Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 29, 1990 TAG: 9004290065
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE SHENANDOAH BUREAU
DATELINE: BUENA VISTA LENGTH: Long
Thus, say supporters of the controversial plant proposed for Buena Vista, can the city save hundreds of jobs in the Maury River flood plain - and greet a brighter future.
But the plant is under attack because of environmental concerns.
"Cogeneration certainly would be a tremendous boost to us in affording flood protection," said Buena Vista Mayor Harold Kidd. "I don't think there's any way in the world to build the entire [flood wall] proposal without the cogeneration plant."
Buena Vista - much of which was flooded in 1969 and again in 1985 - is a town in crisis, some say.
The 1985 flood caused many millions of dollars in property damage, according to one official city report. And it prompted several Buena Vista industries to move to other states.
And each time the flood waters come, the report notes, hundreds of homes in this city of 6,600 people get soaked.
"Repeated flooding has undermined both the economic base of the city and its citizens," says the report, prepared in support of a plea for state flood-wall funding. The state has since approved $525,000 for the flood wall over the next two years.
After the 1985 flood, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers found a $50 million flood control project to protect the city from the river "economically justified," the report noted.
The catch: Buena Vista would have to shoulder more than $12 million of the cost, a tall order for a struggling factory town.
Enter the cogeneration plant, which would sell electricity to Virginia Power and provide excess steam to Buena Vista's Georgia-Bonded Fibers plant for manufacturing uses.
And it would pay lots of taxes.
"I hate to see the two projects linked together," said Buena Vista City Manager Clay Goodman, referring to the flood wall and the plant. But Goodman also noted that the city's funding calculations for the flood wall include $410,000 annually in tax revenues from the plant.
"I mean, facts are facts," Goodman said. "Those six figures jump right out at you."
The building of cogeneration plants was encouraged by the federal government during the 1970s to help the country become more energy efficient. In concept, a cogeneration plant supplies both electrical power to utilities and steam to an industrial host.
The Buena Vista plant, which would generate some 30 jobs, would provide electricity to Virginia Power. Excess steam would be channeled to Georgia-Bonded Fibers, about 300 yards from the proposed cogeneration plant site.
Some argue, however, that the tax bonanza a Buena Vista cogeneration plant could bring comes only at the price of health risks and pollution.
Michael Lonergan of Clean Air for Rockbridge - a citizens group whose single purpose is to fight the plant - said Buena Vista is "a microcosm of Los Angeles" because of its location relative to the mountains.
"The pollutants are going to hit the mountains and back up over the city," said Lonergan.
"I don't think you have to be a scientist," said Fahim Qubain, a Buena Vista motel owner who said he believes his business will be ruined by cogeneration plant pollutants. "You've got the Blue Ridge on one side. You've got the Alleghanies on another. We are sitting in a bowl."
Plant opponents such as Qubain say the cogeneration plant will add to the air pollution already deposited here by automobiles, the Westvaco Corp. paper mill in Covington and factories in the Kanawha Valley of West Virginia and Ohio.
They say the Blue Ridge Mountains on Buena Vista's eastern flank will keep smokestack emissions from leaving, and the area's frequent thermal inversions will end by soaking Buena Vista in a cloud of plant gasses.
They ask what will be done with the 6.2 tons per hour of ash the plant will generate. And they claim the plant, if built, will jeopardize residents' health, as well as that of trees and vegetation, streams and acquatic life.
"An increase in pollution will also cause decreased visibility and loss of our beautiful mountain vistas," reads a Clean Air for Rockbridge report on the proposed plant.
"I think there are a lot of legitimate health concerns," said Buena Vista physician Michael Cunningham. "There are a lot of people who have retired here - older people, with legitimate health care problems - who definitely will be adversely affected."
And what of the flood wall?
"I don't think the price we're going to pay to put up with this cogeneration plant is worth it in the long run," Cunningham said.
The Rockbridge County Board of Supervisors also oppose the plant, Supervisor Kenneth Moore said. He said he has thought of circulating a petition against it, which he believes would garner the signatures of a majority of county residents.
"I would say the cogeneration plant is not a plant we're looking for in this area," said Moore, citing water demands on the Maury River as well as increased pollution.
Plant developers dispute this, saying the plant will claim only a fraction of the Maury's flow. They also say it includes pollution-abatement equipment that will remove 92 percent of the sulfur and other pollutants from plant emissions.
The developers also have been testing wind currents and temperatures and collecting other meteorological data to see just where the smokestack gasses would go, said Andrew Shea of Hadson Development Corp.
Hadson Development is an arm of the Oklahoma-based Hadson Corp., which would build the cogeneration plant as a joint venture with Westmoreland Energy Inc. of Charlottesville, Shea said.
Shea denied the plant's emissions would simply hang over Buena Vista. Even if the mountains did turn the gasses back, he said, they would spread north and south.
Shea said the information from the company's year-long meteorological study - which ended earlier this month - is still being processed, but indications are that the plant will be able to meet state air-quality standards.
Shea also said the Environmental Protection Agency does not consider the ash the plant will produce to be hazardous waste; it has commercial uses in road construction and the manufacture of plastics, among other things.
"There are 1,001 uses for fly ash nobody's even thought of," he said.
He called the health problems Cunningham cited "pure conjecture."
"Our major concern is this alarmist behavior that we're seeing," said Shea, noting that pollution-control officials must be satisfied the plant is clean before they will issue the necessary permits to build and operate it.
The plant's sternest test may come from a patch of federally protected wilderness to the south of Buena Vista.
The 9,000-acre James River Face Wilderness - where the James River rips its way through the Blue Ridge on its way to the sea - was named a Class 1 Wilderness Area in 1975. The designation means it has stringent air-pollution restrictions, which the proposed cogeneration plant cannot violate.
"I think that's the most likely determining factor" in whether the plant will get the necessary air-quality permits, said Don Shepherd of the state Air Pollution Control Board's Roanoke office. "That's my guess right now."
Kidd said the James River Face requirements will ensure that the plant, if built, will meet the toughest requirements for clean air.
"We don't want it unless it meets those requirements," he said. "We want as clean a facility as we can possibly have."
But Buena Vista has traditionally been an industrial city, he said, "and we will remain one. There has to be a good mix of industry."
Kidd said he would support the cogeneration plant even if the flood wall wasn't a factor.
As the battle has heated up - local news weeklies routinely carry stories about the proposed plant - some people have heard so much they aren't sure what to think.
"Some are for it, and some are against it," said a woman whose yard in downtown Buena Vista was covered by flood waters in 1969 and 1985. "Some people think it's going to be bad for your health; some people think it's going to be all right. I really don't know what's best."
"I'm against it. I think it would take my view away," said Jimmy Holland, who said he already can see the meteorological testing equipment from his house.
Plant officials say coal would be conveyed to and from the plant by covered conveyor belts, and standing coal would be sprayed to limit dust. In addition, they say, the plant will be screened by landscaping, and buildings will be painted in "earth-tone colors" to blend with surroundings.
Clyde Driscoll, who lives in downtown Buena Vista, has his own ideas about the plant.
"One thing's gonna kill you if another one don't," said Driscoll, a security guard at Buena Vista's Southern Seminary College. "The Lord put us here for a certain number of years, and that factory's not going to change his mind."
On the other hand, say Driscoll and others, without some help against the waters of the Maury, the smokestacks that have long meant Buena Vista's livelihood may soon be snuffed out for good.
"If we don't do something, ain't no use to even talk about Buena Vista," Driscoll said. "There won't be no town."
by CNB