Clear the air for facts on coal plant

By Robert G. Burnley

The debate about the proposed Cypress Creek coal plant in Surry County is one of the most important that will occur in Southeast Virginia in the foreseeable future. The plant would have a major impact on the environment and economy of the region and the health of those living in and visiting one of the most populated and popular areas of Virginia.

So it's critical that the debate not be prejudiced by incomplete or inaccurate information. Unfortunately, that is exactly what is occurring.

In a May 24 column in The Virginian-Pilot, David Hudgins, spokesman for the Old Dominion Electric Cooperative, said ODEC has modeled the impacts and that the results have been reviewed and approved by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He then concludes that effects on the environment and public health are "insignificant."

Such an assumption seems premature at best and disingenuous at worst.

If ODEC has conducted in-house modeling, it may have been done according to the protocols based on the data from the utility's incomplete air permit applications.

The applications were so incomplete that DEQ's letter to ODEC, in May 2010, outlined six pages of "deficiencies" in the applications related to toxic mercury emissions, smog-forming compounds and coal ash disposal, among other concerns affecting downwind and downstream communities. Rather than address those deficiencies, ODEC withdrew its applications in September 2010 but uses them to predict future impacts. ODEC is still aggressively pursuing other necessary approvals.

Hudgins was reacting to published studies concluding that the emissions could severely harm the health of downwind residents, pollute the Chesapeake Bay and stifle economic development. These studies were conducted using methodologies approved by the EPA and the National Academy of Sciences.

To further prejudice the debate, the Surry County Board of Supervisors has refused to honor Isle of Wight's request for a third-party economic study, with one supervisor observing that such a study would only complicate the decision-making process.

Here are the facts. In 2010 Hampton Roads experienced very poor air quality. The region exceeded the federal health standard for ozone on five "code red" days - when the air is unhealthy for the general population to breathe, and the young, elderly and those with respiratory illnesses may have serious health complications. Through June 30 of this year, the region has already had four violations - and the ozone season has just begun.

If the ODEC plant is built, it would add more than 3,000 tons of ozone-forming chemicals to the air every year for 50 years or more.

More air pollution means less economic development and growth, more lost work-days, more lost school days and higher medical costs. In Galveston, Texas, worsening air pollution has forced the city to install an air-quality warning flag system on its beach, similar to hurricane and riptide warning flags. Galveston is essentially telling tourists to leave the beach and go back inside because of bad air quality.

Is that something we want to see on our own beaches?

New industry will not come to areas that fail to meet federal ozone standards because environmental permitting in those areas takes longer, costs more and can be unpredictable compared to areas with consistently clean air.

Businesses don't expand in areas with bad air quality for the same reasons. Companies seek communities with a high quality of life for their employees, not communities where the air is unfit to breathe.

Emissions from this plant would also exacerbate the nutrient pollution in the Chesapeake Bay. This extra nitrogen will cost every Virginian in the form of a more protracted, difficult and more expensive Bay cleanup.

These facts don't support the contention of Cypress Creek power plant's proponents that the effects of this plant on the environment, health and economy of the region are benign. ODEC's contention that impacts are insignificant is unfortunate. Let the truth inform the decision-making process; don't let that process be prejudiced by anything less.

Robert G. Burnley was director of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality from 2002 to 2006. He lives in Richmond.