DEP meetings set for controversial air permit request for expected data center site

The DEP announced Wednesday it will hold a virtual public meeting next month to take oral comments on the permit application for the proposed turbine power facility filed by Purcellville, Virginia-based Fundamental Data LLC.

But first, the DEP will hold an in-person meeting this month in Tucker County to provide information and answer questions on air quality issues related to the heavily redacted application.

Filed in March, the application is heavily redacted, causing the DEP to question Fundamental Data’s confidentiality claims about air pollution and equipment before approving them in a decision last month that project challengers have appealed to the West Virginia Air Quality Board, which hears appeals of DEP air quality enforcement decisions.

A meeting hosted by Davis Mayor Al Tomson at the Davis Volunteer Fire Hall in April at which local residents expressed deep concerns about the project's potential environmental and economic impacts drew more than 200 people in person and another 100 virtually. 

DEP decision challenged

The state Air Quality Board on June 12 received a notice of appeal challenging the DAQ’s acceptance of Fundamental Data’s permit application confidentiality claims from Tucker United, a local citizen organization, Friends of Blackwater, a Tucker County-based conservation group, and the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy.

The groups have asked the Air Quality Board to reinstate an April 25 finding by the DEP.

In an April 25 letter to Fundamental Data, DEP General Counsel Jason Wandling said that information in Fundamental Data’s permit application that the company said was confidential may not qualify for that designation.

Wandling also expressed concern that the business claimed as confidential may not meet eligibility requirements under DEP state legislative rule that “reasonable measures� be taken to protect confidentiality of information and that the information claimed as confidential isn’t reasonably obtainable by others.

But the Office of the General Counsel stopped short of a definitive ruling, requesting further justification that the information claimed as confidential doesn’t conflict with eligibility requirements.

In a May 7 response to the DEP, Fundamental Data representative Casey Chapman wrote that the DEP’s suggestion that the company may have gone too far in claiming information as confidential “appears inconsistent with applicable administrative procedures.� 

Chapman contended redacted portions of its application pertain solely to specific equipment and its system configuration, which it asserted don’t constitute emissions data.

Fundamental Data contended it had provided all required information and defended what Chapman called “robust measures to protect the confidentiality of our trade secrets.�

Chapman said Fundamental Data “understand[s] that public interest in the project has increased� and that the public “should not assume that redacting information from the public version of our application is an attempt to hide relevant data.�

In a May 12 response to Fundamental Data, DEP Office of Legal Services Chief C. Scott Driver said information claimed as confidential by the company satisfied requirements to be deemed confidential and would be maintained as such.

The DEP determined there are nonconfidential alternatives that result in a “practically enforceable method� of determining emissions from the proposed facility, including through emissions monitoring or sampling and parametric monitoring, which is monitoring of control equipment that doesn’t directly measure pollutant concentration.

Chapman has not responded to Gazette-Mail requests for comment.

Wide-ranging concerns with project cited

The Air Quality Board has scheduled a hearing for 8:30 a.m. Aug. 6 at the DEP’s ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä headquarters on the appeal filed by Tucker United, Friends of Blackwater and the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy.

In their appeal of the state’s response, Tucker United, Friends of Blackwater and the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy contended it’s impossible for them to sufficiently evaluate and comment on proposed facility emissions and operations because of the permit application redactions.

Their concerns include air pollution, water use and pollution, habitat destruction, decline in the area’s tourism-based economy, diminished property values and nuisance via residential encroachment and heavy industrial traffic.

Fundamental Data’s planned Tucker County facility would be powered by gas-fueled turbines equipped with heat recovery steam generators, but the turbines may need to use diesel as a backup fuel source during gas pipeline failures. The facility, planned for a location off U.S. 48 near the city of Thomas, would have three diesel storage tanks holding 10 million gallons each. The application indicates there would be haul road activities and equipment leaks.

Operation startup is planned for 2027 or 2028 but subject to change depending on availability of equipment from manufacturers, according to the application filed in March.

The facility would have the potential to annually emit:

• 99 tons of nitrogen oxides, which can harm the human respiratory system and contribute to acid rain
• 56 tons of carbon monoxide, which can cause nausea, fatigue and other flu-like symptoms at very low levels
• 44 tons of volatile organic compounds, which can contribute to ground-level ozone and may cause cancer

In what he called an attempt “to provide some comfort to the public,� in Fundamental Data’s response last month to the DEP’s concerns, Chapman said the planned “Ridgeline� facility:

• Doesn’t plan any consumption or use of water resources from or discharge of wastewater to local rivers, streams or municipal systems
• Is sited in a lowland area surrounded by hills that should “substantially limitâ€� visibility of the plant from public roadways or populated areas
• Is expected to operate at noise levels below the threshold requiring hearing protection under federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration protections and is over one mile from the nearest occupied structure