Residents urge Fluvanna planning commission to require independent review, stronger noise and traffic controls for Tenaska proposal

During two public comment periods at the Jan. 6 meeting, resident Ray Bassi urged the Fluvanna County Planning Commission to require independent legal and technical review of the Tenaska project and to adopt enforceable, verifiable conditions rather than relying on applicant‑provided studies.

Bassi warned that inadequate independent review creates exposure to litigation and cited Friends of Buckingham v. State Air Pollution Control Board and related litigation over a compressor station in Buckingham County and Union Hill as a cautionary example. He said the county’s draft special use conditions lean on Tenaska’s consultants and adopt an L90 noise metric that he described as inadequate because it ignores loud events residents experience.

Bassi recommended that the commission adopt both hourly average noise limits (LAeq over one hour) and maximum single‑event limits (Lmax), and proposed specific numeric limits for combined site operation: an hourly LEQ not to exceed 55 dB during the day and 50 dB at night at the Tenaska property boundary, with Lmax caps of 65 dB day and 60 dB night; residential receptor LAeq limits of 50 dB. He also called for continuous, Class 1 monitoring with multiple permanent monitors on the facility boundary and at county‑approved residential locations to ensure enforceability.

Bassi additionally raised concerns about relying on applicant traffic and noise modeling and urged enforceable construction traffic routes, school‑hour restrictions, staged parking shuttles and financial assurances (road bond) to assure compliance. He warned the county could be left managing roughly 800 workers at peak and about 1,600 round‑trip vehicle movements per day without enforceable mitigation.

Commissioners did not adopt new conditions during the meeting; public comment was recorded and will be part of the hearing record.