ST. PAUL, Va. – With the Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center more than 60 percent complete, the 585-megawatt coal-fired power plant is starting to look like a power plant.
The plant is scheduled to go online in 2012.
Officials from Dominion Power, which is building it, and the state of Virginia reiterated Friday that the plant will not harm the environment in Southwest Virginia.
“The air quality limits on that plant are much lower than the existing coal-fired plants, so air quality has been protected with the permit limits they have to comply with,” said David Paylor, director of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.
“We don’t have any reason to believe the plant is going to contribute in any negative way to air quality,” Paylor said.
Pam Faggert, vice president and chief environmental officer for Dominion, said the plant is “designed to be fully protective of the environment.”
The power plant, which received its air permits in 2008, generated a massive amount of controversy during the permitting process.
While local officials were enthusiastically behind the project, environmentalists argued that, even with strict controls, the plant would emit harmful chemicals into the region’s air for the next 60 years.
Opponents of the plant also said that even if the coal were burned cleanly, it would contribute to the destruction of mountains through surface mining.
A coalition of environmental groups appealed the permits, and last year the Richmond Circuit Court issued a ruling to further tighten the plant’s mercury restriction.
Greg Edwards, spokesman for Dominion at the power plant, said about 1,550 people are working on the construction site.
dmccown@bristolnews.com | (276) 791-0701
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Power plant still on track to start operating in 2012
Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center received its air permits in 2008, after a court battle over whether its emissions could be harmful.
By:
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Bristol Herald Courier
Published: April 19, 2010
Published: April 19, 2010
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