{"id":27493,"date":"2025-10-09T09:26:32","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T13:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fluvannareview.com\/?p=27493"},"modified":"2025-10-09T09:26:36","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T13:26:36","slug":"residents-blast-tenaska-plans-as-supervisors-remember-mozell-booker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fluvannareview.com\/2025\/10\/residents-blast-tenaska-plans-as-supervisors-remember-mozell-booker\/","title":{"rendered":"Residents blast Tenaska plans as supervisors remember Mozell Booker"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

The plan by Nebraska-based energy giant Tenaska to build a second massive natural-gas fired electrical plant on Branch Road in the Cunningham district dominated public comments at the start of the Board of Supervisors meeting on Wednesday night (Oct. 1). \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Multiple speakers urged the board to make sure the public was informed about the Tenaska project, asking the supervisors to hold a countywide town hall or launch an official information webpage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is the biggest company in Fluvanna\u2019s history, and nobody knows about it,\u201d said Calvin Hickman, former public works department head. He criticized what he called a lack of transparency and public notice. \u201cYou\u2019re supposed to be working for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKeep Fluvanna informed,\u201d he said. \u201cWe can make good decisions. We can make good decisions together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gary France echoed that frustration. \u201cI only found out about this a week ago. I mean, this is ridiculous. Absurd.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the town hall hosted by supervisors Chris Fairchild and Mike Goad, \u201cwe heard that there would not be an environmental impact statement available until well after the zoning approval,\u201d he noted. \u201cIn my strong opinion, that is regrettably backwards.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jennifer Kingrea Ruffner said the town hall had shown the anger, frustration, and pain already surrounding the company. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou heard valid concerns from neighbors who’ve been ignored or dismissed by Tenaska,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd you saw Tenaska\u2019s response, often dismissive, relying on semantics versus real answers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She listed off the potential health impacts of two natural-gas-fired plants operating close to the county\u2019s most densely populated areas. \u201cTenaska keeps saying they are compliant, but compliance is not the same thing as safe,\u201d she said. \u201cCigarettes are legal and regulated, but they\u2019re still the leading cause of preventable death.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fairchild, who represents Cunningham, said he had spoken with Tenaska officials after the town hall on Tuesday night, and they had told him they would not be making any mechanical changes to reduce noise at the original plant, nor would they take further steps to mitigate noise levels from a second, larger plant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Worst, he had learned from an engineer from Tenaska that the two plants likely would not fire up in unison, but run on their own schedules, meaning there could be \u201c a 50 percent increase in noise, in how much you\u2019re going to hear it during the day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tenaska will need a majority vote from both the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors on several special use permits before the project can move forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

REMEMBERING MRS. BOOKER<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supervisors paused to note the passing of Mozell Booker, who represented Fork Union for 16 years before retiring at the end of 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Booker, 83, passed away on Sept. 30 at her home in Fork Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her husband, Jerome Booker, also served on the Board of Supervisors for many years before his death in 2004. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI will go out on a limb and say, I bet I know who was standing at the gate to meet her,\u201d said Columbia Supervisor Mike Sheridan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They will soon issue a resolution honoring her service to the county over more than four decades, and Palmyra Superintendent Tim Hodge proposed renaming the Fork Union Community Center the \u201cMozell and Jerome Booker Community Center.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mike Goad, who currently represents Fork Union, said he was in favor of having a conversation about a way to honor her, perhaps in consultation with her family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Heather MichonCorrespondent The plan by Nebraska-based energy giant Tenaska to build a second massive natural-gas fired electrical plant on Branch Road in the Cunningham district dominated public comments at the start of the Board of Supervisors meeting on Wednesday night (Oct. 1). \u00a0 Multiple speakers urged the board to make sure the public was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":27495,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27493","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\/27493"}],"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=27493"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fluvannareview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27496,"href":"https:\/\/fluvannareview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27493\/revisions\/27496"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fluvannareview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fluvannareview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fluvannareview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fluvannareview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}