DATE: March 20, 2019

To: Alison Sinclair, VA-DEQ,
Virginia Dept. of Environmental Quality, P.O. Box 1105,
Richmond, VA 23218 alison.sinclair@deq.virginia.gov

RE: Balico LLC; Registration No. 52610

Balico LLC/Chickahominy Power, 1380 Coppermine Rd. Ste.115, Herndon, VA 20171

Dear Ms. Sinclair:

On behalf of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League and our members in the Commonwealth of Virginia, I write to provide comments on the permit for the proposed Chickahominy Power facility in Charles City County. For the reasons detailed below, we oppose the permitting of this facility.

Background —-

According to Balico LLC’s application, the Chickahominy Power plant (“CPLLC”), if permitted, would be constructed as a 1650 Megawatt combined-cycle electric generation facility utilizing three combustion turbines fueled with natural gas. The plant would use supplementally-fired heat recovery steam generators and steam turbines. Air pollution control would include dry low nitrogen oxides burner technology, oxidation catalysts, and evaporative-inlet air cooling.1

Comments — Air Pollution

Combustion turbines are remarkable for their lack of efficiency in converting chemical energy to mechanical energy. Part of the output is lost the in compressor where intake air is compressed up to 30 atmospheres of pressure, before the fuel is burned. Accordingly, “More than 50 percent of the shaft horsepower is needed to drive the internal compressor and the balance of recovered shaft horsepower is available to drive an external load.”2

Combined cycle units that utilize heat recovery steam generators have an efficiency of 38 to 60 percent. This means that from 40 to 62 percent of the fuel burned produces no electric power. But air pollution and global warming gases are created by combustion whether power is produced or not.

1 CPLLC’s August 24, 2017 Application amends CPLLC’s April 5, 2017 Application, which replaced CPLLC’s initial March 13, 2017 Application. The August 24, 2017 filing also amends Exhibit I, Responses to 20 VAC 5-302- 20. On April 13, 2017, CPLLC filed supplemental Exhibit 4 to its Application, a map identifying the location of the proposed facility for notice purposes. On August 16, 2017, CPLLC filed supplemental Exhibit 5, a July 2017 Environmental Assessment of the Project Site. CPLLC identifies 1,650 MW as the net nominal generating capacity of the proposed Facility at 95 degrees Fahrenheit ambient temperature.
2 US EPA Air Pollution Emission Factors, AP-42, Stationary Gas Turbines, Section 3.1.2 Process Description

Moreover, how the turbines are operated affects air pollution emissions and efficiency. This may result in underestimated levels of toxic air pollution. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency:

Available emissions data indicate that the turbine’s operating load has a considerable effect on the resulting emission levels.

Gas turbines are typically operated at high loads (greater than or equal to 80 percent of rated capacity) to achieve maximum thermal efficiency and peak combustor zone flame temperatures. With reduced loads (lower than 80 percent), or during periods of frequent load changes, the combustor zone flame temperatures are expected to be lower than the high load temperatures, yielding lower thermal efficiencies and more incomplete combustion.3

The products of incomplete production—carbon monoxide and PM-10—increase with reduced operating loads. Before issuing this permit, the DEQ must assess the impacts of operating factors. Best available control technology for criteria pollutants and maximum achievable control technology for hazardous air pollutants are the standards which must be required for the Chickahominy Power plant.

Climate Change —-

The use of natural gas as a fuel is not an acceptable alternative to coal-fired power. The gas at the proposed Chickahominy plant would largely be supplied by hydrofracking. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists:

The drilling and extraction of natural gas from wells and its transportation in pipelines results in the leakage of methane, primary component of natural gas that is 34 times stronger than CO2 at trapping heat over a 100-year period and 86 times stronger over 20 years. Preliminary studies and field measurements show that these so-called “fugitive” methane emissions range from 1 to 9 percent of total life cycle emissions. Whether natural gas has lower life cycle greenhouse gas emissions than coal and oil depends on the assumed leakage rate, the global warming potential of methane over different time frames, the energy conversion efficiency, and other factors. One recent study found that methane losses must be kept below 3.2 percent for natural gas power plants to have lower life cycle emissions than new coal plants over short time frames of 20 years or fewer. And if burning natural gas in vehicles is to deliver even marginal benefits, methane losses must be kept below 1 percent and 1.6 percent compared with diesel fuel and gasoline, respectively. Technologies are available to reduce much of the leaking methane.4

Natural gas is not a “bridge fuel” because it does not reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases.

Environmental Justice —

The most recent available census data reveals that Charles City County with a total population of just over 7,000. The county’s population is 43.3% white, 45.9% African American and 6.9% Native American.5

Many studies have shown that hazardous and solid waste facilities, industrial plants, and power stations of many types have traditionally been sited disproportionately in communities of color and low-income neighborhoods. In addition to being aesthetically unappealing, power plants emit toxic air pollution which has a negative effect on the health and well-being of plant neighbors. Low-income communities often lack the economic or political clout to fight these facilities. A review of environmental justice and equity law by the American Bar Association and the Hastings College of Law revealed the following:
Poor communities of color breathe some of the least healthy air in the nation. For example, the nation’s worst air quality is in the South Coast Air Basin in Southern California, where studies have shown that Latinos are twice as likely as Whites to live within one mile of an EPA Toxic Release Inventory listed facility, and Latinos, African Americans, and Asian populations in the region face 50% higher cancer risks than Anglo-Americans in the region. Advocates nationwide argue that because poor people of color bear a disproportionate burden of air pollution, their communities should receive a disproportionate share of money and technology to reduce toxic emissions, and that laws like the Clean Air Act should close loopholes that allow older, polluting facilities to escape pollution control upgrades.6

Walter Fauntroy, District of Columbia Congressional Delegate to Congress, prompted the General Accounting Office to investigate environmental justice issues. The GAO released its findings that three-quarters of the hazardous waste landfill sites in eight southeastern states were located in primarily poor, African American and Latino communities. United Church of Christ’s Commission for Racial Justice published Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States, which revealed that race was the single most important factor in determining where toxic facilities were located, and that it was the intentional result of local, state and federal land-use policies.

4 Environmental Impacts of Natural Gas, http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/coal-and-other-fossil- fuels/environmental-impacts-of-natural-gas#bf-toc-1
5 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/charlescitycountyvirginia/PST045217
6 Environmental Justice for All: A Fifty State Survey of Legislation, Policies and Cases (fourth ed.), Steven Bonorris, Editor , Copyright © 2010 American Bar Association and Hastings College of the Law. With citation, any portion of this document may be copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes without prior permission. All other rights are reserved. http://www.abanet.org/environ/resources.html or http://www.uchastings.edu/cslgl

Dr. Robert Bullard published Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality, in which he showed the importance of race as a factor in the siting of polluting industrial facilities.7

Virginia Law Requires Equitable Development —

The Hastings study also focused on individual state law and found that Virginia statutes governing energy development articulate support for environmental justice. One of the stated objectives is “developing energy resources and facilities in a manner that does not impose a disproportionate adverse impact on economically disadvantaged or minority communities.”8

The Virginia statutes direct various state agencies to work together to create a comprehensive 10- year energy plan that reinforces the EJ and other objectives.9

The state’s 10-Year Plan, among other things, must include the following information: an analysis of siting of energy facilities to identify any disproportionate adverse impact of such activities on economically disadvantaged or minority communities. In considering which parcels of land are suitable for energy facility development, the agencies must consider, in addition to technical matters, “potential impacts to natural and historic resources and to economically disadvantaged or minority communities and compatibility with the local land use plan.”10

State law is clear in this matter. Todate, the county the Planning Commission and the State Corporation Commission have failed with respect to its statutory obligation to ensure that the Chickahominy Power plant does not have a disproportionate impact on Charles City County’s African American community. Unless and until state law in complied with, DEQ cannot approve this permit.

7 Natural Resources Defense Council, https://www.nrdc.org/stories/environmental-justice-movement
8 VA. CODE ANN. § 67-101 (2009); see also Id. at § 67-102, stating that to achieve the objectives of § 67-101, it shall be the policy of the Commonwealth to “ensure that development of new, or expansion of existing, energy resources or facilities does not have a disproportionate adverse impact on economically disadvantaged or minority communities.”
9 Id. at § 67-201
10 Id. at § 67-201(d)

Conclusion —

The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality lacks adequate regulatory basis for this facility and cannot issue a permit for the Chickahominy Power plant until the applicant demonstrates it has met all statutory requirements.

Respectfully submitted,
Louis A. Zeller, Executive Director,
Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League