LG Leaders Ponder A Future Without FPP

An important topic came up when the La Grange City Council met two weeks ago to discuss marketing for the City – the future of the Fayette Power Project (FPP).

The aging coal plant will soon turn 50 years old. Plants of its generation are retiring all over the country. The Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) operates and co-owns the plant with the Austin Energy, the City of Austin’s electric utility. The Austin City Council has pledged to wean itself away from fossil fuel energy. But so far, it hasn’t found a way to replace the massive amount of power it gets from the coal plant outside La Grange.

Whenever the plant does shut down, it’ll make a huge impact on the area’s economy, as the La Grange City Council is keenly aware.

“We’re going to need another industry whenever (the power plant) shuts down,” said Councilman Bryan Kerr during the meeting last Tuesday. “I mean, you have dads and their sons who work there. If you’re a high school kid who doesn’t want to go to college, you could go work at the plant. We’re going to need something like that.”

The discussion took place in response to questions from representatives of the J.O. Agency, a company working on a new marketing and branding firm for the City. They were asking about the major employers in the area when the topic came up.

“It’s just old,” said Councilman Ken Taylor, who was the plant manager at FPP before he retired. “It wasn’t supposed to be running this long. As long as it’s economical, they’ll keep running it. But things can change in the environmental world. How long can it be economical?

“The hospital, the school and the power plant were the three major employers,” Taylor said. “Of course, we lost the hospital. We’ve still got the school and FPP. It’s technically surpassed its life expectancy. But they’re still able to keep it running. It employs a lot of people. A lot of contractors spend time here when we have outages.”

“If we want to support entertainment, restaurants and all those things, we have to have some kind of industry that’s providing good jobs for people,” said Councilwoman Kim Newton.

Recently, the Record asked LCRA about the future of FPP. LCRA said it intends to keep operating the plant so long “as it continues to provide reliable, cost-effective power to our customers.”

The plant underwent major upgrades more than 10 years ago to reduce emissions. Developments on the national stage will certainly affect the future of FPP. President-elect Donald Trump, in a press conference last week at Mara- Lago, touted his support for “clean coal.”

What exactly that means for the local coal plant remains to be seen.