at each other, each suggesting the other one had planned to make the motion.

In the end, Jones made the motion and Ostlund and Morse concurred to approve the zoning request which didn’t as much create new or different zoning, just officially adopted the zoning the county had originally said was in place on the property where the $310 million power plant has been built, but has yet to operate. NorthWestern officials have said they hope to have the plant online as early as later this summer, but that remains a question as the land it occupies consists of three different zones.

The two-year process has been a game of government hot-potato where Yellowstone County and the City of Laurel have debated which body has control of the land that sits in a gray area that will likely become part of Laurel, but which still remains in the county.

The ensuing challenges have been guided, in part, by a state district court judge , and several other pending lawsuits, that have challenged whether the commissioners and government officials have followed the proper zoning procedures, and whether they’ve cut out the public, in contravention of the Montana Constitution’s guarantee of public involvement.

The challenges with the zoning have not exactly engendered trust between the two groups, with many neighbors alleging the county has tried to rush the project through, and used misinformation to buttress its case. Meanwhile, county staff told the commissioners on Tuesday that the zoning process was not changing anything, but affirming clearly what previous county commissions had already done.

One of the main points of dispute during the controversy was the land the power generating plant sits on. One question is how close it is to Laurel, and is it close enough to trigger future annexation, which would have left the decision on the plant to the city council there.

Ultimately, that zoning decision was settled in favor of Yellowstone County, which has been wrestling with the power plant issue since the outcome of the court case.

But there’s also been a question about the zoning of the property where the power plant is located. At different times, county and city staff have given different answers, leading to confusion and frustration. On Tuesday, county staff affirmed that the plant, which is visible from the nearby Yellowstone River, is subject to three different zones — unzoned, heavy industrial and agricultural.

That led some residents to accuse the commissioners of falsifying documents, but a review of zoning maps and agendas show that the Yellowstone County Commissioners last rezoned the land in 2015, opting to add agricultural use. The staff explained that previous changes and updates hadn’t been incorporated into the maps .

The unanimous decision by the county commissioners simply took those three zoning areas and adopted it officially, making it certain for a later discussion which zones of land the power plant is located upon.

Critics at Tuesday’s meeting said that the formality of zoning was just another step toward what they see as the inevitable approval the power plant’s operation. That was echoed as residents accused Ostlund of repeatedly telling them the NorthWestern power plant would be sited there, and there was little they could do about it.

Kris Glen, who also serves as the chairwoman of the Yellowstone Valley Citizens Council, brought her inhaler with her, serving as a tool to remind the commissioners that citizens like her, who suffer from breathing problems, rely on clean air. She criticized NorthWestern for its own reports that show tons of greenhouse gases and other pollutants like formaldehyde and sulfur dioxide, a precursor to acid rain, being released by an operational power generating plant there.

“This is just one more step in a clean-up campaign to legalize NorthWestern Energy’s decision,” Glen said. “We are asking you to hold NorthWestern Energy to the letter and intent of the law. Don’t let NorthWestern Energy fill our valley with more pollution.”

Others told the commissioners that they were intentionally ignoring better technologies in solar, wind and renewables, like pumped-storage hydropower.

“It is not possible that NorthWestern Energy would start building a $310 million project without assuming the assurances of someone. NorthWestern Energy was not gambling blindly with $310 million in illegal construction. They had assurances,” said resident Mary Fitzpatrick, who said the entire process has been strong-armed by the commission. “NorthWestern only cares about its shareholders, not us. Please don’t side with them against us.”

Resident Priscilla Bell leveled the blame at the commissioners but also at media, which she said had failed to report the full effects and plans of NorthWestern Energy.

“Our leaders are not interested in what we have to say and the public input seems to be merely an inconvenience so they can say they took public input. Is the process itself flawed or has the leadership just disgraced itself?” she asked.

She said the media has failed to look at the literal downstream consequences of siting the plant so close to the Yellowstone River, a source of water for Yellowstone County. She also said the media has failed to adequately cover the effects of tons of pollutants that will be released.

“The media makes it appear as if the public is split,” she said. “It is not. We are sick and tired of being pushed around by energy companies. I have been labeled an environmental terrorist. Me? A little old lady? I have never had any part of government. But I proudly put up resistance to pollution and I will not stop today.”

As much as the current zoning conundrum of the county was being debated as a prelude to the power plant going online, others invoked both the past and future in their comments to the Yellowstone County Commissioners.

Gray Harris, who told the commissioners he spent a career in environmental compliance with the federal Bureau of Reclamation, said that the county’s decision to allow a large, industrial polluter like NorthWestern Energy to open could be restarting the sulfur-dioxide wars of the a half-century ago when Billings was noted for having worse air than other industrial cities, like Pittsburgh.

Yellowstone County is home to a number of industries, including three oil refineries, all of which were targeted as major contributors to the sulfur dioxide problem, which state and federal authorities started regulating more heavily.

“I’ve seen some shoddy jobs of compliance, but I have never seen any compliance like this,” Harris said. “Some of us, including myself, see it happening again. And, if it’s produced in Laurel, it’ll be in Billings and go past that to Lockwood.”

He said the pollution wars of the previous century should remain there.

Mary Catherine Dunphy, who grew up in Billings and now lives in Miles City, said that commissioners don’t have to take residents’ words, they should read NorthWestern’s own literature about pollution.

“They know what they’re doing to the residents of Yellowstone County,” Dunphy said. “These are crimes against humanity because they know what they’re doing, and they still don’t care because of the profit.”

She said that will hit residents with a double whammy, first because of the health impacts, but she said that Montanans will pay more for energy, and more for building the expensive power plant, which has grown from an estimated $275 million to $310 million.

“It just creates incentives that the bigger the projects, the bigger the profits,” Dunphy said. “We are being poisoned. Please put people over profits.”

Finally, Steve Held of Broadus, a rancher who most recently ran but lost as a Democratic nominee for Montana’s eastern Congressional district, stopped at the meeting.

He told the commissioners he was on the way to Helena, where, on Wednesday morning, the Montana Supreme Court will hold an appeals hearing on the landmark environmental case, Held vs. State of Montana. In that case, a group of Montana youth argued the state had been derelict in its constitutional duties to maintain a “clean and healthful environment.” Lewis and Clark County District Court Judge Kathy Seeley sided with the youth, saying the state had been remiss in not doing more to protect the environment. On Wednesday, the state’s highest court will hear arguments in the case.

Held was traveling to support his daughter, Rikki Held, who was the lead plaintiff in the case, and to watch the court session.

“My job, as I see it, is to be a good ancestor, for my kids, grandkids and great-grandkids, and that’s my job. That’s part of your job, too, and we’re on this journey together. You have to be a good ancestor,” he told the commissioners.

NorthWestern responds

The Daily Montanan reached out to NorthWestern Energy for a statement about Tuesday’s Yellowstone County Commissioners meeting. The following is a statement provided by a spokeswoman:

NorthWestern Energy is obligated to provide all of our Montana customers with a reliable energy service at the most affordable rates possible.

The Yellowstone County Generating Station is a critical on-demand generation resource located in Montana and dedicated to serving NorthWestern Energy’s Montana customers when they need energy the most including the coldest days in the winter and the hottest days in the summer.

The Yellowstone County Generating Station was vetted through a competitive process as the most cost-effective means of providing reliable service and uses the most advanced gas technology.

Wind or solar plants with capacity comparable to the Yellowstone County Generating Station would cost significantly more to build. NorthWestern Energy would earn significantly more from an investment in such a plant. We invested in the Yellowstone County Generating Station because it is the right thing to do for our Montana customers to ensure reliable energy service when they need it the most, at the most affordable rates possible.

NorthWestern Energy is extremely concerned about our ability to integrate incremental quantities of wind and solar onto the grid and meeting the peak capacity needs of our customers in Montana, which is why we invested in the Yellowstone County Generating Station, using advanced, efficient, cost-effective gas technology. The 18 engines can be operated separately as well as in combinations and can be brought from off to full generation in eight minutes.

There are currently over 130 natural gas generation plants in development across the country.

Statement from Northern Plains Resource Council

Northern Plains Resource Council has been instrumental in evaluating and opposing this project. This is the statement that member Mary Fitzpatrick released on Wednesday.

“Once again, Yellowstone County Commissioners continue to show egregious bias in favor of NorthWestern Energy at the expense of their constituents. Today was the latest step in a sham zoning process that retroactively rewards the monopoly corporation for abusing our laws. They have built an industrial facility on land zoned for agricultural use, a power plant that will emit hundreds of tons of toxic and carcinogenic air pollution throughout the Yellowstone Valley. Can anyone seriously believe that  a major corporation would build a $310 million plant without proper zoning in place, unless that corporation had been given assurances from public officials that their zoning problems would disappear? Our Montana Constitution requires open meetings and public participation; the County Commissioners and NorthWestern Energy are ducking these requirements. The public trust is being discarded.”

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