JACKSON, Mississippi (AP) — Southern Co. is suing a key employee who worked on the troubled Kemper County power plant, asking a judge to order him to not talk about the project.
Southern Company Services, an arm of Atlanta-based Southern, will be in court Friday against Brett Wingo, who was a project manager at the $6.2 billion power plant being built by Mississippi Power Co., another Southern unit.
The utility sued Wingo in Alabama state court on Feb. 19, alleging Wingo had improperly reneged on an initial agreement to terminate his employment. Wingo said that while his lawyer negotiated certain terms by Dec. 31, he rejected them in January when he saw them fully laid out in writing for the first time. Then he fired his lawyer, and has yet to hire another.
“There are certain elements of the settlement that may be harmful to the public interest,” he told The Associated Press late Thursday. He said he has primary objectives other than compensation in his dispute with the utility.
In the suit, the company refers to certain allegations Wingo has made, without detailing them. The dispute was first reported by Eddie Curran of Mobile, Alabama, who operates the mrdunngoestomontgomery.com blog.
Jefferson County Circuit Judge Elisabeth French is set to hold a hearing Friday on a temporary restraining order issued when the suit was filed. That order says Wingo can’t disclose any confidential information he learned while on the job, except if he’s talking to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Southern Company Services warns it could suffer irreparable injury if Wingo discloses “allegations, trade secrets, and proprietary or otherwise competitive business information.”
A Homewood, Ala., resident, Wingo had been the project manager for a part of the plant that’s supposed to extract carbon dioxide from the power plant’s exhaust. That’s the most innovative part of Kemper, which is supposed to emit less carbon dioxide than a typical coal-fueled power plant, possibly paving the way for continued use of coal even in a world where the government limits carbon dioxide emissions to curb global warming.
His resume says he was responsible for managing design, procurement, scheduling and startup of the gasification unit. Kemper has suffered years of delays and more than $3 billion in cost overruns.
The lawsuit reflects that at some point last year, Wingo and the company became involved in a dispute. Southern Company spokesman Tim Leljedal says Wingo is still an employee of the company, but declined to comment further.
The company wants French to declare the Dec. 31 agreement binding, saying it will pay Wingo an unspecified initial settlement, as well as to fund later unspecified payments through an annuity. Southern Company Services has subpoenaed John Saxon, Wingo’s former lawyer, to testify against him.
The company is asking the judge to order that Wingo keep confidential not only job-related information, but also how much money he gets or even the existence of the settlement.
When Mississippi Power replaced President Ed Day and Vice President of Generation and Development Tommy Anderson in 2013, it signed separation agreements with both. The company agreed to pay Day $150,000 a year for three years. The company said it paid Anderson no additional money