Proposed Pee Dee Plant Headed to Court

From today's The State. More coverage can be read in the Post and Courier, the Florence Morning News, and Environment News Service.

Groups appeal coal plant permit
Conservationists challenge approval of utility’s proposed energy facility

Tuesday, Apr 14, 2009

By SAMMY FRETWELL
sfretwell@thestate.com

Conservation groups announced Monday they are appealing an air pollution permit for Santee Cooper’s proposed $2.2 billion coal-fired power plant in Florence County.

The legal challenge, filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center for environmentalists, is the latest in a series of hurdles the state-owned utility must clear before it can build the facility along the Great Pee Dee River.

Santee Cooper still needs a string of other environmental permits, including a major federal wetlands permit, state water quality approval and state permits to build a landfill and ash ponds at the site. A federal environmental impact statement, which DHEC chose not to wait on before issuing the permits, also is due out soon and is subject to legal challenge. Those permits and studies could take years to resolve.

Laura Varn, a spokeswoman for Santee Cooper, said the utility expected the legal challenge. But the company needs the plant to produce power, she said.

Santee Cooper, which serves about half the state’s residents, says the facility will be state-of-the-art in controlling pollution. The company hopes to have the plant up and running in 2014, but challenges could delay that.

“We are committed to moving forward as we focus on our balanced solution to meeting the state’s energy needs in an affordable and reliable way,” Varn said.

Conservationists said state regulators didn’t conduct proper studies to see how the plant would affect eastern South Carolina’s environment. The Department of Health and Environmental Control’s decision to approve the permit violates the federal Clean Air Act by authorizing large amounts of pollution, conservation groups claim.

Those appealing the DHEC board’s decision are the S.C. Coastal Conservation League, the Sierra Club, the S.C. Wildlife Federation, the Environmental Defense Fund and the League of Women Voters of South Carolina.

It was not known when a state administrative law judge will hear the appeal.

DHEC’s seven-member board approved the air permit Feb. 12 after saying the utility had met all legal requirements. Department spokesman Thom Berry said the agency doesn’t comment on ongoing legal matters.

In the past two years, criticism of Santee Cooper’s plant has intensified amid a chorus of national opposition to new coal-fired power plants. Gov. Mark Sanford announced in February he opposes the plant, saying there is not enough demand for the power in slow economic times.

Carbon dioxide from coal-burning power plants contributes to global warming. In this case, the plant would release about 10 million tons of carbon dioxide each year. But DHEC, saying it needed guidance from the federal government, did not require any controls on carbon dioxide in the permit it issued to Santee Cooper this year.

The facility also will release mercury and tiny soot particles, which can lodge in people’s lungs and make them sick. The DHEC board’s decision will allow 92 pounds of mercury annually to be released along a river full of fish that already have been polluted by the toxic metal, which is believed to be from industrial sources.

“This plant would add mercury pollution to an already contaminated region ... but DHEC waived the maximum mercury controls required by law,” said Blan Holman, an attorney representing the five groups.

The plant will be along the banks of the Great Pee Dee River near the communities of Kingsburg and Pamplico in Florence County.

Furman Neuroscience Professor: Coal mercury is toxic

Yesterday, Dr. Judy Grisel, associate professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Furman University, joined a growing list of scientists, physicians and other healthcare professionals who have been speaking out about the dangers of mercury from coal plants. Even outside of the state's Mercury Traingle, where Santee Cooper wants to put a new significant source of mercury, professionals are making clear that more mercury is a bad idea.

April 13, 2009

State should reject new coal-fired plant

The state of South Carolina should not support Santee Cooper's plans to build a new coal plant on the Pee Dee River. While there are many dangerous pollutants released by coal plants, mercury is probably the worst. This chemical is highly neurotoxic and especially harmful to children, where brain damage is likely to be irreversible.

Coal-fired power plants are the largest source of toxic mercury pollution in the United States and emit 42 percent of the country's industrial mercury pollution. Cleaner sources of energy should be promoted and developed in South Carolina, in order to keep the state beautiful and the population healthy.

Judy Grisel

Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience Furman University

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20090413/OPINION/904130318/1010

Santee Cooper Agrees to Test Ash - Why Not Mercury?

From the Charleston Post and Courier:

Wells near ash-topped road to be tested
By Tony Bartelme
Wednesday, April 8, 2009

ST. STEPHEN — Santee Cooper has hired a consultant to test drinking water wells along Tobacco Road, an unpaved lane that Santee Cooper used as a demonstration project in 2004 to determine whether coal ash should be used on dirt roads.

Santee Cooper supplied 425 tons of fly ash from its Jefferies Station coal plant for the 1.5-mile road project. A recent Watchdog report revealed that the Jefferies Station fly ash contained traces of arsenic, barium and other toxic chemicals.

In a community meeting March 30, residents said they felt like Santee Cooper used them as guinea pigs and demanded that the utility test their water and air.

Earlier this week, a top Santee Cooper official began notifying residents that the company had hired a consultant, GEL Engineering of Charleston, to test residents' water. The consultant has analyzed numerous samples at Santee Cooper's facilities over the years.

Laura Varn, Santee Cooper vice president of corporate communications, described the costs of the testing as "nominal," with the final tally dependent on how many residents want their water tested. She said the testing will take about 10 days.

In addition to fly ash, Berkeley County crews have spread limestone on the road over the past few years, a common practice on dirt roads in South Carolina. Varn said Santee Cooper asked GEL Laboratories to test two samples of limestone from a nearby quarry and found they contained arsenic and selenium.

Residents were pleased with Santee Cooper's decision. "I think this water needs to be tested, and I think they need to get it moving," said the Rev. Julius Barnes, who lives on Tobacco Road. "I'm not sure how they're going to test the air, though. We'll see how it goes."

Why doesn't Santee Cooper cooperate with the state's other coal polluters and pay for DHEC's study of mercury poisoning in Palmetto State residents? The "nominal" costs of such an endeavor would surely be cheaper than all the millions of dollars of P.R. our state-owned utility has bought in support of its coal plant.

The World Agrees to Reduce Mercury Emissions; DHEC Agrees to Increase It.

From the Washington Post, news of an international treaty to reduce mercury emissions. Meanwhile, DHEC views Santee Cooper's proposed Pee Dee plant, and its 100 pounds of mercury annually, as "O.K." for residents of the Palmetto State...

Nations to Write Treaty Cutting Mercury Emissions

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 21, 2009; A02

More than 140 countries have agreed to negotiate a legally binding treaty aimed at slashing the use of the metal mercury, with the goal of reducing people's exposure to a toxin that hampers brain development among infants and young children worldwide.

The agreement, announced at a high-level United Nations meeting of environmental ministers in Nairobi yesterday came after Obama administration officials reversed U.S. policy and embraced the idea of joining in a binding pact. Once the administration said it was reversing the course set by President George W. Bush, China, India and other nations also agreed to endorse the goal of a mandatory treaty.

The Bush administration had said it preferred to push for voluntary reductions in mercury emissions because the process of negotiating a treaty would be long and cumbersome.

Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environmental Program, said yesterday's announcement marks the culmination of a seven-year effort to address a significant environmental and public health problem.

"Only a few weeks ago, nations remained divided on how to deal with this major public health threat which touches everyone in every country of the world," Steiner said. "Today, the world's environment ministers, armed with the full facts and full choices, decided the time for talking was over -- the time for action on this pollution is now."

Formal negotiations will begin late this year, and U.N. officials hope to conclude the talks by 2013. The White House issued a statement saying a future treaty would use "a combination of legally binding and voluntary commitments" to cut mercury emissions from industrial processes as well as coal-fired power plants and small-scale mining.

"The United States will play a leading role in working with other nations to craft a global, legally binding agreement that will prevent the spread of mercury into the environment and improve the health of workers, pregnant women and children throughout the world," said Nancy Sutley, who chairs the White House Council on Environmental Quality, in the statement.

A range of industrial activities, including the production of chlorine and the burning of coal, release mercury, which then falls to the earth and the sea in precipitation. The neurotoxin accumulates in fish and marine mammals in the form of methylmercury, which poses a threat to humans when consumed.

While the majority of mercury exposure in the United States stems from non-domestic emissions, all 50 states have issued mercury contamination advisories for fish in their waters. Marine mammals eaten by native Arctic peoples, such as pilot and beluga whales, have mercury concentrations that exceed recommended levels.

Environmentalist Susan Egan Keane, a policy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council who attended the Nairobi session, called the agreement "an amazing and astonishing turn of events."

"For six or seven years, the Bush administration had absolutely blocked any attempt to create a legally binding instrument," Keane said. "The Obama administration, within three or four weeks of inauguration, was able to put that into reverse."

Jeff Holmstead, who formerly worked at the Environmental Protection Agency and now represents U.S. utilities and refineries as the head of Bracewell & Giuliani's environmental strategies group, praised the decision even as he warned that some nations may balk at making the kind of reductions from power plants that America has already achieved.

"Although it may take time to negotiate a workable international treaty, it is clear that mercury is a global issue that will require meaningful and enforceable commitments from developing and developed nations alike -- much like efforts to deal with climate change," Holmstead said.

In an interview earlier this month, Steiner said the agreement "will be a major, confidence-building boost for not only the chemicals and health agenda but right across the environmental challenges of our time, from biodiversity loss to climate change."