Facing objections, company eyes second power plant site

SUSSEX COUNTY

For months now, opponents of a proposed mega power plant on the rural edges of Hampton Roads have focused their efforts on the utility's preferred site, in the town of Dendron in Surry County.

They have packed public meetings in Surry, staked road signs leading into Dendron that declare "No Coal Plant," and have vowed to defeat the project, saying it would create air pollution and foul the Chesapeake Bay.

Lost in the din, however, is how plans are moving ahead more quickly and without controversy for an alternative site, in neighboring Sussex County.

The developer, Old Dominion Electric Cooperative, has options to buy land in both counties - 1,600 acres in Surry, 1,20 0 acres in Sussex - and has not decided which site to pursue yet.

It's waiting for an environmental impact study, said utility spokesman Jeb Hockman.

"Both are under equal consideration," Hockman said.

Sussex officials hope a lack of protest and opposition will aid their bid to win the project, which is estimated to cost between $4 billion and $6 billion, and would bring needed jobs and tax revenue to the small, sparsely populated county.

To that end, the Sussex County Board of Supervisors and the county Planning Commission will hold a joint hearing Thursday night and could approve a conditional-use permit and zoning changes in support of the facility.

If built to capacity, the plant would be the largest coal-fired power station in Virginia, generating 1,500 megawatts of electricity, or enough to light 375,000 homes.

"I expect things to go very smoothly," said C. Eric Fly, chairman of the Sussex County Board of Supervisors, which already has passed a resolution endorsing the venture. "We haven't had any of the fuss they've had in Surry."

The Surry County Board of Supervisors also is scheduled to hold a public hearing Thursday on zoning changes related to the project.

Environmentalists are planning to split their forces and attend both hearings, though they are not happy about it.

"Obviously we're concerned with two public hearings at the same time, and how that isn't fair to citizens who want their voices heard on this critically important issue," said Chris Moore, a science advocate for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in Hampton Roads.

Some opponents have suggested the simultaneous events were intentionally set, a charge that ODEC's spokesman chuckled at.

"I wish we were as smart and sinister as people think we are," Hockman said. "It's pure coincidence. It's weird to us too."

Hockman said the nonprofit utility always has had a primary and secondary site in hand. To do otherwise in such a long, expensive process would be silly, he said.

ODEC hopes to open the plant in 2016.

In December 2008, ODEC announced its choice of Dendron as the preferred development site.

The utility also noted in a statement then that Sussex met "important criteria including access to transmission lines and rail transportation" and that ODEC "will continue to pursue the possibility of utilizing the Sussex County site."

Hockman said this week that the Surry property is cheaper than the Sussex land. He added that ODEC has been "pretty surprised" at the level of opposition in Surry.

The Sussex site is in an industrial area off U.S. 460. Its neighbors would be a landfill, a feed mill, a composting company and a prison, as well as a few homes.

In Surry, the plant would stand near homes and shops on the main thoroughfare in Dendron, a proximity that has spurred much resentment from would-be neighbors, who say their country living would never be the same.

Fly, the Sussex board chairman, said he has talked to more than 1,100 county residents and "maybe two are against it."

"If we were planning this thing near Wakefield, I'd have people burning my house down," Fly said. "But this is in an industrial area, specifically set apart for something like a power plant."

To environmental groups, it doesn't matter which site is chosen; the plant is the problem.

"This is a concern for the whole region," Moore said. "We're still going to have mercury pollution. We're still going to have fly ash to deal with. We're still looking at increasing our reliance on fossil fuels and adding to climate change."

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