{"id":27458,"date":"2025-10-01T21:27:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T01:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fluvannareview.com\/?p=27458"},"modified":"2025-10-01T21:27:02","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T01:27:02","slug":"pollution-for-fluvanna-power-for-data-centers-critics-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fluvannareview.com\/2025\/10\/pollution-for-fluvanna-power-for-data-centers-critics-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Pollution for Fluvanna, power for data centers, critics say"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Community meeting looks at air, water risks of new Tenaska plant<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Heather Michon
Correspondent<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than 70 Fluvanna County residents gathered at Cunningham Creek Winery on Monday evening (Sept. 22) \u2013 not to talk about wine, but about power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In August, Nebraska-based Tenaska, one of the nation\u2019s largest privately-held energy companies, unveiled its plans to build a 1,540-megawatt natural gas\u2013fueled power plant alongside its existing Branch Road facility, promoting the $2 billion project as both a way to meet Virginia\u2019s soaring demand for electricity and as a significant source of tax revenue for Fluvanna County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But many in the crowd felt Tenaska had raised far more questions than it answered, particularly when it came to the environmental impacts of having not one, but two massive gas-fired power plants in operation at the heart of the county.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How will the plants impact local air quality? What will be the health impact for county residents? What are the impacts of withdrawing millions of gallons of water from the James River and discharging millions of gallons of heated water into the Rivanna?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And why, they wondered, should rural Fluvanna bear the potential environmental costs of a plant that will primarily feed Virginia\u2019s booming data center industry?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey get to enjoy the power up in Northern Virginia, and I guess we get to enjoy the pollution that comes along with generating that power,\u201d said Josephus Allmond, a staff attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center and resident of Troy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Power and particulates<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the Expedition Generation plant is built right next door to Tenaska\u2019s existing 1,000-megawatt plant, \u201cthis will be the largest site of gas generation in Virginia,\u201d he said. \u201cI want people to sit with that for a moment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Natural gas plants are often described as cleaner than coal, but burning gas still releases nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, and fine particulate matter \u2014 pollutants long associated with respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, as well as premature death. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Allmond said he had submitted a question during the Tenaska meeting, asking company representatives to explain to him how many tons of particulates his infant son would be exposed to if the plant were built.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut they didn\u2019t answer the question I wrote,\u201d he said. \u201cIn fact, they haven’t even done any work on what the emissions would be from the largest gas generation facility in the Commonwealth.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he ran the numbers himself, based on publicly available data, he estimated that the new plant would emit 143 tons of PM2.5 annually. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

PM2.5 are tiny airborne particulates, about 1\/30th the width of a human hair, that are closely associated with health impacts from pollution from gas generation plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jessica Sims, field coordinator for Appalachian Voices, said her group is seeing the same patterns throughout rural Virginia. Developers, she said, are building gas projects on speculation, gambling that growth will justify them later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCompanies are kind of excited to think about, well, we can build this, and they will come. Sort of a \u2018Field of Dreams,\u2019 but with pollution.\u201d  She urged residents to demand full disclosure from Tenaska and from county officials before the project moves forward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf they\u2019re trying to bring this project to your community, you deserve to know what its impacts  are going to be in full,\u201d she said. \u201cNot just the good parts, not just the sound study that they did, but how much pollution they want to put into the air.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep talking<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the Planning Commission expected to take up key local permits for the plant within a matter of weeks, some in the audience wondered how much the public could do to slow down the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some recall the last time Tensaka came to town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe did this,\u201d said one audience member. \u201c2002, 2003, 2004. We had protests. We signed petitions. We stood on the side of the road with signs. We lost that battle. How do we not lose this one?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sims said there was no one playbook for slowing or stopping a project. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Pittsylvania County, for example, community members had successfully opposed a new power plant by \u201cmaking it visible everywhere, and in creative ways,\u201d such as utilizing floats at a local parade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was talking to everybody at any kind of community gathering there is, and just having a presence,\u201d though flyers, mailers, media outreach, t-shirts, signs, anything that keeps the conversation going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She also said that a \u201cconsistent, respectful barrage\u201d at local officials can be a powerful technique. In Pittsylvania, everywhere commissioners and supervisors went, \u201cthey heard about it, they heard about it, they heard about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think that sort of sustained pressure we have seen win,\u201d she said. \u201cSometimes it\u2019s a short fight. Sometimes it’s a really long fight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next steps<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event was hosted by the Fluvanna Horizons Alliance, a new grassroots coalition of local and regional groups advocating for greater transparency regarding Tenaska\u2019s plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur community is entitled to clear, accountable answers on how Tenaska intends to protect our air and water,\u201d said Community Voices founder Sharon Harris, who coordinated the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Residents will have the opportunity to share their thoughts and concerns during the Planning Commission’s public hearings on three Tenaska zoning applications at its monthly meeting on Oct. 7 at 7 p.m. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The meeting will be held at the Fluvanna County courthouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Residents can also submit their thoughts on the county\u2019s My Two Cents webpage at https:\/\/www.fluvannacounty.org\/bos\/webform\/my-two-cents<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Community meeting looks at air, water risks of new Tenaska plant By Heather MichonCorrespondent More than 70 Fluvanna County residents gathered at Cunningham Creek Winery on Monday evening (Sept. 22) \u2013 not to talk about wine, but about power. In August, Nebraska-based Tenaska, one of the nation\u2019s largest privately-held energy companies, unveiled its plans to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":27256,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","category-latest_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fluvannareview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27458"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fluvannareview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fluvannareview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fluvannareview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fluvannareview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27458"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fluvannareview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27459,"href":"https:\/\/fluvannareview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27458\/revisions\/27459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fluvannareview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fluvannareview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fluvannareview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fluvannareview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}