A strangely timed public hearing and an incomplete application are just two of the anomalies critics see with the air pollution permit Georgia Power is seeking for the expansion of Plant McIntosh in Effingham County.
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The monopoly utility is planning for two new gas- and oil-fired units at the Rincon site on the Savannah River to help power the surge of data centers across the state, including Effingham’s proposed massive 3.2 gigawatt OpenAI facility.
About a dozen people offered public comment at a 6 p.m. virtual public hearing on Aug. 14, a Friday.
Tonya Bonitatibus, the Savannah Riverkeeper, called attention to the hearing’s scheduling.
“First and foremost, the timing of this hearing is nonsense,” she said. “I’m not sure why Friday from six to eight seems like a great idea, but it’s not. And I think that most of the community would definitely appreciate this not being scheduled at this time again.”
Georgia Environmental Protection Division spokeswoman Sara Lips did not respond to a request from The Current for comment on the timing of the virtual public hearing.
Bonitatibus offered substantive comments on the application itself, too, pointing out that the power plant’s location upstream from a planned drinking water intake for Effingham County could prove problematic.
“I think there is a recipe for increasing the risk to Effingham’s drinking water and Savannah’s from a particulate standpoint,” she said.
Advocates from other environmental groups say the plant will degrade air quality in the area. They zeroed in on the draft permit’s missing or questionable information.
“Especially egregious was the fact that Georgia Power admitted to EPD that its current plans do not include Unit 13, meaning that one half of the entire project is speculative,” said William Snow, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. “So speculative that Georgia Power wrote ‘TBD’ on mandatory forms where detailed manufacturer and design information were supposed to go. This lack of information has made it impossible for EPD to really know whether or not Unit 13 will comply with the Clean Air Act.”
(Find SELC’s written comments, signed by 17 community groups, here.)
Jeff Beauvais, the north coast advocate for One Hundred Miles, called out the permit’s baseline air modeling as “foundationally flawed.”
“Georgia Power used both outdated and geographically distant air monitors as the pre-construction monitoring data sources. Relying on decade-old air monitoring data from stations over 100 miles away is entirely insufficient to establish a pre-construction baseline of ambient air quality for the area,” he said. “That’s especially true when other emitters such as Georgia Pacific and DRT are within four miles of Plant McIntosh.”
EPD officials do not respond to comments during a hearing. Oral and written comments are evaluated, however, and EPD’s responses will be included in the permit narratives.
The Tide brings regular notes and observations on news and events by The Current staff.
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