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Residents and environmental groups urge thorough review of proposed Kennedy's gas plant, citing health, flood and procedural risks
Summary
Residents of Kennedy's, conservation groups and nearby community members told a Senate subcommittee that a proposed large combined‑cycle gas plant at Kennedy's could worsen local air pollution, flood risk and economic inequities. They asked lawmakers not to pre‑approve siting and to require full permitting review and transparent cost estimates.
Residents and environmental groups told a South Carolina Senate energy subcommittee that a proposed large gas plant at Kennedy's and related pipeline work require full environmental review and tighter procedural protections.
Robbie Maynor, policy staff with the Southern Environmental Law Center and a resident of Kennedy's, said he lives about "2 miles upstream from the proposed site of the new gas plant" and urged caution. "Candies is a very small rural community located along the Edisto River... People have lived in this community for over 150 years," Maynor said, asking the subcommittee not to treat an IRP entry as a siting endorsement.
Why it matters: Witnesses said a mega‑plant at Kennedy's would bring air emissions, compressor‑station impacts and pipeline expansion that could affect public health and local natural resources in a historically marginalized community. They urged that permitting clocks start only when applications are complete and opposed automatic approvals if an agency misses a deadline.
Details and evidence cited
- Local context: Witnesses described Kennedy's as in the center of the ACE Basin, near the Edisto River and Springtown United Methodist Church, with a history of community exposure to a now‑retired coal plant and to Interstate 95 traffic.
- Procedural concerns: Maynor and others urged that permitting review start only after a complete application is filed and opposed language that would allow automatic approval if agencies do not decide within a set time. Maynor said the Public Service Commission's IRP orders "cannot be viewed as tacit approval of the project, nor can it be viewed as an incremental step towards approval of the project."
- Inconsistent planning data: Maynor noted that Dominion and Santee Cooper IRPs did not use identical cost, size or location assumptions for a combined‑cycle plant at Kennedy's, and he warned legislators against statutory endorsement of a specific mega facility without a full comparisons of alternatives.
- Environmental justice and flood risk: Taylor Allred of the Coastal Conservation League told senators the Kennedy's site "floods there" and is "in the middle of a marginalized community that's suffered some health effects of 50 years of having a coal plant in their community," arguing those discrete site risks favor a diversified resource approach rather than concentrating capacity in a single large station.
Quotes
- Robbie Maynor (Southern Environmental Law Center and Kennedy's resident): "Utilities still have not shared exactly how much it's gonna cost ratepayers to build this mega facility at Kennedy's, nor have they revealed the exact location or cost of the pipeline expansion needed to serve it."
- Taylor Allred (Coastal Conservation League): "The biggest risk is just putting all your eggs in 1 basket with 1 gigantic power plant in 1 site that's got its own discrete risks rather than diversifying."
What senators asked and next steps
Committee members asked witnesses for studies and said the subcommittee would continue stakeholder engagement. Witnesses asked the Legislature not to shortcut siting reviews or to enshrine a specific site or size in statute without full evidentiary review and transparent cost estimates.
Ending
Local residents and environmental groups urged the subcommittee to require complete permitting information and independent review before any statutory action that would ease construction or limit regulatory review of a large plant at Kennedy's.
