ENERGY + ENVIRONMENT
Attorney general sues over violations at Petersburg landfill
Attorney General Mark Herring is suing the company that owns the Tri City Landfill in Petersburg for repeated violations of waste management practices and stormwater control. CFS Group Disposal & Recycling Services, which owns the landfill, was alerted four times going back to 2015 of a range of problems, including waste blocking the roads of the […]
Virginia devotes $14 million to deploying all-electric bus fleet across the state
Virginia is investing $14 million to deploy all-electric transit buses across the state, according to a news release. The investment represents 15 percent of the Virginia’s $93.6 million Volkswagen Environmental Mitigation Trust allocation. Earlier this year, the state devoted another 15 percent of the allocation to set up a contract with a charging station company […]
Virginia’s proposed carbon rule gets lower emissions cap, adds environmental justice component
Virginia’s State Air Pollution Control Board approved a handful of changes Monday to a sweeping proposed carbon rule that would cap the allowable amount of emissions from power plants starting in 2020 and enter into a multi-state market-based program to reduce emissions. If approved — which could be next year after another round of public […]
The con at the heart of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline
It can’t be said enough, and it’s something that’s easy to lose sight of amid the labyrinthine legal and permitting debates around the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which could be getting federal approval to start full construction in Virginia any minute now. The need for Dominion Energy’s 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline is far from proven — […]
The Northam administration wants a ‘prominent role’ for Virginia in offshore wind. Can they pull it off?
Virginia is looking to assume a “prominent role” in the developing U.S. East Coast offshore wind industry, in large part by collaborating with neighboring states. That was the message Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy Director John Warren brought to the two-day American Wind Energy Association offshore wind conference last week in Washington, D.C. […]
Atlantic Coast Pipeline gets final Virginia approvals
The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality has cleared the way for Dominion Energy’s 600-mile, deeply divisive Atlantic Coast Pipeline to begin construction here. The agency has signed off on plans for how workers will manage erosion, sediment and stormwater along the route, which will cross hundreds of waterways and some of Virginia’s steepest terrain, the […]
Virginia’s pipeline projects and the aura of inevitability
This week, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission gave Dominion Energy permission to begin cutting down trees in Buckingham County to clear the way for a massive compressor station the company wants to build as part of its Atlantic Coast Pipeline. FERC’s letter Tuesday allows “non-mechanized” tree-felling — that means using handheld chainsaws — at the […]
Giant sections of the Mountain Valley Pipeline washed onto an opponent’s land. Can he keep them?
Dale Angle has something the developers of the Mountain Valley Pipeline want: two 80-foot sections of their pipe that washed onto his Franklin County farm during last week’s heavy rains. And despite receiving two rather insistent phone calls seeking permission to come on his land and collect the property, he says he’s “not too anxious […]
There’s a lot to like in Northam’s energy plan, but missed opportunities abound
There is a lot to like in the Northam administration’s new Virginia Energy Plan, starting with what is not in it. The plan doesn’t throw so much as a bone to the coal industry, and the only plug for fracked gas comes in the discussion of alternatives to petroleum in transportation. The 2018 Energy Plan […]
A solution for nitrogen pollution?
Nitrogen pollution from fertilizer runoff is one of the main sources of low oxygen “dead zones” in the Chesapeake Bay. And it’s a problem throughout the world, as the modern agriculture that sustains human life is itself dependent on commercially-produced nitrogen fertilizers. “Humans have nearly doubled Earth’s natural flow of fixed nitrogen, overwhelming the capacity […]
Federal courts won’t revisit decision on Dominion’s arsenic discharge
A federal appeals court has rejected a request from an environmental group to revisit a ruling that determined arsenic leaking from Dominion Energy coal ash storage sites isn’t violating federal law, The Associated Press reported. The Sierra Club said in a lawsuit that arsenic seeping from coal ash ponds at a shuttered power plant in […]
State sues Fones Cliffs golf course developer over violations; adjacent land to be preserved
The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the State Water Control Board have filed a lawsuit against the developer of a luxury golf course in Richmond County for repeat environmental violations after DEQ referred the case to Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring’s office. The Virginia True Corporation cleared 13.5 acres of forested land near Fones Cliffs […]