Chesapeake Bay Foundation opposes the coal plant proposed for Hampton Roads (Surry County). Here are three important resources provided by CBF followed by the press release.

Map of proposed coal plant mercury impact area along with Virginia waters already under fish consumption advisory.

Map showing 8 of Virginia’s 18 largest mercury emitters are concentrated within a 60 mile radius of ODEC’s proposed plant.

Fact Sheet from CBF.

Press Release:

June 26, 2009

For Immediate Release

Contact:  Chuck Epes, 804/780-1392

CBF: SURRY POWER PLANT WILL HARM JAMES RIVER, CHESAPEAKE BAY

ADDITIONAL NITROGEN, MERCURY, CARBON, SMOG WILL WORSEN EXISTING PROBLEMS

NEWPORT NEWS, VA. – A new coal-fired power plant proposed for Surry County will worsen pollution of the James River and the Chesapeake Bay, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) said today.

“As proposed, Old Dominion Electric Cooperative’s (ODEC) coal-fired power plant will add 1.9 million more pounds of nitrogen pollution, 118 more pounds of mercury pollution, and 14.6 million more tons of carbon dioxide pollution to the air above the Chesapeake Bay,” said Joseph Tannery, CBF Virginia Deputy Director. “This pollution will only worsen the well-documented nitrogen, mercury, and climate change problems already plaguing the Bay. That is simply unacceptable.”

Nitrogen pollution is a chief cause of the massive algal blooms and “dead zones” that appear annually in the James River and Chesapeake Bay, threatening fish, crabs, and oysters. Reducing nitrogen pollution has been a primary goal of the federal-state Bay cleanup for decades, and Virginia has appropriated nearly a billion tax dollars in recent years to address nitrogen pollution in state waters.

Approximately a third of the nitrogen polluting the Bay each year comes from air pollution. A significant portion of the proposed ODEC plant’s 1.9 million annual pounds of airborne nitrogen will settle or run off into the James and other Virginia rivers and into the Chesapeake Bay, a system already so plagued by excess nitrogen pollution that it is on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) official “dirty waters list.”

The proposed plant’s mercury pollution will also worsen the contamination of Virginia rivers and lakes, many of which are in the Tidewater region within a 60-mile radius of the proposed plant, an area where studies demonstrate airborne mercury from the plant is likely to worsen existing mercury contamination. Eight of Virginia’s largest mercury polluters are already concentrated within a 60-mile radius of the plant site (see attached map).

Airborne mercury falling into lakes, rivers, and wetlands quickly converts to a toxic form that contaminates fish, birds, and other wildlife. Approximately 1,300 miles of Virginia rivers and nearly 40,000 acres of Virginia lakes are already contaminated by mercury, including the Meherrin River, parts of the Nottoway, Blackwater, Mattaponi, and Pamunkey rivers, Dragon Run, Lake Drummond, Lake Whitehurst, Lake Trashmore, Chickahominy Lake, and Harrison Lake.

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Mercury is toxic to humans, posing special threats to fetuses, infants, children, and pregnant women. Mercury affects learning ability, language, motor skills, and at high levels causes permanent brain damage. One gram of airborne mercury falling on a 20-acre lake over the course of a year can contaminate fish enough to trigger Health Department fish consumption advisories. The proposed Cypress Creek plant would release 53,524 grams of mercury annually.

Coal-fired power plants such as the proposed ODEC plant are among the worst greenhouse gas polluters. To date, no technology exists to feasibly capture and contain carbon dioxide pollution from such plants. Climate change caused by excess greenhouse gases will worsen sea-level rise in the Chesapeake Bay region, the second-most vulnerable area in the United States to impacts of sea level rise. This poses significant threats to the region’s environment, economy, and military.

The proposed plant will release 14.6 million tons of carbon dioxide into the air each year, the equivalent of an additional 2.5 million passenger cars to the region, boosting greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere and exacerbating climate change problems in the region. Bay-specific threats include additional wetland flooding, loss of habitat, rising water temperatures, and increased water acidity that weakens the shells of oysters and other shellfish.

The proposed ODEC plant also will release 6.2 million pounds of nitrogen dioxide (NOx), a major component of ground-level ozone (smog). NOx pollution from the power plant would threaten air quality in Surry County and worsen existing smog problems in Hampton Roads and Richmond, two regions soon to be designated by EPA as unhealthy for smog.

“CBF calls on the EPA to become directly involved in the environmental impact review process for the proposed ODEC plant, becoming a co-lead with the Army Corps of Engineers to ensure a comprehensive analysis of all potential environmental impacts,” Tannery said. “EPA has a unique responsibility in the National Environmental Policy Act process and the multiple state and federal permitting decisions to come. EPA must be at the table from the start to ensure that the Bay, its rivers, and its residents – wild and human – have the clean water and air to which they are legally entitled.”

CBF is also calling on the Army Corps to hold additional public hearings on the proposed plant, especially in heavily populated Hampton Roads where impacts from the plant will be felt by the greatest number of people.

CBF also urged ODEC to pursue less environmentally damaging alternatives to provide electricity to customers, pointing out that the 2007 Virginia Energy Plan concluded that energy efficiency and conservation measures can provide the quickest, most cost-effective ways to meet Virginia’s future energy needs.

For example, the plan said a 10 percent reduction in energy through efficiency and conservation will reduce Virginia’s 2016 estimated power shortfall by 97 percent; a 14 percent reduction in energy through efficiency and conservation will eliminate all shortfalls and produce an excess 1,055 megawatts of electricity.

The plan also said that Virginia has enough untapped renewable energy resources, including wind, tidal, solar, biomass, municipal solid waste, and others, to develop nearly 44,000 megawatts of new electricity.

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