Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 5, 1993 TAG: 9304050209
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROBERT McCONNELL
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
VIRGINIA'S AIR QUALITY
IT'S DEJA VU all over again.The National Park Service has again expressed opposition to a proposed coal-fired power plant, based on its determination that operating the 220 megawatt plant (SEI Birchwood) will worsen air quality over an already threatened Shenandoah National Park.
The plant is to be in King George County near the Rappahannock River not far from Fredericksburg, and would be only 60 miles east of the park's borders.
Several questions should be answered before construction permits for the plant are issued.
Is the electricity necessary, and, if so, is coal the best energy source?
What are the disposal plans for the millions of tons of potentially toxic coal ash the plant will generate over its lifetime?
What will be the long-term impact of the plant's operation on the area's environment and quality of life?
Even though state-of-the-art pollution control measures are planned for the plant, proponents concede it will be a major new source of the acid-rain-generating gases sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. The plant will contribute several thousand tons of effluents each year to the atmosphere.
This additional pollution inevitably will contribute to acid rain in Northern Virginia, which the United States Geological Survey described in 1991 as the nation's most acidic area, and getting worse.
Opponents argue, moreover, that the plant would contribute to the growing degradation of the Chesapeake Bay.
At a time when Virginia, Maryland, the District of Columbia and Pennsylvania are spending millions to try to reduce pollutants from air and water entering the bay, calling on farmers to fundamentally alter agricultural practices, and considering draconian measures to reduce pollution from motor vehicles, it seems illogical to permit a new (and major) source of contamination.
Virginia Power, which presumably would buy the plant's electricity, has at present or has firm access to a summer generating capacity 15 percent above the highest summer demand ever measured.
Moreover, the company's more critical winter reserve capacity is nearly 35 percent, according to Dominion Resources' most recent annual report. And the utility has barely begun attempts to reduce demand in its service area (by rewarding conservation, for example).
Since conservation is a cheaper way to produce "new" energy than any new plant regardless of type (and conservation produces no pollution), the company should first be encouraged by the State Corporation Commission to aggressively promote conservation as a way to generate additional supplies, should they be necessary.
In terms of ash disposal, King George officials reportedly are adamant that the residue will not be dumped in their county. Most localities, in fact, are shunning imported waste. So it would seem that a plan must be in place for waste disposal before plant construction is approved.
In terms of the plant's long-term impact on the region's environment, the plant's proponents make the persuasive point that the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act mandate substantial reduction in gaseous emissions from power plants in the Midwest and elsewhere, which contribute substantially to Virginia's worsening air quality.
Thus, they maintain that when the Phase 1 reductions mandated by the act go into effect in 1995, millions of tons of acid-rain-causing pollutants will begin to disappear, and Virginia's air quality will improve substantially. The plant's startup is planned for late 1996, and by that time its impact on the region will be minimal.
The validity of such an argument rests on the extent to which the Clean Air Act is enforced, the number and type of new power plants approved, as well as the degree to which local sources of pollution, including motor vehicles, are firmly and meaningfully reduced.
Yet the quality of local air and water may suffer from the plant, for example due to air inversions during hot summer days. Proponents must address this point, and the plant's potential impact on tourism, before plant construction is approved.
On a broader scale, the conflict between ever-increasing energy use and conservation on the one hand, and between fossil-fuel sources and renewables on the other, is beginning to be addressed in communities throughout the nation.
The California Energy Commission recently mandated that 25 percent of new energy produced in the state be from renewable sources. And Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder's own 1991 energy plan calls on the state to increase end-use efficiency and conservation through June 30, 1994.
Such a plan, if successful, could dramatically reduce the immediate need for any new power plants.
Thus, action on the permit to build and operate SEI Birchwood or any new coal-fired plant in the state should await the impact of the Clean Air Act amendments and the state's ambitious plans to conserve energy and increase efficiency.
And last, statistics compiled by Virginia Power indicate that energy use is growing nearly twice as fast as population. Public institutions, companies and ordinary Virginians who oppose power plants in their neighborhoods must all show that they mean business about reducing energy use.
If they do, battles over power plant siting could well become a thing of the past.
\ AUTHOR Robert McConnell is associate professor of geology at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg.