LETART FALLS — The old saying “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” is once again applicable when it comes to last week’s collapse of American Municipal Power’s (AMP) coal-fired power plant proposed for southern Meigs County.

It was estimated that AMP’s project would contribute more than $20 million to the local economy on an annual basis. With this type of hole to fill, many residents and local officials are wondering, “what now?”

There seems to be no clear answer at the moment though “what might’ve been” is obvious to most when it comes to what the plant could have meant in terms of economic development.

For the past four years, hopes have been high for the American Municipal Power Generating Station (AMPGS) and the jobs and economic development it was predicted to bestow on Meigs County which has been struggling with high unemployment rates. Ironically, Meigs County received some good news this month following the release of the latest state unemployment figures which showed the county’s unemployment rate dropped from 15.1 percent in September, to 14.5 percent in October.

The AMPGS, a 1,000-megawatt facility, would have provided 1,600 construction jobs during the 4 1/2 year construction project. Once on line, it would have employed 165 full-time operators, including 15 at an adjacent fertilizer plant run by The Andersons. The Andersons would have taken some waste from the plant and recycled it into material for commercial fertilizer.

The Southern Local School District stood to benefit from the AMPGS, which was to be located in its district and cost in excess of $3 billion to build, not mention the predicted influx of a workers to the area, some with children, who might have enrolled in the district.

In Racine, the Ohio Department of Transportation has currently completed around 30 percent of the work needed for the development of the Fifth and Elm Street Project which will add an extra turning lane of traffic, each, along Ohio 124 and Tornado Road near the new commercial business district.

One of the reasons for this development was the anticipated increase in traffic in the area due to proposed economic development from the AMPGS. Funding for this project has yet to be secured, but if secured is thought to sell in May or June.

Also being affected by the plant’s demise are the many union tradesmen who attended countless meetings in support of the plant and the jobs it would bring, enabling them to work close to home and their families.

The Martinsville Daily newspaper in Martinsville, Va., a community which is in one of AMP’s 81 member communities which would’ve invested in the plant, reported last week AMP has reportedly invested an estimated $200 million in the development of the AMPGS. The AMPGS was to supply power to 81 municipal electric systems in Ohio, Michigan, Virginia and West Virginia with Bechtel Power Corporation named as the contractor to build the facility.

The Martinsville Daily also reported the vote to cancel the project by the member communities was overwhelming once the latest cost estimate was revealed to show a 37 percent increase in the project’s cost; increases the Martinesville Daily said “could not be adequately explained by the contractors.”

Though AMP has said it is looking into redesigning the AMPGS project into a natural gas-fired facility, it remains unclear if that project will move forward or move into Meigs County onto the 1,000-acre site AMP currently owns. It also remains unclear whether or not a redesigned AMPGS would provide the same economic impact predicted by its predecessor.

Meigs County was chosen as the preferred site for the coal-fired AMPGS back in October 2005, and though the plant has received all its permits to build the plant, it took four years to do so and two of the permits remained in litigation up until AMP’s announcement to cancel the project last week.