Lawsuit planned against Colorado Springs Utilities over scrubbing technology

Two downtown attorneys have filed a notice of intent to sue over a "breach of fiduciary duty" by Colorado Springs Utilities in signing a sole-source, noncompetitive contract for Neumann Systems Group Inc. to install emissions scrubbing systems in the coal-fired Martin Drake Power Plant downtown.

Robert J. Frank and Perry R. Sanders Jr., representing clean air activist Nicole Rosa, write that the stated project cost of $80 million has exceeded $170 million, as revealed in records Rosa obtained in February under the Colorado Open Records Act.

Sanders and Rosa declined to comment on the action. The City Attorney's Office received the notice last month, and it "has been processed according to usual procedure," a city spokeswoman said.

Studies for Utilities by Stanley Consultants in 2007 and 2009, obtained by Rosa's CORA requests, "clearly indicate that conventional dry scrubber technologies" could have been used at Drake, a fact that "invalidates the 2011 sole source jurisdiction," the document says.

Read more: http://gazette.com/lawsuit-planned-against-colorado-springs-utilities-over-scrubbing-technology/article/1585856