Two days after filing a request for rehearing with the U.S. Department of Energy over the mandated extension of operations at the J.H. Campbell Plant in Port Sheldon Township, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed a motion to intervene and protest in an effort to “protect customers from increased costs.”
The motion, filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on June 20, comes in response to Consumers Energy’s request that expenses associated with keeping the plant open be distributed across the majority of the 15-state region overseen by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator.
The filing requests the FERC reject Consumers’ request, on the grounds that the order forcing the plant to remain operational is invalid.
Campbell was scheduled to shutter at the end of May, but Consumers was forced to adjust after the DOE issued an emergency order requiring the plant remain “available for operation” for another 90 days. There are 70 days left.
The order, issued May 23, cited a need to “minimize the risk of blackouts and address critical grid security issues” in the Midwest ahead of “the high electricity demand expected this summer.” The order was directed to MISO.
“(We) are actively working to determine how to both comply with the federal order and then how those costs should be shared,” Consumers Director of Media Relations Katie Carey told The Sentinel on June 3. “We believe it should be shared by all customers within MISO, not just … (customers of) Consumers Energy.”
Other requests under consideration
Ten public interest groups also challenged the DOE order with a request for rehearing, including nationwide environmental nonprofit Earthjustice, the Sierra Club, the Environmental Law and Policy Center, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Michigan Environmental Council, the Environmental Defense Fund, Vote Solar, Public Citizen, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Ecology Center, and Urban Core Collective.
“Michigan must be in the fight to maintain self-determination in where our power comes from,” Nessel wrote in a release June 18. “The closure of this coal-powered electric plant has been planned for years, the utility made all due preparations to maintain our energy load without it, and the closure has been agreed to and cited in settlements affecting customer costs.
“In particular, if this arbitrary and unlawful order is allowed to stand, the only effect Michiganders will feel will be the pinch in their pockets. The costs of maintaining production at the plant, long since prepared for closure, could be an enormous burden on the rate-paying customers of Consumers Energy — and that’s before taking into account the environmental and public health costs of continuing to fuel a coal-powered plant.”
The DOE has 30 days to respond to the requests.
‘Save the Campbell’
A local effort to “Save the Campbell” has been underway since Consumers announced the facility was slated for an early retirement in 2021. Initially, at least one portion of the plant was meant to stay online until 2040.
“It’s voluntary for the Campbell Plant to be closing (this) early,” Ottawa County Commissioner Allison Miedema said in February. “That was a voluntary decision. This wasn’t a mandate that was put on them.”
The decision was spurred by Consumers’ Clean Energy Plan, which calls for eliminating coal as an energy source in 2025. The plan was released in the wake of state law requiring Michigan to produce all of its energy from clean sources by 2040.
The plant began operations in 1962, generating nearly 1,500 megawatts of electricity on a 2,000-acre property.
Retirement and restoration of the property was expected to begin later this year and last until 2030. Work includes the removal of coal residuals, backfilling the cold pile with clean fill, ash remediation with Ashcor, removal of a warm water discharge pipe and relocation of multiple bird boxes.
Ottawa County commissioners passed a resolution Feb. 25, making a “formal appeal” to the Michigan Public Service Commission to reconsider shutdown plans for the Campbell Plant; but officials said the decision was already made.
The board voted against taking legal action at Miedema’s insistence in April, and said the previous resolution had been shared with the federal government, which some officials hoped would spur action.
“I’m appreciative of the Trump Administration stepping in and putting a pause on the closing of the J. H. Campbell Plant,” Miedema said during a meeting May 27.
— Cassidey Kavathas is the politics and court reporter at The Holland Sentinel. Contact her at ckavathas@hollandsentinel.com. Follow her on Twitter @cassideykava.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Nessel makes another filing on Campbell — this time to protect customers’ wallets
Reporting by Cassidey Kavathas, Holland Sentinel / The Holland Sentinel
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