Contract for wood could fire up dormant power plant

By Cy Ryan

Friday, May 30, 2008 | 2 a.m.

An $8.3 million wood-burning prison energy plant that has been a failure so far may soon move ahead full steam.

The biomass plant was built to supply electricity to the Northern Nevada Correctional Center and the Stewart Conservation Camp, both of which are south of Carson City.

But the prison has been unable to collect enough wood and the facility has been shut down for more than three months.

Lorraine Bagwell, deputy director of support services for the state Corrections Department, said six bids have been received to provide wood to fuel the plant. She expects to sign a contract by June 20 for one or more companies to supply the fuel.

In recent test runs the plant, which in the past had operated at only 50 percent of capacity, operated at full capacity. After air quality tests, which will be completed by June 20, the state Environmental Protection Division will decide whether to give the plant a permit.

The plant, which opened in September and was slated to replace electricity and natural gas at the two correctional facilities, has never lived up to its potential. The department has been spending $200,000 a month to buy energy and pay off the construction loan.

The lack of wood wasn’t the only problem. The prisons’ staff found the operation was too complicated to manage and hired Universal Energy to run the plant until June 2009.

The Legislature’s Fiscal Analysis Division predicts the facility will lose money for 17 years. Bagwell, though, thinks it will pay for itself in two years.

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The Clark County district attorney’s office has failed to persuade the Nevada Supreme Court to give it a rehearing in its effort to stop a new trial for Leonard W. Hill, accused of strangling to death his live-in girlfriend in Las Vegas.

The Supreme Court in February overturned Hill’s first-degree murder conviction on the ground that defense attorneys were not given prior notice of testimony from an expert witness for the prosecution.

Dr. Alane Olson, a medical examiner in the Clark County coroner’s office, testified at a preliminary hearing that a person could die after 60 to 120 seconds of continuous pressure to the neck. But Olson testified at the trial that a person must apply continuous pressure for at least three to four minutes to cause death.

Defense attorneys said they were surprised at the change in testimony and had not been given the required advance notice. Prosecutors, however, say they talked about the changed testimony in their opening statements at the trial.

The court said the prosecution’s argument does not merit a rehearing.

Hill was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years for Robin Martin’s death in December 2005. He will receive a new trial.