EMC Board of Directors Examines Proposed Coal Projects
For Immediate Release
Contact: Jenna Garland (404) 607-1262 x 222, (404) 281-6398
January 24th, 2012
Atlanta, GA- Members of the Georgians for Smart Energy (GSE) coalition are joining with customers of several electric membership corporations (EMCs) from around the state to call on Cobb EMC to halt the development of two coal-fired power plants in central Georgia. Cobb EMC’s Board of Directors is scheduled to examine its financial backing of the projects at a meeting later today, and could vote to suspend their funding. To date, Cobb EMC has spent nearly $14 million on POWER4Georgians LLC, the five-member consortium of Georgia EMCs charged with developing the two multi-billion dollar power plants.
EMC customer-members from three of the cooperatives involved in POWER4Georgians cited concerns about corporate integrity, financial risk, and environmental impact as reasons for the Cobb cooperative to lead its partner EMCs in cancelling the proposed coal-fired Plant Washington and Plant Ben Hill.
POWER4Georgians, LLC was organized in 2008 by indicted former Cobb CEO Dwight Brown. The consortium is currently operated by Dean Alford, former Cobb Energy Vice President and one-time holder of $750,000 in preferred Cobb Energy stock. Mr. Alford’s company, Allied Energy Services – once a wholly owned subsidiary of Cobb Energy – was awarded a no-bid contract to develop the consortium’s coal projects. Following court order, Allied Energy was liquidated in 2011 and sold to Dean Alford for a mere $128,000.
Concerned EMC members and representatives from advocacy organizations issued the following statements:
“Cobb EMC’s members sent a clear message in November to clean up the mess bequeathed by Dwight Brown. We support the EMC’s new leadership as it works to implement that mandate—which we believe should include a halt to all spending on these unneeded and risky investments,” said Tom Barksdale with the Cobb Alliance for Smart Energy.
“I hope the Board has learned the lesson from Cobb Energy’s demise and will spend not one more dollar on schemes developed by the architects of that fiasco. I’m confident that new directors will represent the interests of the members and not the profits of Dwight Brown and Dean Alford,” said Cobb EMC member and Sierra Club volunteer Don Dressel.
“As a responsible Snapping Shoals EMC member I’ve asked our Board why it is investing in Plant Washington and how much it is going to cost me as a ratepayer—can they guarantee that this isn’t going to show up on my bill?” said J.L. Howard, a customer of Snapping Shoals EMC. “They’ve dodged the question, so I join my fellow EMC customers and say not a dollar more should be spent on a risky coal plant by my EMC.”
“With new leadership that is focused on the rights of members, Cobb EMC can become a state-wide leader in implementing a 21st century energy policy that will benefit members’ pocketbooks, their health, and their environment – instead of leading Georgia’s EMCs down a polluted path of unneeded and risky investment,” said Katherine Helms Cummings, member of Washington EMC and executive director of the Fall-line Alliance for a Clean Environment.
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