LORDSTOWN — A chess game that could risk the future of a planned $1 billion power plant project here was underway months ago when two Lordstown officials went on record to oppose the plant developer’s request that a state regulatory agency extend its certificate deadline, allowing more time to start construction.

The future of the Trumbull Energy Center, or TEC, power plant already is in jeopardy after the Lordstown Board of Public Affairs last week declined to act on a proposal for Warren to provide water service — about 4.4 million gallons per day — to the site near the state Route 45 and Henn Parkway intersection.

The developer said the project hinges on water service from Warren, that financing depends on it and investors aren’t willing to tolerate the delay that would be caused by switching to an alternate plan recently presented by the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District to provide water to the site.

Now it has come to light that months before the water issue came before the Board of Public Affairs last week, Mayor Arno Hill and Kellie Bordner, Lordstown planning and zoning administrator / economic development director, sent a letter in March to the Ohio Power Siting Board opposing the plant developer’s request for more time to start construction.

Developer Clean Energy Future-Trumbull, LLC requested a one-year extension to the deadline for a certificate that amounts to construction approval one year beyond its Oct. 5 expiration date.

The company cited hardship brought on the pandemic and its impact to the construction schedule of the plant.

REQUEST

What Clean Energy Future wants is one more year added to the expiration of its certificate of environmental compatibility and public need, which according to a spokesman with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, in layman’s terms means approval to construct.

The company cites the global shutdown / quarantine and supply chain and transportation troubles brought on by the pandemic as reasons for the extension.

“Nearly two years after the beginning of the pandemic, the world is still dealing with the compounding nature and lingering effects of COVID-19. The project is not immune from these effects, which has ultimately delayed the financing and start of construction of the project,” Clean Energy Future’s request states. “The project is currently progressing toward financial closure and anticipates initiation of construction within the requested extended certificate time frame.”

The request received broad support from local economic development and public officials.

Those who wrote letters in favor of the extension were Guy Coviello, president / CEO, Youngstown / Warren Regional Chamber; Jim Kinnick, executive director, Eastgate Regional Council of Governments; Anthony Trevena, executive director, Western Reserve Port Authority; Warren Mayor Doug Franklin; and Franco Lucarelli, Warren’s utility services director.

“A $1 billion project presents major opportunities and represents tremendous business opportunities for local communities and companies,” Trevena wrote. “For this reason, we have been supportive of TEC given its three-year construction cycle and the likelihood of stable long-term operations.”

RESPONSE

On the flip side, Lordstown village officials Hill and Bordner wrote the siting board on March 29 that the village “strenuously objects” to the extension request.

The letter cites several reasons. In part, it questions what the certificate means in the context of the village’s planning and zoning code and / or environmental permitting reviewed for land development projects.

The letter states since no site-plan review information has been given to the planning and zoning office to “commence the review process as required, it is as though this project’s development is happening external to the village’s review and oversight.”

The letter also questions the stated construction start date of the fall of 2022, calling it “very misleading,” because no information has been given to the village and the developer won’t align with the village’s master water plan to connect the plant.

The letter also raised competing commercial operation dates in the application, one of January 2026 and another of January 2027.

Clean Energy Future’s application, however, states commercial operation is anticipated by January 2026 to meet anticipated summer peak load demands. Later in the application, it states commercial operation is planned “prior to” January 2027.

“Futhermore, the village has received NO required parcel alignment documents (replats), not any petition for zone change documents from the developer, which must come BEFORE the site plan review process,” the letter states.

Later, the letter states the land is already zoned industrial.

Hill said last week the land on which the first power plant — Lordstown Energy Center (LEC) — sits was replatted, “but the Ohio Power Siting Board, from what I understand, trumps everything locally because it’s a public utility.”

That means, he said, there is no local planning and zoning. He later said, however, the village does “have some skin in the game” regarding property setbacks, ingress and egress to the facility and what hazardous materials might be at the site.

Also, according to a spokesman with PUCO, developers of this type of facility are not bound by local zoning requirements, plan review, etc. That, said Matt Schilling, all falls under the jurisdiction of the siting board.

According to state law involving power siting, “no public agency or political subdivision” in Ohio “may require any approval, consent, permit, certificate, or other condition for the construction or operation of a major utility facility ….”

The letter also claims that fees and expenses for the village’s solicitor and engineer were not reimbursed to the village by Bill Siderewicz, president of Clean Energy Future, through an agreement. The letter states an invoice for $9,427 was mailed Nov. 30 to Clean Energy Future, but had not been paid.

Hill, however, said there was no agreement between the village solicitor or CT Consultants, the engineering firm used by the village, with Siderewicz regarding TEC to reimburse the fees. The agreement, Hill said, was for LEC, which Siderewicz was a minority investor in.

Hill said Siderewicz paid the bill last week after the two spoke.

Hill acknowledged signing the letter of opposition, but said he really gave it only “a brief purview.”

“My bottom line, I don’t have a problem getting it (the certificate) extended, but it doesn’t expire until the fifth of October, and if we don’t have the project done by the fifth of October, I’ll tell you what is going to happen.”

Unless something changes, the plant project dies, he has said.

Bordner did not respond to an email asking several questions regarding her letter.

DUELING WATER PLANS

According to a document from Siderewicz, Clean Energy Future has negotiated a new approximately 5-mile, 24-inch water line from Warren to the facility that would meet 100 percent of the plant’s needs plus have some extra volume for the village.

Siderewicz said discussions with Warren started in 2017. In July, the village, he said, was at the negotiating table with Warren and Clean Energy Future.

“It’s not like Clean Energy Future poked around in the dark and wouldn’t tell anyone what was going on,” Siderewicz said after Tuesday’s board of public affairs meeting. “We had the village of Lordstown at our side the entire way, and it’s MVSD who came in literally a couple weeks ago and said, ‘Hey, we have a new idea.’ And we said, ‘Well, that new idea really doesn’t fit what we are doing; we can’t even accommodate it.'”

After the meeting, Siderewicz said all work would stop on the project without the service connection with Warren.

There were talks between Clean Energy Future and MVSD when Jim Jones was chief engineer there, Siderewicz said, to install a new line from MVSD to Lordstown and bypass Niles. That, however, never happened.

Jones left MVSD in May 2021, said the water provider’s chief engineer now, Michael McNinch. He came on in September 2021.

“I don’t care where the water comes from,” said Hill. “We get the bulk of our water from Niles. Warren stepped up to the plate, so I’m not going to beat up Warren about this, but here we are in the 11th hour and Mike McNinch comes in and wants to throw our $1 billion power plant down the tubes because he wants a piece of the action.”

MVSD is proposing a 24-inch water line from Niles into Lordstown for the plant project, to accommodate future growth in the village and provide redundancy in the system. A 24-inch service line already exists, as do two smaller lines.

McNinch said Hill came to MVSD’s meeting on March 30, when the proposal was laid out and “at that point, he indicated his support,” McNinch said. “We proceeded based on what we perceived as his support. He did not object at any point during that meeting.”

McNinch said he spoke to Lordstown council at the May 2 meeting for much longer than the five minutes given to public speakers after council extended his time. “At no point did anybody from Lordstown object to anything,” he said.

A bullet-point handout dated May 2 from the MVSD explaining the key benefits at the Niles / MVSD 24-inch line was available at the meeting.

He said he also spoke with as many members of council as he could before a meeting May 12 when council met in executive session with Clean Energy Future and other invited guests, including board of public affairs members and at least one Warren official, so Clean Energy Future could present to them why the Warren waterline would benefit the energy center and the village.

McNinch said he was asked to leave to start the session, “but at that point, nobody expressed disinterest or misgivings.”

He also spoke at the board of public affairs meeting Tuesday. The board is responsible for water and wastewater utility management in Lordstown.

It was at this meeting that the board refused to discuss the water connection with Warren.

Board President Kevin Campbell moved to accept the connection; however, the matter died when neither of the remaining two members, Michael Sullivan nor Chris Peterson, moved to second the motion.

“At the end of the day, nobody, nobody from Lordstown has ever said we wish for you to cease from this proposal,” McNinch said. “Every meeting I have spoken at with Lordstown, they have specifically asked if TEC is not a Niles and MVSD customer, would we still consider installing a new water line out there. My answer was we have to be fiscally responsible.”

MVSD won’t commit to the line and risk having existing customers subsidize the line if it doesn’t break even.

McNinch admits there was a vacuum between Jones leaving MVSD and his taking over. He said his first task was to tackle funding to rehabilitate the Meander dam, and with that complete, he moved onto the next item on the list, which was the TEC / Lordstown line.

Yet, all the way to March 30, he said, “anybody from Lordstown could have said anywhere along the way, ‘we wish you to cease.’ We have never received that, not even a phone call, nothing. Every step along the way we received no feedback or positive feedback.”

“We want Lordstown to succeed. We want Bill Siderewicz to succeed. This has never been about that. Whatever role we have to play, we will do, but we have no process in the decision making. We defer to Lordstown and their judgment to do what is best for Lordstown,” he said.

rselak@tribtoday.com