Utility hears from fans, foes of proposed coal-fired plant

July 23, 2008, The Post and Courier, Charleston
By Page Ivey, Associated Press

PAMPLICO — The 100 people who met here Tuesday were equally passionate but evenly split in their opinions of a proposed coal-fired, $1.25 billion power plant on the banks of the Great Pee Dee River.

Whether the company can further limit mercury emissions from the two 600-megawatt generators has been debated. State-owned utility Santee Cooper hopes to build the generators to meet increasing demands for electricity.

The plant would be located in a rural community along the Great Pee Dee River, which many worried would be further polluted with mercury from the plant. Residents who would live near the plant attended the informal meeting, which was sponsored by the state Department of Health and Environmental Control. Utility representatives also attended to help answer questions.

"We're talking about emissions on us and our children," said Robert Harwell, 60, of Poston — a community near the proposed plant site. "This seems about the dirtiest way that Santee Cooper could possibly do it."

Bussy Poston said he doesn't like polluting, but he also said Santee Cooper needs to make the power. "It's a commonsense thing," said the 83-year-old farmer and retired teacher. Poston wondered why people worried about the mercury levels in fish in the river. "I've been eating catfish out of the Pee Dee River for 83 years, and I'm pretty healthy."

Santee Cooper President Lonnie Carter raised environmentalists' ire when he suggested in an opinion article for South Carolina newspapers that federal standards for how much mercury-tainted fish can be consumed is set artificially low and that the state's rivers don't have a serious mercury problem.

DHEC says people shouldn't eat too much of several species of fish found in more than 60 rivers, lakes and streams statewide, as well as species found in the Atlantic Ocean.