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In Fluvanna County, residents have been discussing a proposal for a second gas-fired power plant that Tenaska, a Nebraska-based energy company, wants to build as an expansion of its existing facility near Scottsville.

And while the county’s Planning Commission recommended against a permit for the project earlier this week, the matter will go before the Board of Supervisors during their March meeting for final consideration.

In the last couple of months, the county’s Planning Commission was asked to make multiple recommendations regarding the proposed plant, none of which grant or deny final approval. The Fluvanna Board of Supervisors will consider all of them when it decides next month whether to allow the project to move ahead.

At its most recent Feb. 24 special meeting, the Planning Commission took two votes.

The first was on whether to recommend a change to the county ordinance to allow construction of smokestacks that are up to 230 feet in height. This, Tenaska representatives said, will meet the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s air modeling standards and allow for emissions to be distributed over a wider distance instead of concentrating around the plant. The commission voted 3-1 in favor, with one member abstaining.

The second vote was for the special use permit required for the proposed plant. Commissioners unanimously voted against recommending the permit.

Mike Goad, a Fluvanna County supervisor and former member of the Planning Commission, told Health and Safety Reporter Anastasiia Carrier that the Board of Supervisors will take the Planning Commission’s recommendations into consideration when the Board makes its final decision during its March 18 meeting.

“I would rather not speculate about anything with regard to the upcoming meeting, but that I appreciate the due diligence my former colleagues on the Planning Commission put into this and trust the BOS will do the same,” Goad told Ana.

Fluvanna County Planning Commission votes against Tenaska’s special use permit for proposed gas plant

Ana has been following this process for the last few months. She attended a Planning Commission meeting in January, during which Commissioners were asked to decide if the proposal was in “substantial accord” with the county’s comprehensive plan, which was originally released in 2014.

Attendees at the January meeting said parts of the proposal fit with the county’s plan, such as the jobs and additional tax revenue the plant would bring, which is estimated to be $247 million in its lifetime. Some Fluvanna residents argued during the public comment period that the proposal did not align with other parts of the plan, such as the preservation of rural areas and clean air.

That night, the commission voted 3-1 that the proposal is not in accord with the comprehensive plan. Tenaska has appealed that decision.

“The project would directly support the plan’s stated goals of economic development and financial sustainability, rural area preservation and environmental resource protection,” Timberly Ross, Tenaska’s vice president of community relationships, told Ana on Jan. 14.

The Board of Supervisors is expected to consider the commission’s recommendations from its Feb. 24 meeting, as well as its earlier “substantial accord” vote and Tenaska’s appeal at its meeting in March, leaving the fate of the project still to be decided.

Stay safe and take care of each other,
Akash Sinha, Managing Editor