(CAMERON) Milam County Commissioners Monday in a regular session. The meeting was attended by Constellation Energy Group (CEG) who is proposing a 900 Million dollar, 564 Megawatt power plant to be erected in Milam County. Among the requests of CEG is a designation of the site of the Rockdale Power Project as a reinvestment zone within the meaning of Chapter 312 of the Texas Tax Code, the granting of tax abatement and the execution by CEG and the County of a Tax abatement agreement. The company is requesting a 75% abatement of 600 million dollars for 10 years, a request that may be a little tough to do according to Milam County Judge Frank Summers.

The project will involve making $40 million per year in lignite purchases from Alcoa as well as entering leasing and other services agreements with Alcoa. In addition Alcoa will make substantial power purchases from the project. The project will also require Constellation entering into agreements with local vendors for various services and materials including ash handling, electrical and plumbing contractors. Finally employees of the project will enter into purchases for homes and other area businesses. The projected wages during construction are $154 million. And estimated multiplier effect of the impact of those wages is 2.2 times the wages, or an impact of $330 million in Milam County during the construction period alone. The projected cost of the construction materials is $540 million. The multiplier effect of 2.2 means that the economic impact of those purchases would be $1.1 billion.

The company is proposing 2 circulating fluidized bed steam generators and a steam turbine generator between the Sandow Unit 1 boiler and Alcoa Lake. The plant would be equipped with a $135 million pollution control system designed to clean coal during the production process, minimizing sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions by use of the best available state-of-the-art control technology.

CEG said the power plant would operate about 40 years with about 55 permanent employees on its payroll. The plant could go into operation in 2008.

A $600 million dollar tax base would produce about $3 million in tax revenue for the county, after a 75% abatement.

Deadline for a decision is August 15th. A second negotiation meeting has been scheduled for Monday, July 18 at 10AM in the Commissioner's Courtroom at the Milam County Courthouse. The meeting will be a public workshop.