Mirant

Mirant

Type	Public
Founded	April 2, 2001[1]
Headquarters	Atlanta, Georgia  United States
Net income	$1,864,000,000
Employees	1,820 (2006 U.S. operations)
Website	mirant.com

Mirant Services LLC, an Atlanta-based energy company, produces and sells electricity in the United States. The company was spun-off from its former parent, Southern Company, on April 2, 2001.^[1]

Mirant operates 13 plants in the states of California, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, and Virginia and has the capacity to generate approximately 10,300 MW of electricity.

Operations

Mirant's Morgantown Generating Station, located near the unincorporated town of Morgantown, Maryland, was ranked as the best coal-fired plant in terms of heat-rate efficiency in the United States in Electric Power & Light magazine's 2004 survey of power plants.

The Dickerson Generating Station, located near Dickerson, Maryland, and other Mirant Mid-Atlantic sites are Wildlife Habitat Council (WHC) certified and have received national recognition for their contributions to wildlife habitat conservation. Efforts include providing artificial nesting structures and planting native trees, shrubs, and aquatic plants.

In 2004, Mirant's Canal (Sandwich, MA) generating plant became the first power plant in Massachusetts to reduce emissions as part of a new state effort to achieve the nation's toughest air emission standards for steam-electric plants.

The Potrero Generating Station in San Francisco, is among the oldest electrical power facilities in California and located at the site of the first power station run by the company that eventually became Pacific Gas and Electric.

2003 Bankruptcy

On July 14, 2003, after months of attempting to restructure its debt, the company sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The Mirant bankruptcy proceedings were unusual in that the court agreed to the appointment of a committee of equity holders. The usual reasoning is that if there is any positive equity in a company, the company should not be in Chapter 11 -- and if there isn't, there is no reason for a committee of people without such an interest. But the judge did find it sufficiently likely in Mirant that there would be equity interest after re-organization to create such a committee.

In January of 2006, Mirant emerged from bankruptcy and the company was relisted to the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MIR. The equity holders from the pre-bankruptcy Mirant did retain a portion of the equity of the re-organized entity.

Prior to the bankruptcy filing, Mirant had attempted to expand the Potrero Point power plant, previously owned by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company in San Francisco California, but neighborhood and community activists fought the proposal for five years and on March 2, 2006, the California Public Utilities Commission announced its rejection of Mirant's expansion plans. The plant was scheduled to be shutdown sometime in 2007 in preparation for constructing a more modern replacement^[2], but subsequently plans were scaled back and now call for the existing plant to simply be upgraded.^[3]

In 2007, Mirant sold some gas-fired generating plants and its overseas power plants in the Philippines and in the Caribbean.^[4]

Controversy

Environmental record

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst identified Mirant as the 63rd-largest corporate producer of air pollution in the United States, based on 2002 data, with roughly 19 million pounds of toxic chemicals released annually into the air.^[5] Major pollutants indicated by the study include sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, and chromium compounds.^[6]

Nov. 10, 2004: Chesapeake Climate Action Network blockade of Dickerson Power Plant

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On November 10, 2004, a group of Chesapeake Climate Action Network activists, students, farmers, and religious officials held a protest against the coal-fired Dickerson Power Plant in Montgomery County, Maryland. During the protest, six people were arrested for trespassing on private property. The protestors called on the plant's owner, the Mirant Corporation, to stop opposing state and federal legislation against power plant pollution.^[7]

Tax issues

Mirant, which owns and operates two power plants in the Hudson Valley Region of New York State, has failed to pay its property taxes over the last several years, claiming over-assessments by the Towns of Stony Point and Haverstraw New York, as well as the North Rockland School District. Under the terms of bankruptcy, Mirant held payment in excess of $180 million due this last several years while a settlement could be reached. This case, which has caused local residents to themselves file bankruptcy, which cost the average taxpayer over $2000 in increased property taxes.

The higher than average assessments paid to the local municipalities were part of a strategy used by the Consolidated Edison and Orange and Rockland Utilities, whose plants Mirant assumed after deregulation, to site their plants in this very picturesque Hudson River Valley Scenic Area. Local residents, who at one time could justify a 50-acre (200,000 m²) power plant in their backyard in exchange for a more reasonable tax rate, now see a 180% increases in taxes with nothing in exchange for the trouble. Taxpayers are now forced to live with the plants and without any of the benefits a local area would get from a large industrial plant.

Following proceedings in state court, a settlement was reached between Mirant and the towns in December 2006, with taxes based on lower assessed values of the two power plants.^[8]

The Mirant Lovett Plant has been named as one of the worst polluters in the State of New York, and closed on April 19, 2008, and the Bowline Plant, at nearly 40 years old, and will be denied any requests for upgrades by the town, county, and state without which any major overhaul will be denied out of hand.^{[citation needed]}

References

External links

• Mirant website