 The Army Corps of Engineers has scheduled two meetings this week to consider potential environmental impacts of ODEC's proposed coal burning power plant proposed for Surry County or possibly Sussex County as an alternative location. If you live in Hampton Roads this power plant will impact you because you are downwind! If you live in Surry County or alternatively in Sussex County the pollution will be amplified simply because you'll be living next to the power plant.
WHY: These "scoping" meetings are a critically important step in the review and permit process of this power plant. We need to demonstrate to the Army Corps of Engineers that a full Environmental Impact Statement must be required which would also consider alternatives to the coal plant. ODEC will try to avoid or narrow the Environmental Impact Statement; we must tell the Corps we need an Environmental Impact Statement that considers all impacts and alternatives.
WHEN AND WHERE: We are urging you to attend if you can. The meetings date and locations are as follows:
• June 10,2009, 6 PM at the Sussex Central High School, 21394 Sussex Drive, Sussex, Virginia
• June 11,2009, 6 PM at the Surry County High School, 1675 Hollybush Rd, Dendron, Virginia
Both meetings begin at 5:00 pm with ODEC personnel providing their perspective and answering questions regarding the project. At 6:00 PM ODEC will make a brief presentation on the project after which Corps staff will meet with groups of citizens to identify environmental concerns that should be addressed under the National Environmental Policy Act.
Here are the facts that must be considered as we head into these Hampton Roads Plant NEPA Scoping Meetings: |
The proposed plant is a massive installation for the small town of Dendron:
- It will include two boilers, two turbines, and two generators
- It will include water intake and discharge infrastructure connecting the plant to the James River
- It will require new railroad spurs and off-loading facilities
- The highway near the plant will be expanded to meet the facility's requirements
- Transmission lines will be bulked up, and interconnections built from the plant to those lines
- Fly ash disposal will have to be allowed for, either in the form of on-site fly ash dumps and slurry ponds, or a loading facility for trucks and/or trains to take the fly ash away from the plant.
- The plant will be in generation 24-7, and will generate traffic to and from the plant at all times, accordingly.
The proposed plant will have a major impact on Surry County and the town of Dendron:
- It will change the rural character of the area, as expressed in the comprehensive plan.
- It will make living in the vicinity of the site less attractive, inviting more industrial users to the area.
- New highway infrastructure will bring more traffic to and through the town.
- 24-7 operation will disturb the peace and quiet that the residents cherish.
- Conventional and toxic air pollutants will decrease air quality, increasing rates of asthma, heart attacks, emphysema, and cancer, and will negatively impact the cognitive development of children in the vicinity.
- Conventional and toxic air pollutants will further burden streams and rivers already struggling under excessive loads of mercury and other pollutants.
- Toxic air pollutants, such as mercury and dioxin, will negatively affect the livestock of the farmers in the vicinity.
- Constant traffic from coal trucks and trains, and trucks and trains taking care of fly ash disposal, will add fugitive emissions to the atmosphere, limiting people's ability to spend time outdoors and keep their homes clean.
- If fly ash is disposed of on site or nearby, the ground water will suffer from heavy metals that leach out of unlined slurry ponds, and the area will be exposed to the dangers of deadly fly ash spills such as that which occurred in Kingsport TN at Christmas 2008.
- Property values of people living in the vicinity of the plant can be expected to decline.
Many of these same impacts would be experienced if the proposed power plant is relocated to Sussex County which is the back up site to Dendron in Surry County. The proposed plant will have a major impact on the region, in the form of:
- Additional atmospheric ozone, which will further burden nearby areas already in nonattainment.
- Additional acid deposition, which will negatively effect the flora and fauna in nearby parks and wild and scenic areas.
- Additional mercury deposition, which will further burden already struggling streams and rivers, which Virginia DEQ has already placed off limits to fishermen because of excess mercury that has bio-accumulated in fish populations.
The proposed plant will have broader effects as well, such as:
- Over the planned lifetime of the plant, it will contribute to global warming, by spilling hundreds of tons of CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This is foolhardy at a moment when scientists worldwide agree that further atmospheric greenhouse gases could tip the planet into a warming cycle from which there is no escape.
- The plant's appetite for coal will contribute to the practice of mountaintop removal mining, which is devastating the natural beauty and long-term viability of the Appalachian region.
Alternatives to building this plant must be considered, including:
- Having ODEC institute a systemwide energy efficiency program, which could cost-effectively shave 27% of its projected electricity generation levels by 2025.
- Having ODEC and its member cooperatives encourage and enable distributed generation of renewable energy, in the form of solar, wind, or combined heat and power, by instituting net metering rules and procedures that make it easy to hook distributed generators up to the grid, and by offering incentives to home- and landowners that invest in distributed renewable energy.
- Have ODEC purchase any additional electricity needed from the grid. |
