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www.newstrib.com | Wednesday, September 11, 2019 | 75 cents
Will coal plant closures affect energy prices? Officials predict small impact By Brett Herrmann SHAW MEDIA
Oglesby mayor Dom Rivara had a warning for his city’s residents at a past council meeting. The recent shutdown of four coal plants in Illinois is just the beginning. “We need baseload plants in this country,” Rivara said. “It’s only the tip of the iceberg and there will be more of this.” In August, Vistra Energy announced it would shut down the Hennepin Power Plant, along with coal-fired plants in Havana, Canton and Coffeen near St. Louis. This move came as a result of new rules handed down by the Illinois Pollution Control Board in an attempt to control the worst-polluting plants in the state. Vistra said it would work to provide career training for the employees that lost their jobs and work to retool the plants to produce renewable energy such as solar. But how will the closures affect prices on the consumer end? “We wouldn’t expect there would be much of an impact on price,” said David Kolata, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board, who added there is a large energy surplus in Illinois at the moment. “Supply greatly exceeds demand.” Illinois residents paid 13.24 cents per kilowatthour for electricity in June 2019, compared to 12.56 per kilowatthour in June 2018, according to the Energy Information Administration. June prices were also compa-
A tale of two playgrounds Play ball — but not in that dirt. La Salle Northwest Elementary School students (from left) Leonardo Canchola, Kaylie Luaisa, Olivia Lampson and Adriel Diaz kick a soccer ball in a recess area after school Tuesday as a bulldozer levels dirt next to them. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency started cleaning up contaminated soil at the school last week, in response to contamination from the former Matthiessen and Hegeler Zinc Co. in La Salle. The M & H site is about 1.4 miles from Northwest. Last year’s initial testing zone was north and west of the M & H site to just west of Route 351 on the west and a block north of O’Conor Avenue near Illinois Veterans Home on the north, but the school got priority testing because it’s a school. The Environmental Protection Agency said an area of about 54,500 square feet will need to be excavated at Northwest. Some of the areas only need to be excavated to a depth of 6 inches, but other areas need to be excavated to a depth of 24 inches.
This futuristic-looking machine pictured is an air sampling monitor, and workers will notify the school district if anything is abnormal. Soil replacement will take three to four weeks weather dependent (work started last week). After that, the soil will be watered and maintained for a month.
NewsTribune photos by Scott Anderson
See ENERGY Page A2
Energy production estimates for Illinois What percent was coal? 78% 1967 1977 69% 1987 61% 1997 56% 2007 38% 2017 43% Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration
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Danny Szostak, surveyor with Wood Group PLC, sets up survey equipment on the field just west of Northwest Elementary School. The work is part of the multi-year Superfund cleanup zone that could cover most of La Salle, and possibly the east edge of Peru.
Bureau County Jail bids 18 years later, America come in $6 million too high vows to ‘never forget’ 9/11 Bidding process starts all over again By Kim Shute
BUREAU-PUTNAM BUREAU CHIEF
PRINCETON — Bureau County’s new law enforcement center may be off to a slower-than-anticipated start after the board announced it has scrapped all construction bids and will start the bidding process over. Eight bidders submitted offers, each coming in at $17-$19 million. The projected expense was $11 million, so the board will put the project back up for bid on Saturday. Henry Pittner, representative of architecture firm BKV Group, who is overseeing the project, told board members
there were several reasons for the higher than expected bids including inflation, increased labor costs and the high cost of precast concrete. Pitter said only four manufacturers in the United States do prison construction work at this scale so they are able to charge a premium for their services. Sheriff Jim Reed and his staff sat down with the architecture firm to revise some of the plans in effort to cut costs before the project goes back out for bid. The proposed jail section of the center will have four fewer beds in the tweaked design and the decision makers may consider switching from precast to masonry for some of the project but the biggest change will involve one of the buildings proposed occupants — the 911 See JAIL Page A2
By Karen Matthews and Jennifer Peltz
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITERS
NEW YORK (AP) — Americans commemorated 9/11 with solemn ceremonies and vows Wednesday to “never forget” 18 years after the deadliest terror attack on American soil. Victims’ relatives assembled at ground zero, where the observance began with a moment of silence and the tolling of bells at 8:46 a.m. — the moment a hijacked plane slammed into the World Trade Center’s north tower. “As long as the city will gift us this moment, I will be here,” Margie Miller, who lost her husband, Joel, said at the ceremony, which she attends every year. “I want people to remember.”
After so many years of anniversaries, she has come to know other victims’ relatives and to appreciate being with them. “There’s smiles in between the tears that say we didn’t do this journey on our own. That we were here for each other. And that’s the piece that I think we get from being here,” she said. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump led a moment of silence on the White House South Lawn and then were expected to join an observance at the Pentagon. Vice President Mike Pence was scheduled to speak at the third crash site, near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Former President George W. Bush, commander in chief at the time of the 2001 attacks, was See 9/11 Page A2