Developers have announced that Big Stone II, a 1.6 billion dollar coal plant scheduled to go up near Milbank, South Dakota will not be built.

The Big Stone II project would have caused hundreds of millions of dollars to circulate in the Milbank area. Some business owners made plans based on those figures.

Dave Forrette is a Grant County commissioner and owns the Millstone restaurant, a business he couldn't wait to watch benefit from Big Stone II.

"As a businessman in the community it's not just disappointing, it's devastating to not have this project come in. The economic impact would have been immeasurable."

Dave says the tax base generated by Big Stone II would have been great for the area.

"Every place up and down Main Street was looking forward to this. Then you turn that money over that they would have been spending seven times. It's huge."

Sue Kulbeik owns one those businesses on Main Street, Hardware Hank's, that was anticipating the growth.

"We did invest in opening another store in the neighboring town, in Ortonville, Minnesota twelve miles away. So we were looking at being on both sides of the plant."

Sue says both of her stores are doing fine despite Big Stone II not coming and Dave says other businesses and agriculture will sustain Grant County.

"We are going to be o.k. Grant county is going to be fine but it certainly would have been nice to have a project of this size."