Dendron hearings on proposed power plant will be repeated in 2012

Dendron hearings on proposed power plant will be repeated in 2012 – Although Old Dominion Electric Cooperative mulled options, site remains top choice

Old Dominion Electric Cooperative will hold a second round of public hearings on a rezoning and conditional use permit to build the state’s largest coal-fueled power plant in Dendron next year.

On Monday, the company’s executive board decided that Old Dominion will repeat the hearings rather than challenge Surry Circuit Court Judge Sam Campbell’s Nov. 18 ruling that residents were not properly notified of the Dendron Town Council’s intent to vote after the first hearing on Feb. 1, 2010, said company spokesman David Hudgins. The company wants to build Cypress Creek Power Station, a 1,500-megawatt coal-burning power plant, on 1,200 acres in town.

The date of the new public hearing – and a subsequent town council vote – for the proposed power station will not be set until 2012. Company and town attorneys will make sure the town’s intent to vote is clear in any advertisements, Hudgins said.

Glad they can’t pull one over on the public this time…

Sadly, when they can see those dollar signs, I can easily see the Town of Dendron and Surry County going for this all over again…yep. They won’t stop till they get what they want whether it’s good for the health of property owners and residents or not.

Yep, do something stupid and expect God to mitigate the damage to people, the earth and wildlife…whatever happened to taking care of what God gave us?! Coal mining and burning coal … oh, yeah, that’s gotta be a good thing for people (especially children, the elderly and those at risk healthwise like my Jim who is on an oxygen concentrator), the earth and wildlife…oh, yeah…that makes sense. NOT.

Calculating the cost of coal – editorial

Calculating the cost of coal – editorial (HamptonRoads.com)

In a new report, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation estimates that air pollution from the ODEC plant would cost $200 million each year in new health care costs. The report predicts 442 additional asthma attacks annually, 3,340 work days lost to sickness, 40 heart attacks and 26 premature deaths in the region.

Dispute, if you like, the precision of those estimates. But to pretend the actual number is 0 – or anywhere near it – is folly.

So true that…

And those of us who live in Hampton Roads will suffer the consequences … particularly those here in Dendron, VA with health issues already.

Course the needs of the many seem to outweigh the lives of the few, or the one…

Except to the loved ones of those this 1500MW coal plant will put in jeopardy…or worse.

Keep Focus on plans for Coal Plant

Keep Focus on plans for Coal Plant
Originally in The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star, Norfolk, VA, Oct 2, 2010. The article is by Bob Burnley

In response to ODEC supposedly putting this 1500 MW ‘twin towers’ 24/7 coal plant on ice for 12-18 months, but all the while still continuing their permit process with the USACE and EPA, Bob Burnley reminds us of the following and more in this article:

The plant would make existing environmental and economic problems in the region worse. According to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, Virginia Beach ranks 45th on a list of the “most challenging places to live with asthma.” Richmond is No. 1. Three thousand tons of ozone-producing nitrogen oxides and 2,000 tons per year of particulate matter from the plant, just upwind from Virginia Beach, would exacerbate this.

The plant would emit mercury, a neurotoxin. Babies exposed before birth can suffer reduced IQ levels and other neurological problems. Children exposed can suffer learning disabilities and other health issues. There has to be a healthier way to generate electricity.

Citizens across the Bay watershed are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to remove nitrogen from discharges to the Bay and its tributaries. This plant and the thousands of tons of nitrogen compounds emitted from its smokestacks could very well doom the Bay, the region’s watermen and a thriving tourist industry. There must be a less polluting way to generate power.

Much more in this must read article.

We can not forget what they want to do to Dendron, Surry County, Hampton Roads, Virginia, or how this coal is obtained from the ancient mountains in Appalachia through MTR and how Wise Engergy for Virginia and others are trying to help keep this from happening.

More information here on my blog.

Air Pollution Increases Infants’ Risk Of Bronchiolitis

Air Pollution Increases Infants’ Risk Of Bronchiolitis (ScienceDaily.com)

Infants who are exposed to higher levels of air pollution are at increased risk for bronchiolitis, according to a new study.

The study appears in the November 15 issue of the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

“There has been very little study of the consequences of early life exposure to air pollution,” said Catherine Karr, M.D. PhD, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington and the paper’s lead author. “This study is unique in that we were able to look at multiple sources including wood smoke in a region with relatively low concentrations of ambient air pollution overall.”

Much more in the article!

American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine – part E. Environmental and Occupational Lung Disease of the current November 15, 2009 issue.

Registration is required to read the full article however, the abstract is available here which includes the conclusions below:

Conclusions: Air pollutants from several sources may increase infant bronchiolitis requiring clinical care. Traffic, local point source emissions, and wood smoke may contribute to this disease.

Under measurements and readings above the conclusions states:

An interquartile increase in lifetime exposure to NO2, NO, SO2, CO, wood-smoke exposure days, and point source emissions score was associated with increased risk of bronchiolitis…

What pollutants do coal plants introduce? At least a few of those listed, plus more: Power Plant Emissions Publications

County asks state to block fly ash dump

County asks state to block fly ash dump (Maryland Gazette):

County Executive John R. Leopold asked Gov. Martin O’Malley yesterday to halt plans for a fly ash dump along the Anne Arundel County-Baltimore city border.

“Although the landfill itself is located in Baltimore city, the site is less than 1,000 feet from its border with Anne Arundel County and in close proximity to the surface waters of Swan Creek,” Leopold wrote in the letter to O’Malley.

John R. Leopold along with “Del. Steve Schuh, R-Gibson Island, and Sen. Bryan Simonaire, R-Pasaden”, and some residents were at a meeting in Brooklyn on the ‘storm water discharge permit’ that would be needed for the landfill. (EEEK!)

Mr. Leopold rightly has asked that determination of this fly ash/coal ash dump be postponed until the EPA, which is ‘on track’ to make a determination by the end of the year in regard to whether “fly ash is a hazardous material and should be disposed as such.”

Constellation Energy is the company that is requesting the fly ash dump site and Mr. Leopold reminded “of the situation in Gambrills, where hazardous substances in private wells were found to be linked to a Constellation fly ash dump.” (OUCH! and well done Mr. Leopold!)

From the Washington Post article entiled “Energy Firm’s Dumping Sows Anxiety in Gambrills” in 2007 on this issue of Gambrills when fly ash was found in dust in homes and on dishes of residents:

Constellation, which has delivered bottled water to Greenleaf and neighbors for 11 months, acknowledges the contamination but disputes the severity of the problem. Last week, the company halted the dumping temporarily and is in talks with the state about how to clean it up.

Putting off the decision to build yet another power plant (and one of the largest in Virginia) — until the EPA makes its determination later this year on fly ash — would be the wise and prudent course of action that should be made by the Town Council of Dendron, VA and the Board of Supervisors of Surry County on behalf of the whole of Hampton Roads in Virginia regarding the ODEC proposed 1500MW Cypress Creek Power Plant (and it’s corresponding fly ash/coal ash dump/landfill) that they want to put right in our tiny town’s “backyard” particularly considering the closeness to the homes and water supply in Dendron, as well as the wetlands of the Blackwater River system and Cypress Swamp.