SALEM TOWNSHIP -- A proposed power plant for a part of Luzerne County has cleared another hurdle in becoming a reality.
Moxie Energy wants to build that plant in Salem Township and at a public hearing Wednesday night the township supervisors approved a conditional use permit for that site.
The proposed site is in a rural part of Salem Township and Moxie wants to build a natural gas fuel plant that it says would produce up to 900 megawatts of electricity.
Moxie came before the Salem Township supervisors where it was approved for a conditional use permit for that land, but the project already has the disapproval of residents.
“I'm very aware that these power plants have severe negative impacts on air quality and I think the community does not have all the information before being involved in the decision making in this process,” said Deirdre Lally.
Residents say they`re already living under the cooling towers of the PPL nuclear power plant and they do not want yet other energy plant near their homes.
“In Salem Township we already have a nuclear plant which has a lot of nuclear waste that we`re dealing with, so I have a concern about this,” said Cinda Hartman.
“They`re going to use our water. They`re going to depreciate our land value and I don`t think it should be here. Build it somewhere else,” said Gary Sullivan.
Moxie says its plant would only use a fraction of the water the nuclear plant uses since it doesn't need water for cooling purposes.
And it will not be installing any new power lines. It will ones already in place.
“The transmission lines are already at the site so we have a new substation built, a new switchyard built to connect the power generation facility to the existing lines, so we`re not building new transmission lines,” said Aaron Siamson, the CEO of Moxie.
Salem Township supervisors say Moxie still needs to get several other permits approved, both from the township and the state, but the project has the official go-ahead.
