The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw by Bruce Barcott

Author:Bruce Barcott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-07-10T16:00:00+00:00

C HAPTER 13

L ATER THAT SPRING, strange letters began arriving at the office of Duke Energy CEO Rick Priory. A few trickled in at first, and then more and more showed up. E-mails and postcards, too. Hundreds, then thousands, then ten thousand. All from people upset about something called Chalillo. Each bore a version of the same message: Duke was up to some bad business in Belize.

Belize? Priory barely knew that Duke operated in Belize.

He asked C. Norwood Davis, Duke’s director of environmental health and safety, to look into it. Davis called the NRDC. Jacob Scherr was happy to talk. Davis proposed a meeting. The sooner the better, he said.

Duke Energy wasn’t the greenest company in the world. A few months earlier the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had charged Duke with massive violations of the Clean Air Act. But within the energy industry, Duke was known as a reasonably clean operator. One of the proudest achievements of Rick Priory’s tenure was the creation of the company’s code of business ethics, a twenty-six-page document that featured statements such as “We tell the truth” and “We are environmentally responsible.” This was a full year before Duke’s rival, Enron, collapsed as a result of massive financial fraud. In its corporate literature, Duke proudly noted that it was the first U.S. energy company to hire its own staff biologist, back in the 1930s. And now the NRDC was painting Duke as bird killers and jaguar haters over … what, exactly?

“Chalillo,” Scherr told C. Norwood Davis. Davis and a handful of Duke officials gathered with Scherr around a conference table in the NRDC’s Washington office. “It’s a proposed six-megawatt dam in Belize. You own it.”

Duke officials knew that much. But they didn’t know a whole lot more. A few months earlier Duke had purchased the entire Latin American portfolio of Virginia-based Dominion Resources for $405 million. The package included hydro, natural gas, and diesel power-generation companies in Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, and Belize. While $405 million is a lot of money, the Dominion buyout wasn’t even the biggest deal Duke made that week. A few days earlier the company had spent more than $800 million to acquire power companies in Brazil and El Salvador. In one week, the company spent $1.2 billion to acquire more than 1,200 megawatts of total generating capacity. The fact that one of the deals included a little-known company called BECOL, which operated a tiny 25-megawatt dam in Belize, went unnoticed. Until those letters started to come, BECOL didn’t even register on Duke’s radar.

Scherr explained what was at stake in the Macal River valley. He offered the Duke officials copies of John Reid’s economic study. Chalillo didn’t make economic sense for Belize or for Duke, Scherr argued. “Duke is the most important part of this overall scheme,” he told them. “We’d like you to play a more affirmative role in putting an end to this project and promoting environmentally acceptable alternatives.” Cheap bagasse was there for the burning, he said. Belize could plug into the Central American grid.

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