JEFFERSON — Ashtabula County Port Authority board has hired Virchow Krause & Company consultants to work on negotiating future Plant C deals with Duke Energy Inc. VKC representatives Michael Land and Carol Arneson met in executive session Friday morning with the ACPA to discuss fees and any confidential data connected to Duke Energy’s contract with the board.

ACPA president John Palo said the board came out of its closed door session to hire the national accounting and professional services firm. “Their fee is not to exceed $10,000. They will be working with our main consultants, Michael Baker Jr. Inc., of Cleveland,” Palo said.

Duke Energy is spending $300,000 over a six month period to study the feasibility of restarting the Plant C turbines at the former FirstEnergy electric production complex on Lake Road. Palo said Duke Energy has first option to run the plant to make electricity using biomass fuels.

The ACPA will use the expertise of VKC consultants in its discussion with Duke Energy on possibly leasing part of the operations or going into a partnership. The board’s ultimate goal has been to put the Plant C turbines back on line if possible financially.

In other action, the board gave Palo permission to sign the $371,713 contract with Underwater Marine Contractors, of Cleveland, to clean the water intake pipes at the plant’s lower levels. The plant was purchased in 2005 for $1.1 million from FirstEnergy to save the water pumping operations and continue selling water to seven nearby industrial plants on Lake Road.

Baker company consultant Stephen Collar told the board that the pipe cleanup can’t begin until after an Oct. 9 public hearing by the U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers and Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. Funds for the intake pipe project are coming from a $450,000 state grant.

Work by Precision Environmental for asbestos removal is 65 percent completed at this stage, Collar reported. Final cleanup is slated to be done by Nov. 7.

ACPA received a $3 million Clean Ohio Revitalization Fund (CORF) grant a year ago for cleanup at the plant site including asbestos removal from portions of the plant and outside scrap dust collection. Collar said that sealed bids will be opened at 3 p.m. Oct. 10 in the county commissioners office on the outside scrap dust collection.

“We’ve had 12 contractors interested so far,” Collar said.

Board member Rich Selip said the search committee is still interviewing several people interested in the position of executive director for the ACPA. More than two dozen applicants responded to a recent ad for the position, he said.

“This (type) business has gotten very competitive,” said board member Dennis Eckart. Palo also suggested looking at other trade publications to attract more applicants.