REDFIELD – Seven months after a public hearing here during which concerns were voiced in response to a proposed renewal of an air permit at the White Bluff plant, Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality has approved a revised permit.
Entergy owns the nearby coal-powered electric-generating.
An ADEQ letter stated that the permit for the construction, operation and maintenance of an air pollution control system at White Bluff was issued Aug. 9 and will remain in effect unless an ADEQ Commission review of the decision is properly requested within 30 days.
The final permit contains “minor corrections” to emission rates and permit language, increased testing for particulate matter, an addition of an annual coal “throughput” limit, and the satisfying of a requirement for a permit application to address newly-enacted emission guidelines.
At the Jan. 10 public hearing, four Redfield residents – Darrell Hedden, Tom Hughes, John Sutton and Elizabeth Ann Tuck-Rowan – spoke in favor of the permit renewal and hailed the professionalism and stewardship of the plant’s workers.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Voicing concerns over and opposition to the five-year draft permit were 10 Little Rock residents, all members of the Sierra Club environmental group.
Hedden, a Redfield alderman, said White Bluff is “critical to the community’s tax base, schools, economy and business.” He added that White Bluff workers “live here with us” and consistently take steps to ensure that the plant is operating “cleanly and efficiently.”
Hedden agreed with permit foes who said they were opposed to “dirty air and dirty water,” but he pointed out that “cleaner, more affordable energy” can come only “over time.” Hedden said White Bluff “needs to continue its current production in the interim.”
Tuck-Rowan suggested the economy must be a factor in the permitting of White Bluff, but University of Arkansas at Little Rock professor Dina Nash said that jobs should be secondary when assessing White Bluff’s regional environmental impact.
Sutton, a 32-year White Bluff employee, took issue with some comments offered on the plant, saying employees were sensitive to environmental concerns. He questioned “how many of the critics calling White Bluff dirty have actually visited” the facility.
Hughes, a former president of the Redfield Chamber of Commerce, said he wished plant supporters and opponents could “come together to satisfy White Bluff health concerns.”
Sierra Club member Becky Williams echoed Hughes, adding that while the hearing participants might have differing opinions, “Everyone here has a lot in common.”
The permit included only one physical addition to the facility, a replacement fire pump.
Anyone wishing to submit a public comment on the approved permit may request an adjudicatory hearing and commission review in keeping with commission procedures. For more information on submitting such a request, telephone the commission at 501-682-7890.
Copies of the final permit decision and response to comments may be obtained by telephoning the ADEQ’s Air Permit Branch at 501-682-0738, emailing Help-Air-Permits@adeq.state.ar.us, or on the web at http://www.adeq.state.ar.us/air/branch_permits/draft_permits.asp under “Final Permit Decisions.”