As Santee Cooper’s board met monday morning in Myrtle Beach to get public feedback on a proposed rate increase, a group of local environmental activists gathered to protest both the increase and the utility’s plans for a new coal-fired power plant in Florence County.

Opponents of Santee Cooper’s Pee Dee Energy Campus gathered in Columbia on Wednesday to announce the findings of a new study.

An appeal has been filed asking the courts to rescind the air permits the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control issued to Santee Cooper in February for its planned coal-fired power plant, called the Pee Dee Energy Campus, in Florence County.

Local environmentalists have decided on their own to investigate the mercury content in the Great Pee Dee River to prove the proposed Santee Cooper coal-fired power plant to be a bad decision.

Local environmental activist Peggy Brown will present the film “Fighting Goliath: Texas Coal Wars” to the Pee Dee Group-Sierra Club on Thursday.

A majority of S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control Board members have voted against remanding the original air permit for the proposed coal-fired Pee Dee Energy Campus to be built in Kingsburg.

In the government equivalent of an intramural brawl, the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources ripped into Santee Cooper’s plan to build a new billion-dollar coal plant, saying it would pump “unacceptable volumes of toxic pollutants and greenhouse gases” into the air.

Santee Cooper recently launched a campaign, called Power Down, aimed at helping customers manage the rising cost of electricity.

The air permit approval from the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control for Santee Cooper’s proposed Pee Dee Energy Campus will undergo review Feb. 12.

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.

Santee Cooper said it will go above and beyond regulations to receive a water quality permit for its proposed Kingsburg plant, but opponents are raising concerns about levels of mercury in the Great Pee Dee River.

Hundreds of people packed the Hannah-Pamplico gymnasium Thursday to make their voices heard about Santee Cooper’s proposed Pee Dee Energy Campus.

Florence County Council at its Thursday meeting in Lake City will hear specific solutions for improving air quality and hold public hearings on a new county museum board.

State environmental officials are recommending that a coal-fired power plant proposed for the Pee Dee be limited in the amount of mercury it can release into the air.

Residents from across Darlington County attended a meeting Monday night at Mayo High School for Math, Science & Technology to learn more about a proposed coal-fired power plant.