Fight to Ensure Proposed Pipeline and Largest Fossil Fuel Power Plant in Virginia Comply with Clean Air Laws #Fracking #Energy

On August 16, the Sierra Club and Appalachian Mountain Advocates filed a federal lawsuit challenging “prevention of significant deterioration” construction permit for Dominion Energy’s proposed gas $1.3 billion power plant in Greensville, Virginia. The suit was filed on the grounds that the permit unlawfully fails to require the “best available emissions control technology” for the power plant and fails to control against the massive quantities of methane that would leak from the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, proposed to connect directly to the power plant.Dominion Virginia Power began construction of the proposed 1,558 megawatt gas-fired power plant this past June, which would be the largest gas-powered operation in the Commonwealth. Dominion has proposed that the Greensville Plant operate at all hours, regardless of the actual demand or the availability of power from other sources such as clean, renewable energy. If built, it would burn fracked gas supplied directly by another Dominion project — the Atlantic Coast Pipeline — a nearly 600-mile long pipeline that would take private property and destroy forests and streams in Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina.

Earlier this summer, the groups successfully pushed regulators to dramatically tighten carbon dioxide limits, cutting allowable emissions by more than 10% from Dominion’s original proposal. The groups forced more protective standards on carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, methane, formaldehyde, and particulate matter as well.

In response, Sierra Club Virginia Chapter Director Kate Addleson and Appalachian Mountain Advocates Staff Attorney Evan Johns released the following statements:

“The people of Virginia–like all Americans–have the right to breathe clean air and drink clean water,” said Kate Addleson. “Rather than expanding dirty fuels that threaten Virginia’s air and water, we must continue to invest in clean, renewable energy like solar and wind, and continue our transition off of dirty fuels.”

“Dominion is trying to raise our electricity rates and increase carbon pollution for a massive power plant and pipeline we don’t even need,” said Evan Johns. “Building these facilities as proposed means committing to buy Dominion’s gas for decades, intensifying the pressure to frack and to build more pipelines, and pushing off investment in clean energy options. Even Dominion acknowledges that clean, renewable energy sources can often be just as affordable.”