Published: May 25, 2007 08:45 pm      

Greenbrier plant debate spills over to commission

FAYETTEVILLE, WV — A debate that has raged on for several years in neighboring Greenbrier County briefly spilled over into Fayette County Commission chambers Friday.

Bill Shiffer, a spokesman for the proposed Western Greenbrier Co-generation coal-powered electric plant in Rainelle, requested $5,000 from commissioners to bring several Meadow Bridge High School students on as summer interns. Last summer, he said, 13 students from the school participated in the endeavor.

The overall cost of the internship program — which also includes students from Greenbrier West High School and Rainelle Christian Academy — costs the company $35,000, Shiffer explained, due to the fact that the 25 interns are each paid $8 per hour and work six 20-hour weeks.

“It exposes them to field work that exposes them to science and math,” he added, extolling the educational benefits of the 2004 program. “We’ve been 80 percent successful in getting kids to enroll in science and math classes (in school) following the program. If a kid is interested, we won’t turn them away.”

According to Shiffer, commissioners last year approved $2,000 for the project — the first year Fayette County students were eligible to participate — and that Greenbrier County commissioners on Wednesday approved $5,000 for the internships. He also plans to make equal requests of both counties’ school boards.

The discussion took on a more political and divisive tone when Laura Ketchum, a board member with Plateau Action Network, came to the front of the room and presented commissioners with some environmental concerns her group has with the project. Commissioner Matthew Wender also expressed worries in that regard.

“DEP (state Department of Environmental Protection) and DNR (state Division of Natural Resources) have many concerns and won’t allow anything to progress on this for at least a year. This is not a critical project for a distressed county like Fayette County,” Ketchum claimed.

Shiffer confirmed commission president Ken Eskew’s statement that the company was required to comply with state environmental regulations and would be regularly monitored as to its compliance.

Ketchum raised Shiffer’s ire when she also alleged “financial unaccountability” on the part of his project. “Financial unaccountability is a fairly strong term. I believe the lady is very misinformed,” Shiffer retorted, after which the two exchanged contact information.

Commissioners agreed to table the matter until their June 22 meeting. In the meantime, Wender said, he wants to speak with the Meadow Bridge principal about the program.

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In other business, commissioners:

- Agreed to place on their June 22 agenda an update on efforts to build a trap and skeet shooting range at Fayette County Park in Beckwith.

Park superintendent Earl Pauley said he had been putting his crew to good use with the $2,500 commissioners added to his overtime budget in hopes of expediting the range’s completion.

Last month, Wender described the funding for the endeavor as coming from two state grants worth $25,000 apiece.

n Received information from Shelly Huffman, a spokesperson for the Community Connect Foundation, on her organization’s efforts to expand broadband Internet access to forgotten pockets of the Mountain State that do not have that technology.

Government agencies and/or nonprofit organizations — and anyone who would want to partner with either of those — is eligible to apply for a $5,000 mini-grant, according to an informational sheet she provided to commissioners.

A postmark deadline for the grant application is July 3, and each participant must have at least five members — three of whom are required to attend a pre-application meeting. The first such meeting will take place next Tuesday at the state Department of Health and Human Resources office on Virginia Street in Oak Hill.

For more information, visit www.alliancewv.org.

Register-Herald Reporter Christian Giggenbach contributed to this story.

— E-mail: mhill@register-herald.com