Iowa Global Warming

A New Jersey firm has abandoned plans to build a coal-fired power plant in Waterloo, blaming the economic downturn.

LS Power announced Tuesday that it would scrap plans for the controversial plant, which would have produced enough power to serve as many as 500,000 homes beginning in 2013. The firm planned to sell power wholesale to customers in and outside Iowa.

The company’s partner in the project, Dynegy Inc., dissolved its venture last week, citing the credit crisis.

“The neighbors are all ecstatic,” said Don Shatzer of rural Waterloo, who led three years of neighbors’ opposition against the roughly $1.5 billion plant. In addition to stirring up heavy opposition from environmentalists, the plant would have claimed the century farm of 78-year-old Merle Bell just outside Waterloo.

“Merle Bell is going to get to stay in his home,” Shatzer said.

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Loss of financial backing killed a $1.3 billion proposal to build a new coal-fired power plant in Waterloo, LS Power announced Tuesday.

Elk Run Energy Associates, an affiliate of LS Power, announced Tuesday that it will forgo further development on the proposed 750-megawatt Elk Run Energy Station. The project, one of two new plants proposed for Iowa, lost financial partner Dynegy Inc. on Jan. 2.

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House Democratic leaders have appointed Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, to a committee that oversee alternative fuels and other issues critical to the state.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced that Braley was one of eight members approved for membership on the Energy and Commerce Committee. The committee has broad jurisdiction over alternative fuels as corn-based ethanol, health care and the environment.

Braley, of Waterloo, was elected to his second term from Iowa’s 1st District in November. He was a leader in the effort in November to oust long-term committee chairman John Dingell of Michigan in favor of Rep. Henry Waxman, a Pelosi ally also from California.

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