Landowner can be paid though facing charges

By D.a. Wilkinson

The heads of the county prosecutor’s office and port authorities said the purchase can go through.

WELLSVILLE — Having a meth lab on part of the proposed site of the Baard Energy plant to turn high-sulfur coal into synthetic fuel isn’t a problem.

Getting the correct financing secured for the $6 billion plant is, according to Tracy Drake, the chief executive officer of the Columbiana County Port Authority.

The port authority received $6 million in state funding to buy about 530 acres in Wellsville for the Baard facility. Peter S. Barta II, 36, of Sixteen School Road, had signed an agreement to sell his property to the port authority. The property is at the far western edge of the proposed plant site. The amount of the payment to Barta, as with all of the payment agreements, has not been disclosed.

Barta was recently served with a superseding indictment by the county grand jury that included charges of illegal assembly or possession of chemicals for the manufacture of drugs, two counts possession of drugs with a forfeiture specification, and a charge of possession of criminal tools.

Columbiana County Prosecutor Robert Herron said the latest of three indictments against Barta changed as investigators looked deeper into Barta’s activities.

The criminal charges used county land records to describe 79.8 acres that Barta owns that was the site of the meth lab and could be seized by the state. Drake said the port authority agreed to buy a total of about 140 acres from Barta.

Drake and Herron agreed that under Ohio law, the port authority can pay Barta the set amount.

Herron said that under state law, the county could go through a forfeiture action that would be nulled by the port’s agreement with Barta.

Herron noted that the land involved is roughly one-third of the proposed site.

Drake said there is a house on Barta’s property and a couple of barns, and at one time may have been a chicken ranch.

The chemicals that are used in making meth can be dangerous but authorities did not indicate there was a hazard at the site.

Securing the funding for the site purchase has been difficult.

Environmentalists filed lawsuits to stop the proposed plan, but Drake said, “They never win.”

One part of the project is that carbon dioxide from the plant’s proposed operation would be injected safely into closed mines that would be eventually sealed.

Drake said that he hoped the financing issues would be cleared up in the next six to 10 weeks.

Work at the Baard site this year is expected to be preliminary. The plant, if built, would employ thousands of area workers over several years and several hundred workers full-time.

wilkinson@vindy.com