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HISTORY AND ENVIRONMENTAL RECORD
History and Environmental Record: What We Do
WHO IS ROBINSON POWER?
Robinson Power Company LLC is owned by the Bologna family and Raymond Hoehler.
They are also known by the following names:
Champion Processing Inc
North Branch Energy Partners LP/Inc
Bologna Coal Company
Bologna Mining Company
Washington Energy Resources Inc
Mine Management Corporation
Starlake Roadhouse Inc (aka Pepsi-Cola Roadhouse)
1822 Land Company Inc/LTD
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History of Environmental Incidents Connected to Robinson Power’s Owners
In 1979, the Department of Environmental Resources (DER) - the agency that would later become the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) - found evidence that Bologna Coal Company was dumping and covering up an estimated 4,500 barrels of toxic materials at its Scott strip mine near Eldersville, PA. DER pressured the company to remove the waste and clean up the mess, but did not file criminal changes. The company reclaimed the property, but decades later the DEP can’t determine the exact location of an estimated 4,000 barrels of hazardous waste that may still be buried at the site.
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Copy of a 1979 telegraph report from the Bureau of Land Protection asking Bologna Mining Company to cease and desist its backfilling until it removed buried hazardous waste.
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Letter from the DER to Bologna Mining Company regarding the unlawful disposal of hazardous waste at its mining site.
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1982 letter to DER from Jefferson Township Supervisors strongly opposing the issuance of any permit to the Bologna Coal Company for surface mining in Jefferson Township.
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Around the same time, Consolidated Coal Company sold Champion Processing Incorporated to Bologna Mining/Coal Company, which included a property with the largest waste coal pile east of the Mississippi River. To this day, this waste coal pile still exists on this site and continues to be a source of acid mine drainage (AMD) in the area. During the 1980s, there were different attempts to address the waste coal pile and the acid mine drainage. On August 18, 1983 the Department of Environmental Resources issued Champion Processing a permit for Agricultural Utilization, Land Reclamation and/or Land Disposal of Sludges. The experimental project involved spreading sewage waste generated at the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority Plant to areas on the waste coal pile.
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1983 Champion Refuse Plant permit from DER for Agricultural Utilization, Land Reclamation and/or Land Disposal of Sludges
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In the 1980s, Ray Bologna, Raymond Hoehler and their companies Champion Processing Inc and North Branch Energy planned to construct an 80-megawatt power plant to burn the waste coal in Robinson Township at the Champion Processing Inc site called Washington Power or the Burgettstown Project. In December 1997, as part of a settlement of an antitrust lawsuit the companies filed and related lawsuits, West Penn agreed to pay the companies $48 million to buy out and end an arrangement to buy power from their plant. As a result, the plant was never built. The document below provides additional details.
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Image of page 31 from Form 10-K405 Allegheny Energy, Inc
Annual report [Sections 13 and 15(d), S-K Item 405].
Retrieved from: https://sec.report/Document/0000003673-98-000028/
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In December 2004, Governor Rendell appointed Ray Bologna to the Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority (PEDA) board. Bologna served on the board until 2020.
In 2005, according to emails highlighted in an article by State Impact, Katie McGinty, the head of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), fast-tracked an air permit for Robinson Power’s Beech Hollow waste coal power plant to get it approved before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) adopted more stringent particulate matter standards. A state senator and a United States congressman pressured McGinty to issue the permit in time. Robinson Power’s coal waste power plant was ultimately never built because the DEP voided the permit after Robinson Power did not construct the facility by the time the permit expired.
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In 2016, while Bologna was on the board, the PEDA approved $400 million of funding for Robinson Power’s waste coal plant. A 2006 PEDA report mentions the funding:
“Pennsylvania’s energy portfolio standard also requires 10 percent of electricity to be generated from waste coal and byproducts from pulping and wood manufacturing. This will help eliminate minescarred landscapes and the acid mine drainage and other pollution associated with waste coal. peda provided $400 million in bond financing toward a 272- megawatt waste coal electric generation facility developed by Robinson Power Co. llc in Washington County, southwest of Pittsburgh. The facility is scheduled to begin construction in October. It will create 350 permanent unionized jobs and eliminate 60 million tons of waste coal in 25 years. It will produce more than twice the electric power—with lower air emissions—than the plant it is replacing.”
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Robinson Power needed approvals from both the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors. A majority on each board have a conflict of interest and yet approved Robinson Power applications.
The Planning Commission is made up of five board members. Those whose family has a signed Right of Way Agreement with Robinson Power include:
Bonnie Moore (Secretary)
Quintin Jones
Robert Foley
The Board of Supervisors is made up of a board of three members. Those whose family has a signed Right of Way Agreement with Robinson Power include:
Roger Kendall (Chairman)
David Foley (Vice-Chair)
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