Virginia Air Pollution Control Board kicks can down the road on compressor station

The Virginia Air Pollution Control Board has, effectively, punted, again, on a controversial proposed air compressor station associated with the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

The board on Wednesday approved a new minimum public comment period to consider documents it had received since its November meeting for the proposed permit to govern air pollution for the Buckingham Compressor Station.

Advocates for residents of the Union Hill area in Buckingham County where the compressor station would be built have raised issue with the proposed 24-hour-a-day operations, and say the station would emit sounds comparable to a jet engine within a football field’s distance from several historic homes.

The move to set a new comment period comes after the Air Pollution Control Board voted in November to delay its vote, ahead of Gov. Ralph Northam removing two members of the board who had asked tough questions of Dominion Virginia Energy during the meeting.

The seven-member board is down those two members, and a third member has recused himself from voting on the matter due to a conflict of interest.

“This whole process is tainted by Gov. Northam’s apparent attempt to meddle in the regulatory proceedings,” said Harrison Wallace, the Virginia director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. “The only way the board can save face at this point is by denying the air permit forthright. The Air Board must answer the moral call to action that the executive branch ignored by denying the permit for the Buckingham Compressor Station.”

The date for the start of a minimum public comment period will be formalized in the near future. There is no established timeframe that defines a minimum public comment period.

The documents to be considered per the board’s instructions will be made available to the public at the start of the public comment period.

“We applaud the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board taking the time to fully consider the impacts of this harmful fracked-gas facility and hear the concerns of the people of Virginia,” Wallace said. “The people of Union Hill and across Buckingham have the right to walk out of their homes and breathe healthy air. The mere fact that Dominion has remained set on this community of freedmen as the ideal location of their compressor station is considered by many people to be the very definition of environmental racism.

“With all of the facts at hand, we’re confident the Air Board will have no choice but to stand tall in the face of this egregious injustice by rejecting its required permit.”