Advisory board asked to re-examine Pee Dee Energy Campus

The S.C. Small Business Chamber of Commerce and the S.C. Wildlife Federation met Wednesday in Columbia to ask the Santee Cooper Advisory Board to take a closer look at plans forSantee Cooper’s proposed Pee Dee Energy Campus.

The $1.25 billion project, a 600-megawatt coal-fired generation facility, is proposed to be located on a 2,709-acre tract along the Great Pee Dee River in Kingsburg.

The two groups converged on the statehouse to present Gov. Mark Sanford and members of the Santee Cooper Advisory Board with a request to take a second, closer look at the plans for the facility and consider the opinions of community members when making their decision. The advisory board consists of the governor, secretary of state, treasurer, attorney general and comptroller general for South Carolina.

Frank Knapp, president and CEO of the S.C. Small Business Chamber of Commerce, said he doesn’t think Santee Cooper has any third party oversight.

“These utilities are monopolies and (in the United States) we regulate monopolies, but we don’t regulate Santee Cooper,” Knapp said. “We don’t think that lends itself to accountability or transparency.”

The S.C. Small Business Chamber of Commerce has been involved in the issue of cost-effective energy for small business owners in South Carolina for quite a few years.

“Santee Cooper’s decisions, of course the decisions they make are going to affect a large swatch of South Carolina, and so it also affects small businesses and small business owners,” Knapp said.

Making Santee Cooper answerable to the regulatory authority of the S.C. Public Service Commission would require some difficult legal maneuvering. But, Knapp said, it would be nearly as effective if the Santee Cooper Advisory Board functioned in a manner similar to that of the Public Service Commission.

“We know the process works, but there is no process for Santee Cooper,” Knapp said.

The final cost for Santee Cooper customers was estimated in the joint statement as being roughly $200 million per year. Those numbers were based on the cost of possible future carbon control legislation.

Santee Cooper spokeswoman Laura Varn said a lot of the information being circulated about the proposed coal plant is wrong and inflammatory.

She said the claim that the final cost of the plant will exceed $4 billion is untrue.

“My only guess is that they are taking this $1.25 billion and doubling it for a second unit, but we’re not planning to add a second unit,” Varn said. “I think they are talking about some hypotheticals.”

While the company did apply for two permits, it has no intention of utilizing the second permit to build a second coal-fired facility, she said.

“We are securing two permits, but we are only building one (unit),” Varn said. “We are building a nuclear facility in 2016 with SCE&G.”

Many of the complaints topping the list from opponents of the coal plant include the cost of future carbon control technology in the event new legislation is passed, making environmental standards more stringent, Varn said.

The clean air environmental control technology being used in the Pee Dee Energy Campus will make it one of the cleanest coal-burning plants in the country upon completion, she said.

“Our responsibilities are to operate with the regulations that are in place,” she said. “We are keenly aware of the climate discussions taking place, but we cannot build based on what might be passed in the future. We will certainly comply with any regulations once they are put in place, as we do with everything.”

Through this statement, Santee Cooper “has made the most persuasive case for oversight I have seen yet,” S.C. Wildlife Federation Executive Director Ben Gregg said. “Federal carbon legislation is a big train roaring down the track, and few doubt it will be in effect with in a year or two.  No business and no government agency that refuses to make sound judgments based on future likelihoods is doomed.

“This statement should be of great concern to the taxpayers of South Carolina,” he said. “Santee Cooper needs to realize the days of spewing tons and tons of carbon into the air without having to pay are coming to a rapid close.”

S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control spokesman Adam Myrick said the assertion made by the two groups that “DHEC warned that the Pee Dee plant’s pollution will single-handedly consume practically all of the clean air cushion reserved for future economic growth in Florence,” is not true.

“That is a false statement,” Myrick said. “DHEC has not said this and, in fact, has met with representatives of the environmental stakeholders to try to help them understand the very complex issue of the prevention of significant deterioration (PSD) increment.”

To see the joint statement made by the two groups, the letter they sent to Gov. Mark Sanford, a statement from the S.C. Chamber of Commerce President Otis B. Rawl Jr. or DHEC’s response to the “clean air cushion” comment, click here.