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Environmental groups take on Santee Cooper’s new coal plant proposal in the Pee Dee

By Corey Hutchins

By Corey Hutchins

Green vs. Black

Environmental groups take on new coal plant proposal

The proposal to build a massive pulverized coal-fired plant on the Great Pee Dee River in Florence County caused about 300 people to crowd into the Hannah-Pamplico High School there earlier this month for a public hearing about the nearly $1 billion plant the state-owned electric and water utility Santee Cooper wants to build by 2014.

Environmental watchdog groups like the Carolina Climate Network and Carolina Coastal Conservation League oppose the proposal, saying a new coal-fired plant will be dangerous to the surrounding environment and a detriment to Earth’s global climate.

So far the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has required an Environmental Impact Statement study (EIS), but Santee Cooper wants the Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) to issue the permits they need to build the coal plant before that study is complete, according to the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League’s north coast officer Nancy Cave.

Once finished, the EIS study will show that a new coal plant would dump more mercury into local rivers where fish are already unsafe to eat, raise levels of soot and smog-forming pollutants, and every day draw 28 million gallons of water from the Pee Dee River while impacting 93 acres of wetlands, Cave said.

Representatives for Santee Cooper at the meeting said their proposed plant is safe for the environment as well as economical. Their mission is “to be the state’s leading resource for improving the quality of life for the people of South Carolina,” according to their Web site.

But the Carolina Climate Network’s state coordinator, Bob Wislinski, believes Santee Cooper is “living in an alternative universe…another dimension.”

Carolina Climate Network is a coalition of groups such as the Sierra Club, S.C. Wildlife Federation, S.C. Small Businesses Chamber of Commerce, Environmental Defense, Trout Unlimited and Audubon Society, among others.

“Santee Cooper,” Wislinski said, “is a dinosaur” that— because it is state owned— doesn’t have to demonstrate to anyone that the new coal plant they want to build is absolutely necessary. And if DHEC does issue the permits to the state public service authority before the EIS study comes out, he says it will further illustrate a larger need to reform “these dinosaurs” like Santee Cooper.

Waiting for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to complete the EIS study before DHEC issues the permits will “save state taxpayer resources,” says Cave, and will give DHEC the best information before it makes its decisions on the permits.

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