Caving to Santee Cooper, DHEC Board Approves Air Permit

Despite calls this week from both Governor Mark Sanford and the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, the DHEC Board of Directors today approved an air permit for Santee Cooper's Pee Dee coal plant. Over 100 citizens showed up at DHEC's offices to oppose the permit.

The permit will allow the coal plant to emit annually 93 pounds of toxic mercury as well as thousands of tons of ozone-forming nitrous oxide, soot-forming sulfur dioxide, and lung-damaging particulate matter. It will also emit annually 10 million tons of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas most responsible for climate change.

In light of recent moves at the federal level to increase limits on mercury, plant opponents wondered why the DEHC Board would approve an air permit that is already unlawful according to recent court rulings.

"At 30 times the mercury level already achieved by other coal plants, the Pee Dee plant fails the national standard for achieving best available control technology," stated Susan Corbett, Chapter Chair of the Sierra Club of South Carolina. "Changes at the federal level have already rendered this permit unlawful."

Conservation and citizen groups intervened in December, 2008 to challenge the air permit. In addition to concerns about the environmental and health threats of the plant, interveners cited the recent economic downturn as legitimate grounds for revisiting Santee Cooper's inflated demand forecasts.

"DHEC Board members were well within their rights to ask for a thorough analysis of the need for the plant, but chose not to," observed Sierra Club Conservation Chair John Hartz. "If the DHEC Board will not stand up for South Carolina rate payers, who will?"

Just yesterday, Governor Mark Sanford cited slumping power sales at Santee Cooper and the statewide slowdown in new home construction as among his reasons for opposing the plant. Slumping power sales has not prevented Santee Cooper from spending over $500,000 in rate payer dollars to tout the plant. In his concluding comments before the Board vote, Board member Edwin Cooper criticized unwanted robo calls in favor of the plant for crashing his business's phone lines.

"With each passing week we read about another state saying no to coal," observed Cynthia Powell, a Myrtle Beach resident and customer of Santee Cooper. "Is DHEC really going to let South Carolina hitch its rusty cart to this dead horse?"

The move by DHEC's Board will undoubtedly renew calls for reform of the agency, which has been under intense scrutiny in recent months for lax oversight, lack of accountability, and failing to protect the public health.

According to Blan Holman, senior attorney with Southern Environmental Law Center, "The majority of the board expressed serious skepticism about the wisdom of building a coal plant in this day and age. As this is an unlawful permit we will appeal."