5 Things You Should Know About Entergy’s Proposed Plant

Entergy’s proposal to build a power plant has serious risks that include:

• Facility accidents involving flammable gas that can kill and injure people.
• Health threats from air pollution linked to respiratory illness, asthma, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.
• Flood risks from land subsidence caused by pumping up to more than one million gallons of groundwater on a daily basis.
• The burning of fossil fuels that drive climate change which threatens New Orleans and much Louisiana with sea level rise, stronger hurricanes, heat waves, and flooding.
• A hurricane hot spot at the top of the MR GO as the location for the power plant – the same place where Hurricane Katrina storm surge knocked out the Michoud power station for 8 months and would also overtop the recently build Lake Borgne Surge Barrier.

• In the US, 78% of power plants operate within three miles of communities of color and poor communities.
• In Louisiana, 24 of 26 power plants, 92%, operate near majority African American communities.
• Entergy proposes to build a new power plant at the site of the former Michoud power plant in New Orleans East near African American and Vietnamese American residents, who would suffer all the harms, risks and burdens of continued environmental racism.

Entergy asks for the City Council’s approval to pass the costs of constructing and operating the power plant onto New Orleans customers. Entergy claims that the costs to operate the proposed power plant (fuel price, maintenance, service) are “confidential” and refuses to reveal these costs to the public.

Entergy plans to operate the proposed power plant for only 55 days of the year to supply electricity in New Orleans.

Entergy’s proposal to build a new power plant provides 12 permeant jobs. However, it is part of a 20-year plan that would take away greater job and economic opportunities in energy efficiency.

A robust energy efficiency program in New Orleans would result in:

• 1,500 person year of employment by 2030
• An annual net benefit of $169 million in economic output, including $62 million in wages, $41 million in small business income, and increased state/local tax revenues of $6 million.
•  Reducing energy costs by more than $440 million over the next 20 years.
• Less energy use that would avoid the need for a new power plant.

• New Orleans residents have a right to participate in decisions about Entergy and plans for energy.
• However, without meaningful public input, Entergy developed a deeply flawed 20-year plan (known as the “Integrated Resource Plan”) that recommends the proposed power plant, eliminates renewable energy, and fails to expand energy efficiency.
• Entergy wrote public notices of planning meetings — none of which were in New Orleans East — using technical language with no clear explanation of the purpose of the meetings.
• Only after submitting the final plan to the City Council, Entergy representatives began to meet with New Orleans East residents at the direction of the City Council, which received complaints about the lack of public input.
• Entergy’s Integrated Resource Plan should be scrapped. A New planning proccess should be established with meaningful opportunities for public input.