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DEQ briefs board on controversial permits; retiring director highlights long-term air-quality gains
Summary
DEQ staff updated the board on three controversial permit reviews — Dominion's Chesterfield Energy Reliability Center, Mountain Valley Pipeline's Swan Compressor Station, and an Amazon greenfield data center — and Director Mike Dowd delivered retirement remarks highlighting declines in key pollutants since 2008.
Mike Dowd, director of the Renewable Energy Division at the Department of Environmental Quality, briefed the State Air Pollution Control Board on three pending controversial permits and delivered his final directors report before retiring.
Dowd said the first permit is the PSD major-source application for Dominions Chesterfield Energy Reliability Center (CERC), a proposed 1-gigawatt, four-unit simple-cycle natural-gas turbine facility sited on the existing Chesterfield power-station site. DEQ posted a response-to-comments document before Thanksgiving and will hold the statutorily required response-to-comments public hearing on Dec. 10 at Thomas Dale High School; Dowd said DEQ will determine whether to issue the permit after that hearing.
The second item Dowd described is a minor-source application for Mountain Valley Pipelines Swan Compressor Station in Montgomery County, currently under review in DEQs Blue Ridge Regional Office. The proposed project would include primarily two natural-gas-fired turbines rated at 52,500 brake horsepower and one turbine rated at 3,200 brake horsepower; DEQ summarized proposed controls including particulate filters, selective catalytic reduction (SCR) for NOx, and oxidation catalyst for VOCs and CO, with proposed emissions of roughly 44 tons/year of PM2.5 and 55 tons/year of NOx.
The third permit is a state major permit application for a proposed Amazon data center in Caroline County. DEQ said it is the first state major air permit application the agency has received for a greenfield data center; the project would include 306 tier-2 backup generators controlled by SCR with proposed emissions of about 10 tons/year of PM2.5 and 235 tons/year of NOx.
Dowd then presented three charts showing long-term declines in total emissions (PM2.5, SO2, NOx, VOCs) and a reduction in high-ozone days since 2008. He said, for the first time in recent years, all Virginia air monitors have recorded ambient concentrations of all criteria pollutants below EPAs National Ambient Air Quality Standards. Dowd reflected on 17 years in leadership and said climate-driven new electricity demand (for example from data-center growth and new technologies) will present significant challenges.
Board members thanked Dowd for his service; he confirmed he will retire at the end of the year. No public speakers signed up for the public forum and the board adjourned later in the meeting.
