The Quest For The Golden Ring - The Great Plains Power Station
With Moose Jaw not the only location considered for the presently under construction 360 megawatt natural gas fired electrical generating station - Great Plains Power Station - MJ Independent wanted to take a behind the scenes look at the runup to the final decision.
How did Moose Jaw win the competition for the plant and what did it take to do so?
To accomplish that we launched what would turn out to be our largest Freedom Of Information (FOI) effort ever and asked SaskPower for the documents.
We received not only hundreds of documents but also audio recordings of some of the behind the scenes machinations leading to the eventual decision to construct the plant in Moose Jaw.
It is a story that entails hard work, effort, boosterism, the largest embezzlement in German history, greed and in the end seemingly a lot of luck.
“…I was going to suggest Sarah is if you could make a trip to Moose Jaw or vice versa we could head in to meet you in Regina but let’s just come out and sit down and talk to where you are at with this project. We realize it is in the future. We want to share with you some of the developments we are working on that may tie in and compliment each other…we are absolutely pumped to attract industry to our community so we would really love to talk to you and pull some of the background material together and see what is possible,”
Part One - Going After The Prize
By Robert Thomas
With a short 1:53 minute phone message former City of Moose Jaw economic development officer Deb Thorn began what would be numerous calls, messages, emails and meetings as the City lobbied SaskPower to build then the proposed new natural gas fired electrical generating plant.
From the documents in the Freedom Of Information request to SaskPower it was something Thorn did on more than one occasion to help get Moose Jaw on the list of potential locations for the plant.
Moose Jaw was on a seeming behind the scenes economic roll at that time with a yet to be publicly named major anchor tenant at a proposed industrial park in the city’s soon to be new South East Industrial Park. The City was set to annex the land adjacent the sewage treatment plant from the RM of Moose Jaw where major industry would seemingly appear.
The City could see and sell synergies to SaskPower and bring the proposed SaskPower facility to Moose Jaw.
Moose Jaw Not Originally Considered
In order to understand what was going on and why would the City’s Economic Development Officer have to entice SaskPower to construct their proposed new Combined Cycle Gas Facility (CCGT facility) in Moose Jaw one needs to look at the direction SaskPower was initially taking.
In 2015 Stantec Engineering was commissioned to prepare a report for SaskPower looking into the location of a second CCGT facility after Chinook Power Station near Swift Current came on line.
It is not widely known but the initial May 16, 2016 report by Stantec Engineering made no mention of the proposed facility to be in Moose Jaw.
The Stantec report would look at four potential locations - Belle Plaine, Condie, the Global Transportation Hub and Rowatt.
Excerpt from the May 16, 2016 Stantec Report to SaskPower listing four initial sites that did not include Moose Jaw
Map of locations studied in 2015 and potential source water for the plant in the May 16, 2016 report by Stantec Engineering for SaskPower
In less than two minutes Thorn mentioned a team approach which would include herself, then City Engineer Josh Mickelborough and Orville Coates the now retired former manager of wastewater and water for the City. She offered to meet with SaskPower either in Moose Jaw or Regina to allow the City to present their proposal for the plant.
In the FOI documents there is no record of the initial meeting between the City and SaskPower.
But the documents released do list the four things Moose Jaw was offering to SaskPower - access to potable water, potential savings by using effluent from the sewage plant for the SaskPower generating facility, using the City’s sewage treatment plant to dispose of the facility’s wastewater thereby eliminating the need to build evaporation ponds and an opportunity for a cogeneration project with a yet to be announced anchor tenant.
City Is On SaskPower’s Radar
Despite not being included in the original Stantec report Moose Jaw was able to get meetings between City Administration and SaskPower representatives dating back to 2016.
In mid-February 2017 an open house was held where SaskPower measured community support for building in Moose Jaw. The level of community support or lack of it would later have an effect on SaskPower’s decision on what sites to further explore.
With the final public consultation results unknown SaskPower continued with meetings with parties from all four sites.
When it came to Moose Jaw the record of a March 14, 2017 meeting with SaskPower had the Crown requesting additional technical data from the City.
The City had met before with SaskPower as the FOI references a 2016 preliminary land agreement between the City and SaskPower.
Moose Jaw was officially being considered as one of the four final locations for the SaskPower facility.
CPI Arrives
“Hi Sarah this is Deb Thorn economic development officer from the City of Moose Jaw.
I promised I would get back to you we talked about Moose Jaw being very, very, very interested in a natural gas plant here in our industrial park.
We have got lots of water, lots of water management capabilities in and out bound.
As well I mentioned to you I was working on an anchor pea processing plant and i am pleased to report that last night City Council approved the land offer to purchase.
That has moved the project along...”
From the voice message left for SaskPower’s Sarah Bentley it is obvious she had been made aware about a pea protein plant coming to the then South East Industrial Park before it was publicly announced.
In her message Thorn said the evening before, September 26, 2016 Council had agreed to a 100 acre land sale to Canadian Protein Innovation (CPI).
It was a seemingly banner night for economic development in Moose Jaw.
Thorn also related the City was set to speak to TransGas about what size of high pressure capacity natural gas pipeline was needed not just for CPI but SaskPower as well.
“We want to take into consideration not just an anchor plant but what if you could set up your plant there as well. I just want to make sure we don’t proceed with TransGas without having some input from you,” Thorn said in the 2 minute and 42 second voice message, adding “we’re thrilled we made the land deal with CPI.”
It was a seemingly happy time as the seemingly perfect, and Province vetted CPI, was headed to Moose Jaw and SaskPower could benefit off of it.
In the record of the March 14, 2017 meeting SaskPower requests an update about CPI’s project with Thorn sending out presentations to SaslkPower on March 15, 2017.
Another key development was the mention CPI was to meet with SaskPower to discuss a cogeneration opportunity.
In a June 19, 2017 email from Sarah Klein Bentley an engineer in training with SaskPower to Thorn confirmed in an April 26th conference call the idea of cogeneration opportunities had been put forth between SaskPower and CPI.
According to the email SaskPower was looking for more information from CPI in order to investigate the potential further.
Cogeneration is where excess heat from a power generating plant can be used elsewhere such as another plant.
Nowhere in the documents released through the FOI from SaskPower is there a mention the main director of the CPI, Michael Schoenert, was the target of the largest forensic investigation in modern German legal history.
It was only when Will Stoldalka, a reporter with the now defunct Moose Jaw Times-Herald, did a simple Google search and approach Schoenert at a Moose Jaw open house were the then allegations known locally but the story was allegedly killed after the City met with the Times-Herald’s publisher.
Although Sask Agriculture, who initially vetted CPI, had learnt about the German allegations in 2016 nothing was relayed to the City or SaskPower of the then allegations against Schoenert in Germany.
To stop Schoenert from transferring funds to Canada his former employer, Emsland Starke, had launched a civil suit alleging he had embezzled employees pension funds and won.
On July 17, 2017 it was made public Thorn had resigned her position with the City of Moose Jaw.
On November 30, 2017 at the end of the third extension to purchase the land the CPI deal was officially dead.
In June 2020 Schoenert the main director and proponent for CPI was sentenced to four years and two months for embezzling hundreds of millions from his former employer Emsland Starke.
Despite the loss of anchor tenant, CPI, the initial work by Thorn had a major bite from SaskPower to build their proposed facility in Moose Jaw.
All it would take now is some careful maneuvering, hard work and some outside help they were not relying on to land the prize.
NEXT PART TWO - Ongoing Negotitions