is this why wor has fallen from grace

State questions errors, ethics as it withholds pay for work on FutureGen
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Spencer Hunt
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH


After losing a contest to house an experimental $1 billion power plant, Ohio officials stopped payments to a consulting firm they hired to help them win.

The Ohio Air Quality Development Authority agreed to pay energy-engineering firm Worley-Parsons as much as $680,000 to help find and pitch ideal spots for FutureGen, a coal-burning power plant that is expected to be pollution-free. Ohio was one of seven states competing for the prize.

Ohio’s hopes were dashed July 25 when the power and coal companies that make up the FutureGen Alliance chose finalist sites in Illinois and Texas.

Authority Director Mark Shanahan said WorleyParsons missed two flaws that quickly disqualified a site in Meigs County. He said authority officials also were upset that WorleyParsons signed a separate contract to help research giant Battelle evaluate equipment and technology the power plant would use.

Shanahan said that meant the agency could not talk with WorleyParsons because the Future-Gen Alliance bars applicants from contacting people working on the project. The Battelle contract was signed in June, about six weeks before the finalist sites were announced.

"While we’re still in the middle of the assessment phase, we can’t talk to (WorleyParsons) anymore," Shanahan said. "So we were a little upset."

Shanahan said the authority had paid WorleyParsons $280,000 for its work. The agency decided to withhold the rest while it talks to the company about what its work was worth.

"We’re saying there were some major mistakes made and we want to figure out how to put a monetary value on that," Shanahan said. "Our attorney is talking to their attorney."

WorleyParsons’ project leader, Calvin Hartman, declined to discuss the Meigs County application. He said his firm and Battelle agreed that nothing in their contract would conflict with WorleyParsons’ work with the state.

"We were fully respectful of our contract with Ohio," Hartman said.

States sought FutureGen, which would test new technologies to trap pollution and global-warming gases, in part because the project would create 1,000 construction jobs and as many as 150 full-time jobs.

The technology to burn coal more cleanly is in use in some plants, but FutureGen would test new methods to inject and trap carbon dioxide, a globalwarming gas, far underground.

WorleyParsons helped Ohio select the Meigs County site and another one in Tuscarawas County. It also helped put together two technical applications for the FutureGen Alliance to review.

Alliance members said the Meigs County site was disqualified because it is too close to a nature preserve and an Ohio River dam. The Tuscarawas location got a low score partly because carbon dioxide would have been stored under several homes that get water from private wells.

Mike Mudd, CEO of the FutureGen Alliance, said WorleyParsons’ decision to work with Battelle did not change Ohio’s chances to win the plant.

"We were very far into the evaluation process," Mudd said. "Worley had informed us that they would not do any additional work on the (Ohio) proposals. Based on that, our impression was the work had been completed."

Shanahan said he’s not clear on whether anything would have changed had Ohio been able to talk with WorleyParsons. Hartman said he thinks his company and the state can resolve the problem without having to go to court.


[email protected]