ACORN May Show Harvard's Letter At Plant Hearing

The Arkansas Community Organization for Reform Now (ACORN) will try to present a letter from the Harvard Corporation as evidence in licensing hearings later this month for an Arkansas power plant.

Wade Rathke, chief organizer for ACORN, said yesterday that he will ask the Arkansas Public Service Commission at a prehearing conference June 11 if the letter--which calls for more emission controls on Arkansas Power and Light's proposed 2800-megawatt coal-burning White Bluff plant--is admissable as evidence at the hearing.

The public service commission's licensing hearings will begin June 17 or later, Rathke said. ACORN got a one-week extension of the start of the hearings from the commission in order to reevaluate AP&L's emissions statistics for the plant, and is trying to get a second extension.

The Corporation subcommittee sent its letter on the plant to ACORN and AP&L a subsidiary of Middle South Utilities Inc., a holding company in which Harvard owns about $8 million of stock.