Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 5, 1993 TAG: 9303050121
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: JAY TAYLOR CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
COGENERATION PLANT PERMIT STILL SOUGHT
A company that lost a bid to build a cogeneration plant in Buena Vista is keeping alive its attempt to get an air-pollution permit for the project, angering environmentalists who thought they had killed the plant this week after a five-year battle.Why LG&E Power Systems is still interested in the permit remains unclear.
Robert Kennel, vice president for development, said this week that by obtaining the permit, the company would be in a position to build the plant later if demand for electricity increased. The permit could be transferred to any corporation that wanted to build the plant.
He also said the company might need the permit to sell its pollution "offsets." Offsets can be likened to licenses to pollute. Only a certain amount of these licenses are in circulation, and are valued by manufacturers that pollute. Businesses are allowed to trade and sell the offsets.
LG&E obtained its offsets from a Richmond plant that had shut down some of its polluting operations.
Kennel would not say precisely why the company is keeping the permit question open. "There is a lot more detail to be talked about at this time," he said.
"We have offsets on the current air permit, and we have several options to go, and we have not decided what to do yet with them," he said.
Environmentalists who blocked the plant - including the managers of two federal parks, a group in Rockbridge County and the Southern Environmental Law Center - fear the plant would increase pollution, particularly in sensitive parklands.
"There is not a demand for the power right now," said David Carr of the Southern Environmental Law Center in Charlottesville. "To carry forward on this thing, I think, is a misuse of state resources."
Though the state approved the LG&E permit in April 1992, the EPA turned it down on appeal in October.
Virginia Power had agreed to buy power from the plant only after fighting LG&E in arbitration. It gave LG&E until March 1 to begin building. Because LG&E missed the deadline, the plant appeared dead.
Don Shepherd of the Roanoke regional office of the state Air Pollution Control Board said a decision on the permit is not expected soon.
"It is kind of frustrating to have to spend time and resources on a project that is not likely to ever come to reality," he said.
Carr of the law center agreed. "The state shouldn't be spending its resources processing a permit for the pure economic benefit of the applicant," he said.
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.