Powerless to stop the power plant

Published 10:35 pm Thursday, January 13, 2011

This week as the rhetoric around the proposed biomass facility has continued heating up, leading up to last night’s forum, one of the main themes has been that “government should do something.”

While the Times does not condone or condemn Chairman Paulk’s actions in the commission meeting Tuesday night, understanding the situation may help shed light on the issue. The county is powerless to do anything to stop this power plant. The only governmental entity with any power over the project is the city, and that’s only in the form of the services being extended and the water being sold to the company, as well as the sewage sludge that’s being burned. They too are powerless at this point to stop it.

Why? Because if a company/ entity/ individual is conforming to the zoning that is in place on a piece of property and has all of their permits in hand, the local governments can be sued for not allowing the development to continue. And they’d lose. All a local government can do is enforce ordinances currently in place and they must be reasonable and not overly restrictive, or they can be sued over that as well.

Only the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority has ever really had the ability to stop the biomass plant from being built here. Instead, they chose to purchase the land for the plant and facilitate all the permitting, etc. to assist the company. The Industrial Authority is a quasi-governmental entity with special taxing privileges that can do as the members of the board see fit for the community.

So whether you agree with Paulk’s actions or not, why waste any more time discussing something in the county meeting that the commission has no control over? Yes, they voted to support it, but their support is not needed for the project to continue. They could have voted against it, and it wouldn’t make any difference at this point.

If the company can get the necessary financing, and can find the suppliers and the customers for the power, the Wiregrass plant will be built.

Citizens’ rights are paramount, but comments should be directed towards the entity that has all the power. And at this point, there’s very little legally the Industrial Authority can do either even if members wanted to halt the project at this time. It would take state legislation to halt this project now.