Comments on Longview
Power, Past, Present, and Future; MVCAC, March 12, 2019
The Mon Valley Clean Air Coalition was an outgrowth of the
issues raised by Longview Power and its impacts on the regional environment
including the public health, air quality, roads, etc.
We participated in the Public Hearing on the PILOT Agreement
held in ca. 2003 here in the Court House.
We asked representatives of Longview if they would put into writing
their promise to use WV coal, their promise to refrain from consuming water
from the Mon River for cooling water, and their promise to be a “Zero Discharge”
facility. We learned early on that all three of these promises were broken.
Longview elected to use coal from Pennsylvania, although
they did use a conveyor belt to avoid extreme truck traffic on the local roads
until recently. Trucking of coal there is a severe problem.
Longview decided to use Mon River water in their cooling and
other operations, and installed Reverse Osmosis units to purify the river
water.
Longview, from the beginning has not been a “Zero Discharge”
facility. Their stacks emit large
volumes of flue gases containing thousands of tons of carbon dioxide and many
other chemicals in lesser quantities.
The fly ash and bottom ash are waste discharges from the plant and go
into the local environment. Their liquid
waste pipeline flows north into Pennsylvania and down into abandoned mine
operations, contaminating the water underground.
At the present time, the 300 (plus) heavy diesel trucks per
day transport Pennsylvania coal from a Mon River dock up and over a steep
unstable county road, thru the Ft. Martin community, up to the Longview Power
plant. This road is the subject of severe
damages due to the high level of truck traffic and the dangerous condition for
auto drivers. Alternatively, the shorter and relatively flat road from the
Cumberland Mine would bring this coal directly south from Pennsylvania to the
power plant.
The vapor plume from the Longview power plant continues to
obscure the western sky for the University High School and all those residents
along Bakers Ridge Road, Pt. Marion Road, Stewartstown and the northern Cheat
Lake area.
Longview is now proposing to construct a natural-gas-fired power
plant in Ft. Martin, and add a solar panel farm nearby. The existing PILOT Agreement now in force represents
a public agreement arrived at thru a process of limited public participation. Any modification to this agreement or
adoption of any new agreements needs to be developed with the maximum of
openness and public participation. A potential tax statement exclusive of a
PILOT is a prerequisite.
Greenhouse gases, global warming and climate change can no
longer be ignored. The burning of methane, ethane and/or other hydrocarbons
must be offset with carbon taxes or other schemes. And, every effort should be
made to locate the solar panels in West Virginia, not Pennsylvania.
Duane G. Nichols, Coordinator, Mon Valley Clean Air
Coalition, Morgantown, WV 26508
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