SPRINGFILED, Ill. (IRN) -  Plans for a coal-to-gas facility in southern Illinois have been dealt a setback. The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency has denied a request from Power Holdings, L.L.C., for a construction permit for a facility near Waltonville, in Jefferson County.

The person whose job it is to approve or deny the permit says the company has fallen too far behind on its timeline and will have to re-submit its application if it wants to continue. Ed Bakowski, permits section manager for the IEPA’s Bureau of Air, says that’s not a small job.

“The new requirements they had to meet were related to the new laws regarding greenhouse gas and ensuring that they are using the best available control technologies for that. There’s new SO2 standards, there’s new NO2 standards, so there’s quite a bit of work they’d have to do to update the application.”

Power Holdings is based in Aurora. Its next move on the project is uncertain.

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