The Emery County Business Chamber hosts Lunch and Learn meetings every other month. They are now preparing for their installation and awards banquet on March 18. It will be held at the Millers Landing in Huntington beginning with a social at 6 p.m. and dinner at 6:30 p.m. There will be a silent auction to raise money for the chamber and also a donation will be made to the Children’s Justice Center. The guest speaker will be the Coal Study presenters from the Rural Planning group. They will discuss the future of coal. Everyone is welcome to attend. Several local businesses will receive awards this night.
The subject of the January meeting was increasing the web presence for the chamber and the new Facebook page. The website will be a place where information helpful to businesses will be listed including trainings and incentives. The website will include a business directory. To get your business listed you can join the chamber and then send the information to Keith Brady and he will get it in the directory. They will include business logos and make it easier for people to find your business.
The business spotlight of the month was Fatty’s. Garrett and Stacey Conover operate the business in Castle Dale. They serve burgers, pizza and much more. Fatty’s also catered the lunch that day.
Chamber president Jared Anderson said the chamber is looking at new ways of getting information out to people. They are collecting email addresses for businesses. Please contact the chamber with your email so they can send you business information and information about the lunch and learn days and more.
Anderson held the drawing from the recent Shop Local campaign. Cans were placed at the local grocery stores and if you signed your receipt and placed it in the can you were entered in a drawing. Winners this day included: Lisa Taylor with Millsite Golf Certificates and Marilyn Malan with a $300 gift certificate to Earl’s Furniture donated by Earl’s and the Emery County Progress.
Ryan Murray held a contest where those present named as many Emery County Businesses as they could in a minute. Joel Hatch won the prize in this contest.
Larry Bruno from the Hunter Plant gave an update on activities at the plant. He said he is an engineering manager on environmental issues. He has worked for 34 years in this area. The plant is financially viable. They have installed $300 million in environmental controls at the plants. They have upgraded the turbines and gained 43 megawatts in increased efficiency. “There’s a hostile environment right now for coal plants. Environmental concerns have driven some of the upgrades including regional haze. We’ve upgraded the scrubbers and converted the bag houses to a low nox burn system. There have been some big overhauls. We have a five week overhaul coming up in March. The Carbon Plant is closing because it can’t meet the mercury standards. With all of our upgrades, we’re ahead. We are a low mercury emitter, we remove 90 percent of mercury emissions in the bag house. We meet sulphur dioxide requirements and we are a low emission plant, so we are in good shape there,” said Bruno.
The plant doesn’t harm wildlife. One area they were worried about was if the fly ash was labeled a hazardous waste, but it wasn’t listed.
“We have invested a lot of time and money to stay viable. Our ground water permit is up for renewal in the fall of this year. Environmental groups will sometimes protest these permits, but we don’t discharge water. We apply the used waters to our alfalfa fields,” said Bruno.
The EPA is going through rule making for regional haze. Bruno said when public comment periods open for the ground water permit that local people can make favorable comments.
Coal won’t be coming from Deer Creek any longer and Bowie Resources has purchased the prep plant and a coal contract for both the Hunter and Huntington plants has been signed with Bowie Resources.
The project with Cottonwood Creek Irrigation for the Adobe Wash dam has been very good for the power company. The company was able to sign the contract with Emery Water Conservancy and the Bureau of Reclamation to continue using 6,000 acre feet of water from Joe’s Valley. The plant uses storage water when the natural flow isn’t running. The lease with the Ferron canal is up in 2018. Bruno indicated it’s a busy time for them at the power plant and they have 218 people employed there.
Six hundred trucks a day go into the power plant and they burn 4.5 million ton of coal per year.
Chamber prepares for March Banquet
"Larry Bruno from the Hunter Plant speaks to the business chamber."