Wise County Coal Plant (VA)

A coalition of citizens from Wise County and conservation groups including SELC have launched a campaign to stop construction of a coal-burning power plant in rural Southwest Virginia. Among other problems, the power plant will add harmful air pollution in the region, increase carbon emissions that cause global warming and accelerate mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia.

The Wise Energy for Virginia campaign also aims to pressure the state and electric utilities to take aggressive steps to increase energy efficiency, conservation and renewable sources to meet present and future energy demands in the Commonwealth.

Anything but Clean

Though touted as a state-of-the-art “clean coal” facility, the power plant proposed by Dominion Power will be anything but clean. The facility design uses outdated technology that will result in annual emissions of 5.4 million tons of carbon dioxide - equivalent to the annual carbon output of all of the vehicles on the road in metropolitan Richmond.

• The plant will also release levels of mercury above allowable limits.  Mercury-tainted fish poses a serious health threat to infants and fetuses who are most vulnerable to developmental problems from exposure to the neurotoxin.


• The Wise County plant will intensify the environmental destruction wrought by mountaintop removal mining, in which companies blast the tops of Appalachian mountains to expose coal seams and dump rock, rubble and slurry in nearby valleys, destroying hundreds of streams and ecosystems. 

SELC Action

SELC, representing the Wise Energy for Virginia Coalition, vigorously opposed the proposal before the State Corporation Commission and the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board.  The commission has granted the plant a certificate, but determined it was not “carbon-capture compatible” and denied Dominion a financial bonus the company sought.   The air board substantially strengthened pollution control requirements, but has also given the plant a green light.

SELC is challenging the legality of the plant’s permits based on numerous sections of the Clean Air Act, which aims to protect human health and the environment from the harmful effects of industrial activities.