Now that the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality has approved an amended air permit for the coal-fired power plant in Wise County, both sides of the legal battle over its mercury emissions agree on one thing:
The Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center will have the most restrictive emission controls in the country.
“Dominion believes that the air permits for the Virginia City project may be the toughest ever issued,” David A. Christian, chief executive officer of Dominion Generation, said in a written news statement released Wednesday.
Southern Environmental Law Center attorney Cale Jaffe said environmentalists’ efforts are responsible for greatly reducing the emissions limits in the plant’s mercury permit.
“When we first got involved in this permit, that limit was set … at 72 pounds of mercury per year,” said Jaffe, who represented several environmental groups seeking to overturn the permits. “We, through our participation in the administrative process, drove that number down to 4.5 pounds per year, a 94 percent reduction.
“Through litigation we made that 4.5 number binding,” Jaffe said. “So in that sense we’ve achieved a mercury permit that, to our knowledge, is the most stringent mercury permit for a coal-fired power plant in the nation.”
The amended permit was approved three weeks after the Richmond Circuit Court invalidated the mercury permit, one of two air emissions permits required for Dominion’s coal-fired power plant.
The Virginia Air Pollution Control Board, which originally issued both permits, is expected to discuss the power plant project during a meeting today in Richmond.
The Aug. 11 circuit court ruling took issue with a clause in the mercury permit that would have allowed for the emissions limit to be raised if the plant failed to meet it.
“We said all along we had no problem taking that clause out,” said Greg Edwards, spokesman for Dominion at the power plant.
According to the statement from Dominion, the company asked for an amendment to bring the permit into compliance by removing that offending language, and the request was approved.
“The Virginia DEQ’s efficient handling of our request allows Dominion to maintain its schedule with a power station project that is vital to meeting the future energy needs of Virginia and to helping the economic well-being of Southwest Virginia,” Christian said in the statement.
Jaffe said the approval is “essentially what we expected.”
He said the other permit, which regulates other pollutants for the plant and was upheld in the court’s Aug. 11 ruling, still has flaws and his clients are considering an appeal.
dmccown@bristolnews.com | (276) 791-0701
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