Issue: Environmental Justice

On August 1, 2024 North Carolina’s Division of Air Quality held a public hearing for Dominion Energy’s air permit application for the proposed Moriah Energy Center (MEC) in Person County, NC. The controversial MEC facility would initially be home to a 25 million liquified natural gas storage tank, with plans for a second 25 million gallon tank in the future. 

When the hearing was announced in June, members of BREDL’s NoMEC chapter began to voice their displeasure with NCDEQ regarding the location of the hearing, which was two counties away from the location of the proposed facility. Numerous Person County residents and elected officials requested a change of venue, or an additional hearing, but those requests were ultimately denied.  In response to NCDEQ’s denial, BREDL held an online “People’s Hearing” to coincide with the in-person hearing. 

The in-person hearing at Vance-Granville Community College featured 39 speakers, 38 of whom asked DAQ to deny the permit.  Speakers shared numerous concerns primarily focused on Dominion’s history of air quality violations and the need for onsite monitors.  

Rev. Christopher Fair of Granville County, NC expressed concerns about safety and Dominion’s failure to notify nearby residents of their plans.  “I live a thousand yards east of the Person County line, however, I don’t think that gas and pollutants honor county lines. Yet, we were not even warned about this.  I had to have a fellow pastor tell me that this was happening 3 miles from my house.” 

Fair, who holds a master’s degree in Weapons Systems Engineering said that he assessed the site as an equivalent to 54 tons of TNT. Said Fair, “I see no studies, no emergency response plans.  I see a lot of estimates of pollutants, but nothing reliable.  They have other plants, so why can’t they give us numbers from those?  I had to go through a massive groundwater study just to put in an 800-foot gravel driveway in Granville County because they were worried about the groundwater.  They’ve done nothing here.”  

Jeff Hammerquist, who lives on property that sits directly adjacent to the site, said that he’s concerned about the future of his family’s farm and for his own health.  

“I underwent open heart surgery for a genetic heart condition in October 2022 and I don’t have to call my cardiologist to know that I don’t need formaldehyde in my diet.  The detrimental impacts of these hazardous air pollutants is well documented and agreed upon by scientists.” He went on, “If the Department of Environmental Quality does not care to say no to energy conglomerates taking from the environment for financial gain, then what exactly does this department exist to do?”

BREDL’s online hearing allowed 4 additional speakers to publicly voice their concerns to DAQ. BREDL Executive Director, Kathy Andrews questioned why the plant, which by Dominion’s own estimates will operate approximately 8 days per year, is being built in this location in the first place.  “Why build a dangerous gas facility where people don’t want it?  The only thing I can think of is greed.  There is no desperate need for this plant.” 

Bob Brauer, who lives in Person County but could not attend the in-person hearing, also spoke during the online People’s Hearing.  He said, “Given the state of our climate situation, we really need to start to migrate away from fossil fuels.  Unfortunately, the Moriah Energy Center is just another step towards continuing our dependency on fossil fuels, when we need to be moving away from that.”  

BREDL Strategic Advisor, Lou Zeller, spoke about the flawed permitting regulations employed by agencies such as DEQ. He said, “Air permit regulations contemplate so-called ‘major sources’ and ‘minor sources’ depending on the volume of pollution emitted. Synthetic minor permits are loopholes created to avoid certain regulatory requirements.  The permit, as drafted, cannot and does not protect air quality as it is required under the law.  It’s like crossing your fingers when you make a promise.”

The majority of emissions at the facility would come from combustion sources including heaters, generators and flares.  Dominion has applied for a synthetic minor permit, rather than the more stringent Title V permit, even though their own projections suggest that the facility will emit more than 65,000 tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere each year.  The facility would also allow tanker truck loading and unloading of liquid natural gas.

Residents of the communities surrounding the proposed site of the facility have been fighting the proposal since the project was publicly announced in late August, 2023. In February of this year, several residents living closest to the facility filed a lawsuit against the Person County Commissioners, opposing the rezoning of more than 450 acres of land from “rural conservation”, to “general industrial”.  As of now, the rezoning remains paused due to this litigation.  Even if the air permit application is approved, the company will not be able to build the facility until the zoning issue is resolved.

Video of BREDL’s online hearing was submitted to the Division of Air Quality on August 2, as a part of the public comment process. For more information on NoMEC’s fight against Dominion Energy, please visit www.NoMEC.org.