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Chesterfield County residents pressure board of supervisors to hold hearing on Dominion Energy’s proposed methane gas plant

Bill Muth and Richard Walker gathered in front of a posterboard from Dominion titled, “Dominion Energy’s Commitments to Surrounding Communities,” which said its construction would be done to minimize impacts and protect the environment and surrounding community. Photo by Jen Lawhorne

By Jen Lawhorne

On a Thursday evening in early September, over 70 people crammed into a restaurant in Chesterfield County. They weren’t just there for the eggrolls and shrimp toast offered by Chen’s Chinese Restaurant — although plenty was eaten, and it was delicious. The community members were preparing for an Dominion Energy open house on its proposed methane gas plant at a hotel conference room about 100 yards away.

The county residents representing Friends of Chesterfield, CASA, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Mothers Out Front, Appalachian Voices and Chesterfield NAACP planned to bring hard questions to Dominion’s softball presentation. They were not impressed by what they saw at the open house. 

Bill Muth and Richard Walker gathered in front of a posterboard from Dominion titled, “Dominion Energy’s Commitments to Surrounding Communities,” which said its construction would be done to minimize impacts and protect the environment and surrounding community. Photo by Jen Lawhorne

“It’s Greenwashing 101,” said Muth. “It’s not even that interesting.

Walker already had experience opposing a Dominion project — the canceled Atlantic Coast Pipeline — that was planned to run through a family home in Buckingham County.

“[Dominion] said the same thing when they tried to build the pipeline in Buckingham,” he said. “They just don’t realize that people are more sophisticated than they think.”

Dominion recently announced that it plans to build its 1,000 megawatt methane gas plant at the site of its former Chesterfield Power Station, which is the site of a power plant that was built in 1944, with coal units operating since at least the 1950s. The plant used to operate as the largest coal power plant in Virginia. The coal-fired units were deactivated in 2023, but the plant currently has two current units that run on gas and oil.

In 2009, the Chesterfield Power Station was ranked 36th in a list of the top 100 polluting coal power plants in the U.S. in a study issued by the Institute for Southern Studies. Some of the toxins that were released into the air by the power station according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxic Release Inventory include arsenic, chromium, dioxins, lead, mercury and nickel. The power station is also the site of two unlined ponds that hold 15 million cubic yards of coal ash, a toxic byproduct of coal-fired power generation.

Rally with Friends of Chesterfield on Sept. 25!

Join advocates Wednesday,
Sept. 25, at 6:30 p.m.
before the Chesterfield
Board of Supervisors meeting.
10001 Iron Bridge Road
Chesterfield, VA 23831

In a monumental 2010 study from the Clean Air Task Force, the city of Richmond — immediately north of Chesterfield — was ranked 15th for metro areas in the country for its high mortality rate attributed to exposure to particulate matter pollution from coal power plants. Virginia ranked sixth nationally for its per capita mortality rate associated with coal power plant pollution.

Opponents speculate that Dominion believes that building on the former coal plant site will excuse the utility company from going through the conditional use permitting process with Chesterfield County officials. Despite Dominion’s change in plans, community members remain adamant in their opposition to the plant. 

Friends of Chesterfield believe that emissions from the methane gas plant, which Dominion plans to call the “Chesterfield Energy Reliability Center,” will harm residents living near the plant who have already been burdened with decades of Dominion’s coal plant pollution. 

Methane gas pollution is known to have a detrimental effect on air quality by creating ground-level ozone — the main ingredient in smog — and particulate matter pollution.

Advocates also question why Dominion cannot meet its expected growth in energy demand with clean energy sources like solar and wind power.

Duane Brankley at his property in Chesterfield where he has lived since the 1960s. He lives within 2 miles of the Chesterfield Power Station. Photo by Jen Lawhorne

Duane Brankley lives within two miles of the Chesterfield Power Station in a neighborhood that he moved to in the 1960s as a child. He recalled the roof of his mother’s trailer being coated with black soot from the coal plant. 

“The sidewalk outside the porch just turned black,” he said. “We didn’t worry about it because how could you scrub something that bad off?”

Brankley said he was happy that Dominion had closed its coal-fired power plant, but he opposes the proposed gas plant. “Anything they produce in the atmosphere — that it burns — it will be here.” 

A graphic from the 2010 Clean Air Task Force study, “The Toll from Coal.”

Community members and nine state legislators who publicly opposed Dominion’s plans say the methane gas plant violates the 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act, which requires the state’s electric grid to transition to 100% clean energy by 2050. The VCEA also set a 2024 deadline for the closure of most of its coal-fired power plants.

The nine Central Virginia legislators, which include state Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, who represents Chesterfield, said in a press release, “Dominion Energy’s current pursuit of permits to build a new gas-fired power plant in Chesterfield County undermines the state’s transition to clean and renewable energy.”

Chesterfield resident Aliya Farooq lives within 2.5 miles of the proposed gas plant and is concerned about Dominion’s compliance with the goals set by the VCEA. 

“Why are we investing this kind of money into a gas plant that is going to pollute our air and is not going to get us close to our carbon neutral goal?” she asked. 

Farooq, who is also a board member of Virginia Interfaith Power and Light, said 2,000 children die globally from air pollution and she is concerned about the harmful effects of the gas plant’s emissions on nearby residents. 

“We as a community need to work toward solving that issue [of air pollution], not adding to it,” she said. 

Chesterfield resident Aliya Farooq in her home. Photo by Jen Lawhorne

Chesterfield NAACP President Nicole Brown wants to know why Dominion Energy is still using fossil fuels to provide energy and why the company is still burdening low-income minority communities with pollution.

“For Dominion Energy to be a billion dollar company, they definitely have a social and fiscal responsibility to provide clean energy,” she said. 

Chesterfield NAACP President Nicole Martin holds a map of the first proposed site of Dominion Energy’s gas plant, which was near the Chesterfield Power Station. Photo by Jen Lawhorne

During an April 24 rally against the gas plant, Martin held up a placard with a map of a proposed site of the gas plant before Dominion decided it wanted to build at the Chesterfield Power Station. She pointed out an elementary school within 2 miles of the proposed site and mentioned a nearby community center. 

She said 6,000 people live in the immediate area surrounding the proposed site. “Sixty percent of those people look like me,” she said during the rally. “Why are we burdening the same Black and Brown people with pollution?”

Chesterfield community members are asking the county board of supervisors to hold a public hearing and to vote on Dominion’s proposed gas plant, which it has declined to do so far. 

“They just have not had a vote, I think that is critically important,” Farooq said. “They are here to advocate for us, as their community, as their constituents. That’s why we are asking them to have a vote on this gas plant because it is going to directly impact us.” 


Friends of Chesterfield is asking people to join them on Sept. 25 for the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors meeting to demand that the board hold a public hearing and vote on the site suitability form required for Dominion’s proposed gas plant.

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3 Comments

  1. Jason Wander on September 21, 2024 at 1:31 pm

    “Advocates also question why Dominion cannot meet its expected growth in energy demand with clean energy sources like solar and wind power.”

    Because those don’t provide enough energy and aren’t consistent.

    Nuclear would solve these issues, but greenies keep blocking clean energy.



  2. Tim R on September 20, 2024 at 5:25 pm

    How do you propose to supply power for homes, businesses and electric cars and so on? Wind isn’t going to do it , neither is solar. I have worked on their coal fired units and similar gas fired units. If you don’t know how regulated and restricted power plants currently are, please sit down and be quiet. We need power, there is no 100% clean way to get it. Get over it.



  3. tara wheeler on September 20, 2024 at 5:03 pm

    Don’t forget about cutting back our carbon footprint. (and all that entails, including reduce, refuse, reuse, recycle, compost—when you can safely, & living as simply as possible, cutting back on excess, downsizing, etc . . .).
    I’m trying, but I think we could do more to encourage others around the world. Including setting a good example ourselves. I’m not sure Trump did the wrong thing. I was not in favor of the Paris Agreement for my own reasons, and I am a tree hugger. I also love this planet & all in it. but the nuclear option could blow it for all of us. (making it worse than it could ever get—because nuclear energy is very dangerous) I sometimes wonder about people who are pushing for the nuclear option. Do they just not know the past mishaps? do they have too much trust in humanity? do they not think of terrorism or other such deeds? Not to mention natural disasters?, etc . . . I think that was a mistake. It, nuclear energy, should not have been included in the answer to our problems. & I worry that this is buried in this Green New Deal as well.

    Another problem is that Haste Makes Waste & many times in our urgency to do good we move too fast for our own good & the good of others. Someone may suffer as a result & there may be no quick remedies before much suffering by many. So we need to take it slow by testing small areas first & then progressing, realizing that some things will not show up right away. But the first steps above could start earlier. But in any case we need to realize that we may need to make changes for the best of all.

    Have a Happy/Safe/Sustainable/Cruel-Free summer!

    This is the best time to realize that all people, animals, beings/creatures, spirits, etc . . . dwell in the same space: Earth. We are all above, below, on and or in the earth. It is the home of us all & we all need each other whether we know it or not. We should make all plans keeping the future of all in mind. We are all connected, so what we do in one part of the world will eventually get to another.

    & I hope you will join me in praying for the president & that he & his team will realize our wishes & understand they are for his benefit as well as the benefit for everyone else in the long run.

    If you’d like, you could pass on my wishes to him as well.

    Take care & God Bless All . . .



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