ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 30, 1997 TAG: 9703310088
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHINCOTEAGUE
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS|
Most Accomack County residents and officials favor the proposed peak-use plant in New Church.
A Norfolk businessman wants to build a $150 million power plant on the Eastern Shore to use as a backup supply of electricity.
Peter Lalor, president of Commonwealth Chesapeake Corp., says the new power plant is needed for peak-use times - when residents want to crank up their air conditioning in the summer and their heat in the winter.
But the National Park Service is warning that emissions from the oil-fired plant could pollute the skies over Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge and Assateague Island National Seashore.
The plant could generate tons of chemical compounds that cause acid rain and smog, which could cause a loss of tourists and environmental integrity for the wildlife sanctuaries, according to memos from the Park Service's air-quality division.
Further, the Park Service predicts, nitrogen-laden emissions could be blown toward the Chesapeake Bay, where it could fall and cause water pollution.
Lalor, a lawyer and civil engineer by training, dismisses those findings. ``Under no circumstances will there be any visible pollutants,'' he said. ``I don't know where they get that.''
Because of a federal law, government officials studying the proposed plant in New Church, a small farm town near the Maryland border, are not allowed to fully consider possible effects on Assateague, Chincoteague or the Chesapeake.
The same law, however, requires officials to review the plant's potential effects on the Shenandoah National Park, some 200 miles west. Not surprisingly, few problems were foreseen.
Under the law, Shenandoah gets special protection, even from faraway projects, because of its size and designation as a Class I wilderness - the most sensitive environmental classification under federal air laws - and is subject to more stringent tests.
Assateague and Chincoteague get less attention, even from industrial projects at their back door, because they're considered Class II areas, less sensitive than the national park.
Local, state and federal environmental agencies have approved the plant, saying it would comply with existing air laws and land-use regulations, and essentially is safe.
The project has one more governmental hurdle: The State Corporation Commission still must approve the plant - a contested decision that should be resolved this spring, officials said.
Accomack County stands to gain about $600,000 a year in tax revenue and a handful of new jobs from the plant, and most county residents and politicians say it's a necessary and relatively clean tool for developing the still largely undisturbed Eastern Shore. But a small, vocal group known as Citizens Opposed to the Peaker Plant is fighting the project. Members have issued public statements that ``poisons and carcinogens may soon rain'' on New Church.
LENGTH: Medium: 63 linesby CNB