By Molly Parker
Staff Writer

Santee Cooper’s plan to build a 600-megawatt pulverized coal power plant in rural Florence County has divided a region torn between the promise of an economic revival and the threat that it could wreak havoc on the sprawling countryside.

The state’s only publicly owned utility says it needs to build the plant to meet rapidly growing demand to service new residential and business customers. It would be located on roughly a third of the 2,700 acres Santee Cooper owns—largely pine forest and some wetlands—just a stone’s throw from the flashing four-way stoplight in Kingsburg dividing U.S. Highway 378 from Old River Road.

Before this year, it had been over a decade since Santee Cooper built a new generating station. But counting the unit in Cross that went online in January, the company is set to add three coal-fired plants to its portfolio within five years. The new unit in Cross joined an existing coal-fired facility, and Santee Cooper expects to have a fourth unit online there by 2009.

The last time Santee Cooper built a coal plant from scratch was in 1983, when the Cross facility first opened, which might explain why this particular site plan has stirred such emotional discourse. This is also a new era, one in which the state of South Carolina is forced to deal with rapid growth issues, and global warming is no longer a topic reserved for scientists.    

Without new generation, Santee Cooper estimates electricity capacity would fall 525 megawatts short by 2013, about the amount of power needed for 262,500 homes, and more than 835 megawatts by 2015, which would power 417,500 homes.

Santee Cooper provides energy either directly or indirectly through the state’s electric cooperatives to some 2 million business and residential customers located in all 46 counties in the state.

“Our job is to keep the lights on,” spokeswoman Laura Varn said.

“If we don’t develop a source of electricity to meet those needs our state could suffer tremendously in the form of brownouts and unreliable power supplies, not only in homes but schools, hospitals and nursing homes. We have to meet this need through the most reliable and responsible means.”

Business organizations across the state have issued support for the new plant.

“Low cost and reliable power are listed consistently as top reasons by companies looking to

relocate or expand,” Charles Van Rysselberge, president and CEO of the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement. “The Santee Cooper Energy campus is addressing the demand for more low-cost power while creating jobs and improving the quality of life for the people of South Carolina.”

A town divided

But if you ask Mike King, there is nothing about this facility that will make his life better. He has lived in Florence County for 63 years and has a home just a few miles from the proposed plant.

“As a kid, I never thought this area would be under attack,” said King, kneeling at the foot of the Pee Dee River, from which Santee Cooper would siphon an average of 13,000 gallons of water per minute to feed the plant’s boiler and cooling tower, an amount equal to less than one-half percent of the river’s average daily flow. 

“We’ve already been told we shouldn’t eat more than one fish a month out of here because of the mercury levels. After this plant goes up, the only thing they’ll be able to do with the fish is save the mercury for thermometers,” King said.

A loosely formed group of residents, most of them close neighbors to the plant, have started a petition drive opposing Santee Cooper’s plans. They’re worried about air and water pollution, truck and train traffic, their property values and losing the land they have been allowed to hunt and hike on for years. Though Santee Cooper has owned the acreage since the 1980s, it had long been overseen by the state Department of Natural Resources’ Wildlife Management Areas and therefore largely open for public use.

“It rattles my cage that I won’t be able to take my grandchildren fishing and cook on the banks like I did when I was a kid, and like I did with my kids,” said Terry Cook, whose land borders an area where the utility would build a landfill if it ever adds a second unit to the facility. 

To date, Santee Cooper’s board of directors has approved plans for only one unit, but the company is requesting permits for two 600-megawatt units in anticipation of future growth.

The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, both of which must give their blessing, are reviewing the proposal.

Gene Gainey, the mayor of Pamplico, also is circulating a petition, but his is for supporters of the coal plant. Gainey has witnessed the economic drain on his community as manufacturers close their doors and pack up one by one.

He moved to the rural South Carolina town 42 years ago and took a job at textile giant JP Sevens, which later morphed into Delta Mills Corp. In its heyday, the company employed 600 people from the area, but it closed in 2005. Other plants have downsized or vanished.  

“It will bring in more money for our community,” said Gainey, who served on town council for 22 years before he was elected mayor two years ago. “Pamplico and (nearby) Johnsonville have taken harder hits in the last five years than any other towns around here.

“We want it there because we need industry and it will help bring in more industry,” he said. “We’re fixin’ to four-lane the highway that runs through Pamplico right down to (Highway) 378, and that will open up more industry and access to industry. We need the jobs.”

Santee Cooper estimates it will hire 1,400 additional employees for construction of the plant, and 100 full-time workers with an average salary of $50,000 once it is fully operational in 2012. 

“We’re all concerned about the environment and our children’s health and so on,” Gainey said. “But, you know, from what I’ve seen and the meetings I’ve been to with Santee Cooper, they’re not going to build something that will environmentally hurt somebody. They’re going to meet or beat the standards.”

Clean coal?

Santee Cooper has said it plans to build “one of the cleanest power plants in the nation.” The utility says it will reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by more than 97%, nitrogen oxide emissions by 90% and mercury emissions by 85% to 90%. Those figures are compared to coal-fired plants without any environmental controls, Varn said, which is rare these days. 

The new unit in Florence County will be a “super-critical” facility that will burn coal more efficiently through higher temperatures and higher pressures. It will have scrubbers and other devices to reduce pollution output.  

Nancy Cave, North Coast office director of the Coastal Conservation League, challenges that even a clean-burning coal plant is still the dirtiest form of producing electricity. The unit would emit up to 4 million tons per unit of carbon dioxide annually and up to 69 pounds of mercury per unit, according to Santee Cooper, which notes that number is four times below federal standards.   

“Coal plants emit particulate matter, a very, very fine particulate matter that gets into our lungs and is absorbed into our bloodstream, so this plant will have a significant impact on people at risk of lung and heart diseases,” she said.

The utility, which already uses coal to produce 77% of its power, is pushing for a new facility at a time when nationally coal-plant proposals are “dropping like flies,” said Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.  

In mid-October, Tampa Electric halted plans to build a coal plant amidst public outcry; it was the third coal plan to stumble in Florida this year. In North Carolina, the state recently denied Duke Energy Corp.’s request to build two units, but allowed them one.

In Kansas, a mixed group of environmentalists, religious leaders, health and civic groups have teamed up to purchase television ads against a proposed plant in the western region of the state. In Texas, utility giant TXU Energy, facing public opposition, scrapped plans to build eight of 11 coal-fired plants.

Varn said the scene has been much different here. 

“It has been overwhelmingly supportive,” she said. “It’s really a phenomenal case of people saying, ‘Yes, in my backyard. We want the facility here. We want it here today,’ because they understand it brings economic vitality to the region and good high-paying jobs.”

But Smith, also an appointed member of Gov. Mark Sanford’s Climate, Energy and Commerce Advisory Committee, said Santee Cooper is “acting like they have their head in the sand.”

He called on Sanford to take a stance against the coal plant, but the governor’s spokesman said Sanford was still reviewing the proposal.

Joanne Jones, who lives a half-mile from the proposed plant, said it seems Santee Cooper has simply turned a deaf ear.

“We don’t feel like they’re listening to us at all,” she said. 

Robert Harwell, who lives about four miles from the proposed plant, said it appears that’s the case for the rest of the state as well.  

“If the people would still remember South Carolina has blue skies and breathable air, and that this will affect not just us, but all of South Carolina,” Harwell said, “people would be up in arms.” 

Molly Parker is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail her directly at mparker@setcommedia.com.

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