Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 10, 1990 TAG: 9006100180
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Superintendent L.W. Wade proposed the temporary ban on state air quality permits for major power plants in a letter to Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources Elizabeth Haskell.
"The threats to this park from a large increase in locally produced air pollution are very real," Wade wrote in the May 24 letter.
He urged a moratorium on permits for any plant that would generate more than 500 tons of sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxide a year. The ban should be imposed "until the cumulative effects of the proposed emissions can be assessed," he said.
Wade also asked the state to undertake a careful review of Virginia's energy needs and develop a plan for meeting those needs without damaging the environment.
The letter was revealed Friday by a private power plant developer, who urged the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board to reject the superintendent's request.
"It would be a serious mistake," said Robert Kennel, vice president of Hadson Development Corp.
Hadson is a Fairfax County-based company that is developing four power plants in Virginia to produce electricity for Virginia Power and steam power for adjacent industries.
One of the developer's proposed plants would be in Buena Vista, just south of the park at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The proposal already has opposition because of potential effects on the nearby James River Face Wilderness Area in Jefferson National Forest.
Soon after taking office in January, Haskell formed an informal task force on the environmental effects of power plants proposed in Virginia by the cogeneration industry - private developers who produce electricity for sale to utilities and steam for industries.
However, a moratorium would block numerous power plants that Virginia Power is counting on to meet expected electricity demand in the mid-1990s. Among them is a 786-megawatt coal-fired plant proposed in Halifax County by the utility and Old Dominion Electric Cooperative.
Virginia Power recently announced plans to build another 400-megawatt power plant in Southside Virginia by 1997 and to buy power from three proposed private plants that would begin operating then.
Wallace Hadder, the utility's manager of air quality, said Friday, "It would be a pretty critical step to put on a moratorium just like that."
During the air board meeting, an official for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also expressed concern about the effects on air quality of power plants being developed here to meet rapidly growing demand for electricity by Virginia Power's 1.7 million customers.
Thomas Maslany, regional director of the EPA's division of Air, Toxics and Radiation Management, urged the board to tightly regulate new power plants to limit emissions of nitrogen oxide, which contributes to acid rain, smog and possibly nutrient pollution in the Chesapeake Bay.
Park scientists say acidic air pollution, especially from sulfur dioxide, is degrading the park's spectacular vistas, damaging its trout streams and possibly harming its elevated forests.
by CNB