By Dan McCue

A proposal by Santee Cooper to build a new 600-megawatt power plant near Kingsburg in Florence County has raised the ire of environmentalists and the slow-growth community, who argue that the coal-burning facility, not to mention the trucks and trains that will be needed to serve it, will destroy the largely undeveloped community and impair the health of residents living several miles from the plant.

Dana Beach, executive director of the S.C. Coastal Conservation League, contends the coal-fired process that will produce energy at the facility is a primary source of mercury contamination in the state’s rivers and a major producer of carbon dioxide emissions linked to global warming.

Beach and members of Environmental Defense, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Conservation Voters of South Carolina charged in a letter to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control board that Santee Cooper’s 2006 decision to move forward with the plant was made with no public oversight and without adequate consideration of alternative means to meet the state’s projected energy needs.

“We’re not against the jobs such a facility will provide or trying to make an end-around and thwart future growth; we simply think there’s a better way to achieve Santee Cooper’s ends,” said Bob Wislinski, a spokesman for the advocacy groups.

“First, we believe the utility has to look at future decisions in the context of state efforts to address concerns about climate change,” he said. “That includes broadening Santee Cooper’s commitment to alternative energy over coal.

“Secondly, we need to have a more publicly inclusive process, and a process that includes a regulatory regime similar to the other utilities, like Duke and Progress Energy, must comply with, something Santee Cooper is exempted from as a publicly owned utility.”

At the center of the controversy are 2,700 acres Santee Cooper bought in Florence County in the early 1980s with the intention of building a plant there. The state-owned utility secured four permits for the site. But when additional research suggested the plant wouldn’t be needed for decades, Santee Cooper allowed those permits to expire.

More than 20 years later, however, the power needs of South Carolina have changed considerably, said Laura Varn, Santee Cooper’s vice president of corporate communications.

“South Carolina is now growing at such a swift rate that a new station isn’t just desirable, it’s critical to our needs,” Varn said.

Over the past decade, she said, the population of the state jumped by 15%, and it’s expected to take another 10% leap by 2012.

“In real terms, that amounts to a state population approaching 5 million, and we have a legal obligation to make sure the lights go on for all of those who are our customers,” Varn said.