Thursday, December 27, 2007

Friends II

Another week, another group of Southerners fighting the good fight against the national push to saddle folks with dirty coal plants.

This time we return to Georgia, where drought is forcing the state to become more efficient. But I don't have to tell you that the right hand is not always aware of what the left is up to. In this case, http://www.friendsofthechattahoochee.org/">Friends of the Chattahoochee, Environment Georgia, GreenLaw and the Georgia Sierra Club are trying to stop the Georgia Environmental Protection Division from issuing its final permit for the "Longleaf Energy Station," a friendly-sounding euphemism for two profoundly dirty 600 MW coal units planned for southwest Georgia, near the Florida border and the Great Okefenokee swamp . A summary of recent developments in this fight is available from an 11/30/07 article in the Albany Herald.

From the No New Coal for Georgia website:

The project will consume 20 million gallons of water from the Chattahoochee River annually, emit tons of toxic pollutants such as mercury, nitrogen oxice and sulfur into our air, and only employ 100-150 people in the county.
Its the same everywhere, isn't it? Utilities that think they're doing the right thing by building out-dated plants in economically depressed areas, while ignoring new technologies, alternative techniques, and changing times. They're not doing the right thing, and groups like No New Coal for Georgia are working hard to point that out for the benefit of the Peach State.



7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Georgia Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company, imports its foreign slave labor coal from Drummond Coal through the Kinder Morgan Terminal in Charleston, SC.

Funny how these good ol boys set this scheme up, SC gets the coal dust and Southern Company gets cheap coal at Charlestons expense.

Down with Big Coal!

Anonymous said...

The Longleaf plant is a state of the art clean coal plant.

I also need to point out that this plant does not plan to withdraw any additional water from the Chattahoochee River. To suggest otherwise is perpetuating lies and misinformation.

In fact, this plant will use a water recycling plan and use waste water from a nearby Georgia Pacific Paper plant as it's cooling water supply. Quoting their letter to the USFWS here - see page 3 -

http://georgiaair.net/airpermit/psd/dockets/longleaf/facilitydocs/responsetofishandwildlife_3122007.pdf

"First, LEA implemented an innovative water recycling program through its use of treated effluent from the Georgia Pacific paper mill located just south of the Project. Under expected normal operating scenarios, no water will be withdrawn from the Chattahoochee
River for use at the Facility. Instead, the Facility will rely solely on Georgia Pacific’s cooling water and treated process wastewater to meet its water needs. On those rare occasions when the Facility will not be able to meet its needs with Georgia Pacific’s effluent,EPD has stated in LEA’s draft that the combined withdrawal for the Facility and Georgia Pacific will not exceed the 144 MGD withdrawal that Georgia Pacific is allowed to use. Consequently, the Facility’s water needs will not result in a net increase of water withdrawal from the Chattahoochee River."

Sounds like a great clean coal facility!

Hey, Mike, where are you dude?

Anonymous said...

Although the plan is to use
recycled process water from Georgia Pacific, there is no prohibition on using river water if process water is unavailable or does not meet Longleaf's quality criteria.

Such use of the river
water will cause a significant impact on aquatic species and those depending on the water supply down stream.

As far as "clean coal" the only way it will ever be clean is if it is never built.

Why should anyone trust big Coal, we see the effect "clean coal" has on the residents and their way of life as their mountains are torn apart to get at this "clean coal".

Anonymous said...

Thanks for an intelligent response!! Mike is not the only responder!

You are correct that there is no prohibition on Longleaf using the river, but I am also correct that there is no increase in water withdrawals from the river. Note from my link here:

"On those rare occasions when the Facility will not be able to meet its needs with Georgia Pacific’s effluent,EPD has stated in LEA’s draft that the combined withdrawal for the Facility and Georgia Pacific will not exceed the 144 MGD withdrawal that Georgia Pacific is allowed to use."

Therefore, also quoting above:

"... the Facility’s water needs will not result in a net increase of water withdrawal from the Chattahoochee River."

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