Since 2006, Ohio Department of Development officials have given the Columbiana County Port Authority a total of $805,000 in grants to secure options to buy the 525-acre site, which is split among 17 property owners. By 2011, it was to produce more than 35,000 barrels of fuel and chemicals every day. In Ohio, the Baard plant was to consume as much as 7million tons of coal a year. Ohio is one of 10 states, including neighboring Indiana, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, in which at least 17 such coal refineries have been proposed in the past decade, according to records collected by the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign. Things looked much better in summer 2006, when development officials in Ohio and other states touted such plants as an alternative to foreign oil. "Right now, nothing adds up," said Sandy Buchanan, executive director of Ohio Citizen Action, a longtime critic of the project. Opponents say that taxpayers have wasted their money on a plant that won't be built. "When the money comes in, a lot of these problems go away." "If you think about all those issues, they just have to do with money," Baardson said. The state has spent more than $800,000 on options to buy the land, including $175,000 paid to one landowner who was later convicted of running a methamphetamine lab on his property.īaardson's company, Baard Energy, based in Vancouver, Wash., has been sued by an engineering company it hired to help develop the plant, for failing to pay a $155,800 bill.Īnd two Columbus lawyers hired to dispute a legal challenge of a state-issued air-pollution permit have dropped out after the company did not pay their fees.īaardson said he has run out of money but is confident the debts will be paid and that the plant will be built with the help of a Florida investment firm that he says is willing to spend $2.5billion to get the project on track. When John Baardson laid out his plan to build a $6billion refinery that would turn coal into diesel and jet fuel, it was embraced by Ohio officials eager to create jobs and new sources of energy.įour years later, nothing has been built on the proposed site: 525 acres near Wellsville, in Columbiana County.
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