GILLETTE - Wyoming officials say they will meet with members of the FutureGen Alliance's site selection team in a few weeks to discuss why the proposed Campbell County site was disqualified for the U.S.-led international effort to develop a zero-emissions, coal-gasification power plant.

FutureGen Alliance considered 12 sites in seven states and narrowed the selection to four finalists on Tuesday - two in Texas and two in Illinois. Gov. Dave Freudenthal and Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., both expressed suspicion that national political influences were at play in the decision, a charge that FutureGen Alliance CEO Mike Mudd vehemently denies.

Following the short-list announcement last week, the alliance issued its detailed analysis supporting its selection decisions.

Wyoming's proposal didn't receive a "score" by the site selection teams and was instead disqualified on the basis that it didn't meet FutureGen's criteria as to where the carbon dioxide byproduct would be stored.

The alliance said Wyoming provided no evidence of seals in the Madison geological formation to prevent upward or lateral migration of the CO2. The alliance also said Wyoming didn't provide information to prove that the Madison formation 9,500 feet below the proposed location would not be a future source for drinking water.

State Geologist Ron Surdam said the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality offered to exclude the particular site as a future drinking water source based on its primacy of the Clean Water Act.

The two groups also argued over the quality of the Madison formation's water at 9,500 feet. Wyoming estimated that the total dissolved solids are about 5,000 to 20,000 parts per million. The alliance's hydrology experts argued that even 10,000 parts per million can be considered potable water. In addition, they noted that the city of Gillette currently uses water from the Madison formation, at a more shallow depth, 25 miles away from the proposed site.

"I can't envision the time when we will be pumping water from 10,000 feet out of the Madison and treating for drinking," Surdam said. "This is not potable water."

Rob Hurless, energy and telecommunications adviser to Gov. Dave Freudenthal, said he believed that the state's experts had sufficiently answered a series of questions that the alliance site selection teams had asked.

"We're trying not to look at this in a sour grapes mode. On the other hand, we are trying to understand how we didn't communicate clearly our answers to their questions," Hurless said.

Though Wyoming is out of the running for FutureGen, it is already working to attract similar coal-gasification projects, acknowledging that the future of Wyoming's coal industry is at stake as utilities move toward cleaner coal-based electrical generation.

This month, the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority issued its own "request for proposal" from parties interested in building an integrated gasification combined cycle plant in Wyoming, based on a section of the federal Energy Policy Act of 2005.

The initiative calls for a coal gasification demonstration plant to be built at an elevation of at least 4,000 feet above sea level and to use Western coal. Wyoming officials decided to seek partners on its own because competition is expected to be intense.

Also, Congress has yet to appropriate money for the project.

"I think it's going to be a heavy lift in getting Congress to say, 'Yes, we're going to put money in that to move it forward,'" Hurless said.

Energy reporter Dustin Bleizeffer can be reached at (307) 682-3388 or dustin.bleizeffer@casperstartribune.net.