By Karen Elias
You’ll be forgiven if you’ve never heard of Renovo, Pennsylvania.
If you found a state map and put your finger down right at the center, Renovo would be pretty close by.
Geography / History
Situated along the West Branch of the Susquehanna River in northwest Clinton County, with the Sproul State Forest on one side, and the gently rolling Appalachians on the other, Renovo is one of Pennsylvania’s quintessential rural communities. Home to slightly over 1000 residents, the area is known for its recreational opportunities, including hiking, canoeing, fishing, hang-gliding, trail riding, and dark-sky gazing. One of the least densely populated areas in the U.S., the region also boasts one of the largest elk herds in the Northeast. Back in the 19th century, before it fell on hard times, Renovo was known as a popular “resort town in the mountains,” accessible by rail to folks from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia interested in escaping the bustle of city life and taking in its pristine mountain air.
The town’s beginnings seemed promising. Around 1863, the Pennsylvania and Erie Railroad purchased land on which to build a company town and named it Renovo, Latin for “rebirth” or “renewal.” Its name was based on the optimistic notion that industrial enterprise could transform the area into a thriving commercial outpost. Today, 160 years later, after a series of commercial enterprises have come and gone, leaving Renovo floundering, the community thought it was ready to welcome what it considered its final answer to economic revitalization: a fracked gas-fired power plant.
The Plant
From the beginning, the plans were misconceived. In 2014, with support from the Clinton County Economic Partnership and local legislators, a firm called the Renovo Energy Center (REC) was incorporated to oversee the building of a gas-fired power plant, by Bechtel Corporation, at the long-vacant railroad yards directly adjacent to the town.* There was apparently little concern that the plant would be located literally across the street from local businesses and only blocks away from the majority of homes. There was also little effort to involve the community in this all-important decision-making. Developers swooped in with promises of jobs, even though they admitted that – after the boom-and-bust construction period — the plant would support only 25 to 30 permanent positions. A majority of residents, whose town has recently been declared an environmental justice community, with a significant percentage of the population living below the poverty level, latched onto this promise of economic revitalization. The plant, they believed, could make possible their latter-day rebirth.
Major Source of Emissions
Since these beginnings, as investor funds proved elusive and groundbreaking for the project was pushed forward again and again, environmental groups were able to take a closer look, revealing that the proposed plant was slated to become a major source of emissions. As the fourth-largest industrial polluter in Pennsylvania, the 1240 MW facility would emit annually over 200 tons of particulate matter, approximately 54 tons of sulfur dioxides, over 300 tons of nitrogen oxides, and over 100 tons of volatile organic compounds, including formaldehyde, a known carcinogen. The cancer stats for Renovo are alarming, already exceeding those for the rest of the state. And many residents are without the means to afford regular healthcare. Now, with a monster-emitter in their midst, the most vulnerable residents, including children and the elderly, would be forced to bear the brunt of this project in the form of health problems and possible early mortality. Studies provided by the Clean Air Council have concluded that, over the life of the plant, its pollutants would result in societal costs amounting up to $198 million and would produce air pollution levels expected to kill over 120 people.
And then there’s climate change. The plant was projected to emit nearly 5.5 million tons of greenhouse gases each year (more than the city of Pittsburgh), worsening climate change at the very time scientists say we need to reduce our carbon emissions drastically in order to avoid the worst effects of the crisis.
The Opposition
Activists in the area, including me, were waiting with bated breath to see if the DEP would grant the project its air permit. In April 2021 the permit was granted, and we decided we needed to move beyond letter writing to take a more public stance. A small group of Renovo residents who opposed the plant had started a group called Renovo Residents for a Healthy Environment, and its co-founder, Maureen Ruhl, volunteered to serve as emcee at a rally to be held at the town’s 16th Street Park in July. In solidarity with her group, activists from Lock Haven (where I live) as well as supporters from Lewisburg and Williamsport pledged to join the event. We thought the rally could serve as an opportunity to raise awareness about the plant’s health and environmental impacts, information that was missing in the plant’s public PR accolades.
The day of the rally, conditions were less than ideal. The air was hot and humid, with threat of thunderstorms. The flying insects were out for blood. And midway through one of the speeches, a 200-car coal train clattered its interminable way through the far end of the park. Word about the rally had gotten out on social media the week before, and supporters of the plant were fanning the flames of anger by claiming that “outsiders” were sticking their noses into Renovo’s business, calling us “out-of-area nut jobs who want to stifle our growth and keep us in poverty.” It was a call-to-arms, and it worked. In spite of Maureen’s valiant efforts to create a welcoming atmosphere, a contingent of plant supporters – their arms folded across their chests – formed a menacing line across the park and let it be known that their minds were already made up. Several refused to take the fact sheet our group had prepared or simply ripped it up and threw it away. Rather than engage in productive dialogue, as Maureen was requesting, they determined to let their voices be heard by heckling the speakers.
The fight continued, with all major players in Clinton County supporting the plant, and a group of intrepid activists calling it into question by launching a renewed letter writing campaign that we hoped would get the attention of those potential investors who had not yet committed to the project. Maureen was spat upon at a Republican fund-raiser, drug paraphernalia were dumped in her yard, she and her husband were harrased when they went out to eat at local restaurants, and her co-founder woke up one day to find a bullet hole in her car window. Things were tense as we waited to see what was next.
The Appeal
Two years ago, after DEP granted the plant its required air permit, a group of three environmental groups – the Clean Air Council, PennFuture, and the Center for Biological Diversity — filed an appeal objecting to the permit on multiple grounds – among other things, because it allowed illegal levels of air pollution, because DEP ignored its own mandate that an environmental justice community must be fully engaged in the decision-making process, and because the private and public costs of the plant had not been taken into consideration. Last August, the Environmental Hearing Board issued a partial summary judgment stating that emission levels for two pollutants had indeed been set too high. According to Leigh Martinez, writing for PennFuture, “That means that the environmental groups proved, without needing a trial, that DEP broke the law when it allowed the power plant to emit such high pollution levels.”
At the beginning of last month, we learned that the appeal process was ongoing, with a trial scheduled to begin in late August.
Then just three weeks ago on April 14, Bechtel, the major developer, announced it was pulling out of the project. We were astounded. Suddenly, the project was dead. We had won! The residents of Renovo could breathe freely once again. It was a major victory for the environment here in Pennsylvania.
Bechtel cited the ongoing legal appeal as the reason for its decision, but I suspect it’s becoming harder for new fracked gas projects to gain a foothold in the state. The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) stated in a recent report that the “gas-fired gold rush looks to be over.” According to the report, renewables have become increasingly competitive. Demand for methane-fed projects has decreased. Volatile gas prices have created an unstable market. And the recent increased attention to climate change has also had an effect. Given the real probability that fossil fuel plants will need to shut down by 2050, investors and developers are having second thoughts about funding projects that could very well have an uncertain future.
Going On From Here
Our team continues to be in touch with the Renovo Residents, who are at work envisioning new possibilities for their community.
At the same time, we know the fight isn’t over. Another site is being considered in Clinton County, north of Renovo, for a hydrogen / fertilizer / carbon capture project – a false solution designed to continue the extraction of fossil fuels. But we’ve learned some things from going this first round.
We’ll continue to educate ourselves by reading reports and submitting Right to Know requests for meeting notes and for those documents they’d rather we didn’t see. When the focus is on profits, they’re bound to make mistakes; we’re learning to sniff these out.
We’ll continue to make noise – and good trouble. Even though we’re often a minority, our voices can reach many others, especially when we engage the press. Some of these others might be investors. And some of these investors might have second thoughts.
And we’ll continue to work with legal experts in the environmental movement who know how to call these agencies to account. Several of us, many from “out of town,” came together to fight the Renovo plant as a team. Climate change knows nothing about “insiders / outsiders.” We’re all in this together, and time is running out.
Onward!
*Note: The plant’s first permit, approved in 2018, was for a 950 MW plant. But because the project was having funding problems, REC decided to build a bigger plant to attract investors. REC applied for a second permit, for a 1240 MW plant, in 2020. Despite an appeal by the Clean Air Council et al., this permit was approved by DEP in April 2021, and extended by DEP in 2022. [Thanks to Sandy Field for taking this deep dive.]
CampfireDispatch2023 