The soap opera of the permit process for the proposed Holcomb 2 power plant continues. The Sierra Club is suing the Kansas Department of Health and Environment for approving Sunflower Electric Corp.'s permit request to build a 895-megawatt coal-fired power plant near the town of Holcomb.
The plant shouldn't be built as planned, the group says, because the permit straight-up doesn't require the plant to be as environmentally conscious as it should be.
Approval for the plant faced pretty stiff objection as it wound its way
through the state's regulatory process. It became blatantly
controversial in November when KDHE head Roderick Bremby, who had
stymied the permit approval in 2007, was quickly and quietly shown the
door by then-Gov. Mark Parkinson. After KDHE staff worked overtime
through the holiday season, to review the permit request and the 6,000
public comments, to clear it before the end of the year when new
and stricter EPA rules went into effect, the permit was green-lighted in
mid-December.
The Sierra Club is now claiming that by fast-tracking the permit,
officials failed to put common-sense (and modern) restrictions and
guidelines into its approval. Namely, they say, the permit doesn't set
modern limits on hazardous air pollutants, specifically mercury and
sulfur dioxide. KDHE also used an electricity industry group's estimate
for how much emissions the plant will produce, Sierra Club says. Shockingly,
the industry group's numbers are a lot lower than the Environmental
Protection Agency's estimates.
Sierra Club spokesperson Stephanie Cole says the great irony of the Holcomb 2 soap opera is that Sunflower might have to build according to the newer, more stringent EPA
rules anyway. The reason: Sunflower simply isn't ready to build, and the
permit requires construction to begin within 18 months.
"All indications are that they don't have intentions to start
construction within the required 18-month timeline," Cole says. The
reason permits expire, she explains, is so electric companies have to
build plants with current emission controls and technology.
"I think what they're doing is, they wanted to lock in a permit before
January 2 so they would be grandfathered and not have to abide by the new
greenhouse regulations or any of the other regulations coming down the
pike," Cole says. Sometimes, permit holders can get extensions, but
environmental agencies aren't particularly eager to issue them.
"But in this case ... I don't see [KDHE] granting endless extension requests
because it's become so obvious what they're doing," Cole says.
Cole points out that Sunflower was granted a permit
in 2002 but let it expire without breaking ground on a plant.
After all of this melodrama and opposition, "I bet they're kicking
themselves now," she says.
The Sierra
Club is now awaiting KDHE's response to the appeal.
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