Stop ODEC’s Massive Coal Plant in Surry
Even as the rest of Virginia is moving forward toward a clean energy future, the Old Dominion Electric Cooperative (ODEC) is heading backwards by proposing a massive new $6 billion, 1500 megawatt coal plant in Surry County, within the small town of Dendron, located just 18 miles from Williamsburg, Virginia and just 15 miles from sensitive oyster and crab spawning grounds in the Chesapeake Bay.
The plant will spew 14.6 million tons of global warming pollution annually – the equivalent of adding three million new cars to our roads every year. It will further burden nearby areas already in nonattainment for air quality.
Conventional and toxic air pollutants emanating from this coal plant will decrease air quality, increasing rates of asthma, heart attacks, emphysema, and cancer, and will negatively impact the cognitive development of children in the vicinity.
The ODEC coal plant will also emit devastating amounts (118 pounds annually) of neurotoxin mercury, which will further burden already struggling streams and rivers nearby. Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality has already placed off limits to fishing due to excess mercury that has accumulated in fish populations.
Fly ash as produced by this coal plant will be disposed on-site in dumps and slurry ponds. The ground water will suffer from heavy metals that leach out of unlined slurry ponds, and the area will be exposed to the risks of deadly fly ash spills such as that which occurred in Kingsport Tennessee in 2008.
Groundwater could also become contaminated with dangerous levels of lead and arsenic, which is especially dangerous for area residents who depend on well water for drinking for both themselves and their livestock. Fly ash from a Dominion coal plant was used to build a golf course in Chesapeake Virginia. Levels of lead 5 times the legal limit and arsenic 8 times the legal limit were discovered in the ponds nearby.
Perhaps most atrocious, this plant’s appetite for coal will contribute to the practice of mountaintop removal mining, which is devastating the natural beauty and long-term viability of the Appalachian region.
Virginia can meet its energy needs through efficiency improvements and wind and solar power. Alternatives to building this plant include:
- Having ODEC institute a systemwide energy efficiency program, which could cost-effectively shave 27% of its projected electricity generation levels by 2025;
- Having ODEC and its member cooperatives encourage and enable distributed generation of renewable energy, in the form of solar, wind, or combined heat and power, by instituting net metering rules and procedures that make it easy to hook distributed generators up to the grid, and by offering incentives to home- and landowners that invest in distributed renewable energy.
The Sierra Club joins the Wise Energy for Virginia Coalition in fighting this massive coal plant. Click here to take action today.
Make a donation to the Virginia Chapter Sierra Club today!
