Goshen County’s low development costs weren’t enough to attract a University of Wyoming/GE Energy coal gasification plant, the county learned late last week.

The UW board of trustees voted Friday afternoon to build the plant in Laramie County. The site was selected from 15 initial proposals and three finalists. The other sites were in Campbell and Goshen counties.

“We were disappointed of course because of all the effort we put into the project,” said Lisa Johnson, Goshen County Economic Development Corporation executive director. “But we were pleased to have made it as a finalist.”

Several members of the GCEDC board initially said the county was a “long shot” for the project, according to Johnson, but were “excited” when Goshen County was selected as a finalist.

In a letter to Johnson and B.J. Malm, president of the GCEDC board, UW Associated Vice President for Administrative/Operations Mark Collins said the organization has “numerous reasons to be proud of its submission.”

“It is obvious that Goshen County Economic Development Corporation spent a great deal of time preparing the proposal, and UW appreciates the thoroughness and the timely manner in which you responded to our follow-up questions,” Collins said in the letter.

Although the county was not selected to house the plant, Johnson said there have nevertheless been “a lot of positive outcomes” from the experience. While drafting the proposal, Johnson and the GCEDC board examined industrial sites and infrastructure needs within the county. That careful inspection will force GCEDC and the county’s communities to conduct more planning and development, Johnson said, and probably allow the county to have better infrastructure “to be more competitive next time around.”

“Even though we didn’t win the project, we still advanced the community by having those resources available,” she said.

Johnson said she was also pleased that the county was able to showcase some of its communities to GE representatives during the site visit in March.

UW has asked Goshen County to keep its application active “pending the outcome of other negotiations,” according to Collins’ letter. This entails ensuring the proposed site and any amenities offered in the county’s proposal would still be available. For that reason, Johnson said the contents of the proposal are still being kept confidential.

She did say that Goshen County’s proposed site is located on a 35-acre section of land between Torrington and Lingle.

The UW board selected the Laramie County site based on cost considerations, Johnson said. She and members of the GCEDC board listened to the UW board’s meeting via telephone on Friday.

“They said having a location in Laramie County would save millions of dollars, so that’s hard to argue with,” she said.

It is difficult to know how Goshen County’s proposal stacked up against those from Laramie and Campbell counties since they are still being kept under wraps. But Goshen County was at a disadvantage in some respects, Johnson said, because of its distance from certain amenities such as a large commercial airport.

“We knew communities like Cheyenne and Gillette had some advantages, so it’s complimentary for us to have been selected as a finalist,” she said.

The coal gasification plant will cost an estimated $100 million to build and will house approximately 15-20 researchers when completed. The researchers will be studying coal gasification – the process of turning coal into synthetic gas.

Johnson said that while GCEDC is disappointed with the outcome of this project, the organization feels that other projects of a similar scale are likely to come along in the future.

“Having gone through this process gives us a leg up on the next time,” she said.





For the complete article see the 05-13-2009 issue.

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