Dominion Virginia Power won a one-year extension that will allow it to keep running the coal-fired units at its Yorktown power plant.
The company’s earlier exemption from new federal standards limiting the amount of mercury and other poisonous gases that coal- and oil-burning plants may emit expired last weekend.
The extension from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency runs through April 15, 2017.
The EPA extension cannot be renewed after that that date, Dominion said.
“The action will help ensure electric service reliability for the Peninsula region while the company pursues approval to build the Surry-Skiffes Creek electric transmission line,” spokeswoman Bonita Billingsley Harris said in an email.
That line, which would cross the James River between Surry County, just to the south of Hog Island, and James City County near Skiffes Creek, has stirred strong opposition from historic preservation and environmental groups.
They say the line would blight a historic view of the James River as the first settlers of Jamestown saw it and would interfere with wildlife in and next to the river.
Dominion says it needs the line because of growing demand for electricity on the Peninsula. The company says it is not economic or practicable to upgrade or convert the Yorktown plant to emit fewer toxins.
Dominion’s 60-year-old Yorktown power station emits 45 pounds of mercury a year, 92 pounds of lead compounds and 420,000 pounds of hydrochloric acid. Dominion runs the plant only when demand for electricity is high, in the summer and winter,
The company says without the line, the shutdown of the Yorktown plants means the Peninsula could see rolling blackouts beginning next spring.
Opponents say that is a scare tactic. They complain that regulators, including the State Corporation Commission, which has approved the Surry-Skiffes Creek line, and the Army Corps of Engineers, which is reviewing the project now, are too reliant on Dominion’s studies and forecasts.
Dominion needs a permit from the Corps of Engineers before it can build the line. The Corps’ review includes looking at the impact of the line, and any alternatives, on wetlands, wildlife and historic resources. It must also consider the impact on navigation on the James River.
In a preliminary finding, the Corps has said that the Surry-Skiffes Creek line or another route running through Charles City and James City County are the only viable alternatives to bring additional power to the Peninsula.
The overland route would carry power lines within 500 feet of 1,130 homes, require clearing 420 acres of woods and cross 7.5 miles of wetlands.
The Corps said alternatives proposed by opponents, ranging from underwater connections to construction of new power plants to conversion of Yorktown to burn natural gas are not viable.
The Virginia Marine Resources Commission must also approve the line, while James City County’s Board of Supervisors must approve a switching station near Skiffes Creek to connect the line to the rest of the Peninsula’s electric grid.
Ress can be reached by telephone at 757-247-4535.
