CEDAR FALLS -- A University of Northern Iowa professor and former Montana state regulator says LS Power will have to answer numerous questions in detail about its proposed 600 megawatt, $1 billion coal-fired Waterloo power plant.

That discussion should occur with local as well as state and federal officials, said Lynn Brant, UNI associate professor of geology. He previously worked for the Montana Department of Natural Resources and drafted environmental impact statements for numerous coal-fired power plant expansions there.

"This may be a great thing for Waterloo," Brant said. "We certainly don't want to kill anything before we learn about it. But we don't want to approve it before we learn about what some of these things might entail -- about the plant design; where they're going to get their coal; all the chemical stuff.

"Before it's finally approved, what I would tell the county and the city and the state is to keep options open," Brant said. "What I would like to see, before the city and the county and the state approves this, is a real putting out on the table of all the possible questions like this that could be asked."

LS Power project manager Robert Colozza said all those issues will be addressed as part of the process of obtaining state and federal permits for the facility, which may take up to two years.

The plant is expected to take four years to build, employing up to 1,200 construction workers. It would employ about 100 permanent staff at an average wage of $70,000. Annexation of the proposed 320-acre plant site into the city of Waterloo would require approval of the Waterloo City Council and the Black Hawk County Board of Supervisors.

"There's a whole bunch of sociological and economic issues as well, but environment is my primary interest," Brant said. LS Power officials "have to be straightforward about all the questions and be able to respond to them with a degree of certainty.

"These aren't answers someone can whip out in a couple of sentences," Brant said. "I'm expecting volumes of data to get technically analyzed." He said one impact statement he worked on for a plant in Montana "was like five volumes and weighed 17 pounds."

Brant said he would be willing to assist city and county officials in reviewing that material, "not as a consultant, or a paid consultant, but as a professor at UNI and a member of the community."

Some of the questions that need addressing, Brant said, are:

--The geographic source and composition of the coal LS Power proposes to use at the plant. Company officials said they intend to use low-sulfur coal from the Powder River basin in Wyoming.

--The emission control system being used and how the plant will control levels of mercury, sulfur dioxide and other materials.

--A system for disposal of the fly ash. Company officials have said they plan to offer the material to Basic Materials Corp. as fill material for reclamation of used-up portions of its Hammond Avenue quarry.

Such issues are part of what the permitting process is all about, LS Power's Colozza said.

Cedar Falls Utilities also is looking at addressing air quality issues with its 51-megawatt coal-fired Streeter Station power plant near downtown Cedar Falls, built in 1913 and improved and expanded several times over the years.

As far as the LS Power proposal is concerned, CFU general manager Jim Krieg said "I'd have to say Cedar Falls Utilities looks at the announcement for the plans for a power plant in Waterloo with optimism for the benefits it could bring to the metro area and beyond. We look forward to working with the company on transmission and other issues of mutual interest."

Krieg said CFU would consider buying power from the LS Power plant in Waterloo "if it's the right price." LS Power would sell electricity from the proposed Waterloo plant to other investor-owned and municipal utilities. Colozza said LS Power cannot comment on any potential power sales until such agreements are reached. But he said rising natural gas prices makes less expensive coal-generated electricity an attractive commodity.

Alan Urlis, a spokesman for MidAmerican Energy, the investor-owned utility serving Waterloo, said the utility has no comment on LS Power's proposal. He noted, though, that MidAmerican and a number of other utilities, including CFU, currently are constructing a coal-fired 690-megawatt, $1.2 billion addition to a generating station in Council Bluffs - roughly similar in size to the proposed LS Power facility. CFU also has partial ownership in a generating station in Sioux City and two wind farms in north-central Iowa.

Contact Pat Kinney at (319) 291-1484 or Pat.Kinney@wcfcourier.com