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This news story originally provided by
The Charleston Gazette
By Tara Tuckwiller
Staff writer
Three nonprofit groups asked the state Department of
Environmental Protection Thursday to revoke a permit it
issued last month for a power plant in Greenbrier County.
The Western Greenbrier Co-Generation plant has been
promised $107 million from the federal Department of Energy,
which bills it as a “clean coal” demonstration project.
Instead of regular coal, the plant would burn a gigantic
pile of abandoned coal waste for fuel.
The nonprofits argue that the proposed plant is not as
clean as it could be, and that the DEP’s Division of Air
Quality did not follow the law in issuing the permit.
The Sierra Club, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy and
Greenbrier River Watershed Association asked the state Air
Quality Board for a hearing to make their case.
“This plant has the potential to emit about 5 million
pounds of pollutants per year,” said Joe Lovett, the
Lewisburg lawyer who filed the appeal.
Forty-ton trucks will haul coal gob from the abandoned
heap near the small town of Rupert to the plant in the
nearby small town of Rainelle, and ash from the plant back
to the gob site where it will be spread in an effort to
neutralize acid runoff, according to the plan WGC submitted
to the state.
“We calculate there will be one coal truck every five
minutes,” Lovett said.
Construction may begin on the plant by early fall,
according to WGC, a limited liability company owned by the
towns of Rainelle, Rupert and Quinwood.
The appeal argues that the DEP did not compel the plant
to use the best available pollution control technologies, as
required by law; that the permit is unenforceable because
some of WGC’s pollutants will be monitored inadequately or
not at all; and that some auxiliary sources of pollution,
such as haul-road emissions, were left out.
The 90-megawatt plant is proposed to start generating
electricity by early 2009.
To contact staff writer Tara Tuckwiller, use e-mail or
call 348-5189.
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