GREEN BAY (NBC 26) — The new year may bring another step forward in the relocation of the downtown Green Bay coal piles.
Jan. 8 and 9, Brown County Supervisors are set to meet with leadership from C. Reiss Coal Company, including CEO Keith Hasselhoff, along with attorneys from Chicago who specialize in port contracts.
Brown County Supervisor Patrick Evans tells NBC 26 that during the all-day meetings, the parties will finalize a contract to build a port at the former Pulliam Power Plant site and lease C. Reiss acreage to move its operations there.
“This is extremely big,” Evans said. “I worked on moving the coal piles 20 years ago...and I think it’s going to finally come to fruition.”
The parties had previously set a September date to draft the contract, but the complexity of the project stalled the process, explained Evans.
Earlier this year, the county struck a deal with C. Reiss and the City of Green Bay to relocate the coal upriver, but Evans assures neighbors that even once the details of the agreement are finalized, the piles won’t disappear overnight.
“If the port were built today, it would take two-and-a-half years before those coal piles go down,” Evans stated. He expects the project, made up of two phases, will take at least five years to complete and cost about $50 million.
Ahead of the January meetings, Evans said all parties are “very optimistic.”
If the parties finalize a contract this January, Evans said construction on the port could begin this Spring.
