South Texas coal-fired power plant to switch to clean energy after receiving more than $1 billion in federal money

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A South Texas coal-fired power plant will receive more than $1 billion in funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to convert into a solar and battery facility, according to the agency.

The switch by San Miguel Electric Cooperative, located in Christine in Atascosa County, to a solar and battery plant will be funded by more than $1.4 billion of a $4.37 billion federal grant to support clean energy while maintaining rural jobs. With the co-op’s transition to a renewable energy plant, only 14 coal-fired power plants will be left in the state.

In September, the CEO of San Miguel Electric Cooperative, Craig Courter, told a local newspaper that with federal funding, the co-op can “virtually eliminate our greenhouse gas emissions while continuing to provide affordable and reliable power to rural Texans.”

“We take pride in our attention to detail in safety, environmental compliance, community service and mined land reclamation,” Courter told the Pleasanton Express.

According to the USDA’s Thursday announcement, the transformation will reduce climate pollution by more than 1.8 million tons yearly and support as many as 600 jobs.

The power plant has been a target of environmentalists and some locals for years. The ranching family that leased the land for the plant sought to kick San Miguel off its property last decade, saying the cooperative moved too slowly to restore land where it mined lignite to feed the plant. And groups like the Environmental Integrity Project and the Sierra Club have denounced it as a leading polluter of mercury among Texas power plants and expressed concern that two coal ash ponds are causing chemicals to seep into groundwater in the area.

San Miguel says it does not agree with those allegations and says that the groundwater it is accused of contaminating is not used for drinking water. It also notes that it is in compliance with all environmental regulations meant to protect water quality.

In a letter to The Texas Tribune on Saturday, Courter said the cooperative is a respected South Texas power provider "that has served a community of rural South Texans since 1982 with reliable and affordable power." He said the move to switch to clean energy is "very positive news for the community."

Environmentalists and local officials also cheered the announcement.

“For years, folks in my county have been worried about water contamination from San Miguel’s lignite mine, so with this announcement, we are hopeful that McMullen County’s water will be clean long into the future,” McMullen County Judge James Teal said in a press release distributed by the Sierra Club.

Teal said that county government officials are looking forward to a benefits plan that will “implement a quality remediation process for the existing plant and mine and provide us with peace of mind that the mess has been cleaned up.”

San Miguel will still need to establish a timeline for shutting down the coal plant. Still, it’s a “historic victory” for South Texas, said James Perkins, a Sierra Club Texas campaign organizer.

Other co-ops in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, and Nebraska received similar federal funding.

“Texans want healthy air and water and affordable, reliable energy — and we’re ready to come together to get it done,” said Perkins.