Lawsuit Targeting Dominion Virginia Coal-Fired Power Plant Forces Revised Permit, but GHG Emissions Challenge Unsuccessful

A recent victory for environmental activists in a lawsuit against Dominion Virginia Power may turn out to be less significant than it first appeared. The case, filed in Richmond Circuit Court by the Wise Energy for Virginia Coalition, challenged the Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) permit granted to Dominion. The permit was to allow the construction of a coal-fired power plant in southwest Virginia. While the court invalidated the permit on the grounds that it allowed an escape hatch based on cost and feasibility in the mercury emission limits, the portions of the permit relating to greenhouse gas emissions, which were also challenged in the complaint, were found valid by the court. Subsequent to the ruling, on September 2, 2009, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality approved an amended air permit for the plant, including stringent new mercury emissions limits without the objectionable escape hatch.

While lawsuits by environmental advocates have successfully delayed or derailed plans to construct new coal-fired power plants on several occasions recently, Dominion spokesman Dan Genest explained that they have no intention of abandoning plans to build the power plant in question, and noted that the recent decision, “upholds virtually all of the conditions in both air permits, which may be the most stringent in the country.” Key to continued building plans, the court upheld the Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) permit which regulates conventional pollutants such as carbon dioxide and soot. This permit was sustained despite the coalition’s claim that the plant will emit 5.4 million tons of carbon dioxide yearly, an amount roughly equal to the annual carbon output of all of the cars in the metro Richmond area.

According to Cale Jaffe, an attorney for Southern Environmental Law Center, the mercury limit in the revised permit has been reduced from 72 pounds of mercury emissions per year, to just 4.5 pounds per year – a 94% reduction. Dominion Generation CEO David A. Christian said he thought the air permit might be “the toughest ever issued.”