Fox 5: Chattahoochee's Job: Producing Power

Chattahoochee's Job: Producing Power

Updated: Monday, 21 Jun 2010, 8:52 PM EDT
Published : Monday, 21 Jun 2010, 8:52 PM EDT

BLAKELY, Ga. (AP) - When Bobby McLendon first heard talk of a new power plant 10 miles from his home in southwest Georgia, he considered it a boon to the local economy.

“I thought it was going to give us some jobs and pay some taxes,” recalled McLendon, a retired farm equipment salesman.

Nearly 10 years later, McLendon is president of Friends of the Chattahoochee, an environmental group leading the fight against Longleaf Energy Associates. The company has plans to build a 1,200-megawatt, coal-fired facility on the banks of the Chattahoochee in Early County.

Those plans have been met with lawsuits from environmentalists like McLendon who say the region’s future energy demands could be met with conservation instead of a new coal plant and worry that emissions from the plant could damage crops in an area where farmers grow the economy.

Among other things, McLendon calls it a waste of a precious resource. Longleaf could pull as many as 27 million gallons of water from the Chattahoochee River each day.

“We just think every gallon of water is wasted if you’re going to produce electricity that’s not needed,” he said.

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