Would you want an electric power plant built in your neighborhood?

That’s the question Tilden Township residents were considering during a meeting last week with utility industry representatives and local government officials.

Milwaukee-based WEC Energy Group has proposed to create a new subsidiary, the Upper Michigan Energy Resources Corp. to serve its Michigan customers.

WEC Energy Group is the owner of the aging coal-fired Presque Isle Power Plant in Marquette, which had been expected to close in 2020 due to a number of reasons, one being the financial feasibility of complying with environmental regulations and mandates.

UMERC would own this new plant, along with a smaller one proposed to be constructed near the base of the Keweenaw Peninsula. Together, they would replace some electric generation that’s currently being provided by the Presque Isle plant. A majority of that power would serve Cliffs Natural Resources’ Tilden Mine in National Mine.

Understandably, Tilden Township residents have a right to state their concerns and ask for more details about the proposed power plant WEC Energy wants to put in their backyards.

The notion of a power plant often conjures up thoughts of towering smokestacks billowing out plumes of environmentally hazardous toxins and chemicals into the air we breathe.

It’s not a pleasant thought.

But one thing that should be noted is the technology these plants would use. For starters, they would use natural gas, rather than coal as a fuel.

Additionally, the reciprocating internal combustion engines WEC Energy would install are much cleaner than the coal-fired engines in place at the Presque Isle plant, and they are similar to what the Marquette Board of Light and Power is installing at its new facility along Wright Street in Marquette.

While Tilden Township residents’ concerns may still be valid, there is a much broader issue that we feel it important to address and it revolves around the recent election of Donald Trump as president.

Trump has talked a great deal about abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency. On any number of occasions during the campaign, the president-elect criticized the EPA for being unfriendly to business.

What’s unclear is whether the regulations that are, in part, playing a role in the shuttering of the Presque Isle Power Plant will remain in effect in a Trump administration.

Like everyone else, we’ll have to wait and see what a Trump presidency might mean to the EPA as a general proposition and specifically to the rules and regulations the agency has promulgated which some business have opposed.

Mining Journal (Marquette)