Friday, June 04, 1999
Butler Co. in final running for plant
Abatement offered to Duke Power
BY JANICE MORSE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HAMILTON — Madison Township is one of two finalists for a $233 million electric power plant, and the community is offering the developer a hefty tax abatement.
Butler County Commissioners on Thursday unanimously approved an agreement that would grant a 10-year, 90 percent break on real and personal property, yet still provide a new, multimillion-dollar revenue source for the Edgewood City Schools.
“The size of the investment is so large, it generates a tremendous amount of revenue for the schools” despite the proposed abatement, said Commissioner Michael A. Fox. “So that's why it's a good deal.”
The developer, Duke Energy Power Services of Charlotte, N.C., intends to announce June 16 whether Butler County's offer beats out a proposal from Vermillion County, Ind., said Charles K. Claunch, Duke's project development director.
If Butler's proposal wins, “the deal keeps us out of the operating levy (request) business, at least for a couple of years,” Superintendent Dale Robertson told the county commissioners on Thursday.
Throughout the 10-year abatement period, Duke would still pay nearly $6 million in real and personal property taxes.
About 75 percent of that amount would go to the schools. The other 25 percent of additional revenue would be divided among Madison Township and other Butler County entities, commissioners said. Then after the abatement expired, Duke would be fully taxed.
Differences between Ohio and Indiana laws gave Butler County the flexibility to offer a larger-percentage incentive than Vermillion did, said Curt Arulf, Butler County's director of development.
Mr. Arulf noted that the project would be the first to occupy an enterprise zone that the commissioners expanded in 1996. If commissioners hadn't had the foresight to do that, he said, the project probably wouldn't have been feasible.
The Duke project was said to be the first so-called “merchant power plant” to file a formal application in Ohio — meaning it would generate power at wholesale prices at peak times and sell that power to other utilities.
The plant could assist local utilities, such as Hamilton's city-run operations, with providing power when demands are greatest. Last summer, the city's largest users were warned that a brownout could be imminent unless use tapered.
The Duke project, which would be built on 36 acres next to Cinergy's Woodsdale generating plant near the Miller Brewing Co., has been in the works since October and required state approval before it went to the commissioners.
Duke, one of the nation's largest power companies, has said it would like to begin operation by mid-2000.
The plant would generate up to 640 megawatts per hour, and would include up to eight combustion engines fueled mainly by natural gas.
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