Study: Surry plant would boost mercury levels

NORFOLK

A proposed coal-fired power plant in Surry County would add "significant and harmful" amounts of mercury and other pollutants to the Chesapeake Bay and several rivers in coastal Virginia, a new study concludes.

Commissioned by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, an environmental group, the study released Wednesday says mercury fallout from the plant would further damage the Great Dismal Swamp and the James, Blackwater, Nottoway, Pamunkey and Roanoke rivers.

Parts of these waterways are under state health advisories because of high levels of mercury in some fish species that people are cautioned from eating.

Speaking to reporters in Norfolk, foundation President William C. Baker said state and federal regulators should deny environmental permits for the proposed Cypress Creek Power Station, which would be one of the largest coal-fired plants in Virginia, costing between $4 billion and $6 billion.

Baker argued that regulators have no choice but to reject the project as designed. To allow more mercury pollution in waterways already impaired by mercury, he said, would violate the national Clean Water Act.

The plans "not only are illogical but illegal, and we are prepared to fight," Baker said.

A spokesman for Old Dominion Electric Cooperative, the energy provider that wants to build the plant in the small town of Dendron in Surry County, rejected such arguments as "novel and specious."

If the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's "radical interpretation of the Clean Water Act stands," said ODEC spokesman Jeb Hockman, "then all future business growth and expansion in the Greater Hampton Roads area would come to a complete and total standstill."

Hockman said the Richmond-based cooperative intends to employ sophisticated pollution controls for mercury and other air pollutants at the site and would meet all obligations imposed by state and federal regulators.

Hockman also accused the foundation of using inflated emission estimates that the Dendron plant would spew 220 pounds of mercury into the sky per year.

But Ann Jennings, state director of the foundation, said this assertion is wrong. She said the study was conducted with data supplied by ODEC, including the latest emission estimate of 118 pounds of mercury per year.

A California consulting company, Gray Sky Solutions, compiled the study for the foundation, Jennings said, by plugging ODEC data into computer models approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The models say the James River would ingest 1,832 grams of mercury a year, the Blackwater River 1,338 grams, the Nottoway River 866 grams, and the Dismal Swamp 67 grams.

Mercury is a neurotoxin known to affect the central nervous system, especially in young children and pregnant women. It accumulates in the tissues of fish and is passed on to people who regularly eat species tainted by mercury.

The study also concludes that the plant would rain 264.4 tons of sulfur each year onto the Chesapeake Bay watershed, 286.6 tons of soot and 118 tons of nitrogen.

The power plant has become a political issue in state elections this fall.

Candidates seeking to represent Surry County in the House of Delegates are split on the project, with incumbent Del. Bill Barlow supporting the plant and challengers Stan Clark and Albert Burckard questioning its environmental and health risks.

In the race for governor, Republican Bob McDonnell says he favors the plant as a way to satisfy future energy demand and create jobs. Democrat Creigh Deeds is less direct, saying he supports a balanced state energy portfolio, which includes coal-powered power plants, but adding that he would press ODEC for "innovative and creative" environmental controls.

Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com