By RUSTY DENNEN
Two environmental groups say they plan to appeal the renewal of a state water permit for North Anna Power Station.
The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League and the Peoples Alliance for Clean Energy have filed a notice of appeal in Richmond Circuit Court. The appeal is expected to be submitted later this month.
The groups contend the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality erred in granting a variance allowing the plant's wastewater heat discharge to exceed temperatures allowed under water-quality standards for the two existing reactors.
The original permit was approved in the early 1970s, and each subsequent renewal has maintained that the plant's thermal discharge area is considered a waste-treatment site and not subject to the Clean Water Act.
The State Water Control Board in October renewed the plant's Virginia Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit, allowing the discharge of 2 million gallons of water a day into Lake Anna.
The environmental groups claim that heated water from the plant's reactors is harmful to aquatic life and to the lake's recreational users. Some residents living along the plant's cooling lagoons--where heated water is discharged--have reported water temperatures as high as 106 degrees during the summer.
After it flows through the plant, the heated water flows into the cooling lagoons, which cover more than 3,000 acres, and eventually back into the main lake.
"The situation is a violation of the Clean Water Act," Elena Day, spokeswoman for the People's Alliance for Clean Energy in Charlottesville, said in a press release. "It is the responsibility of Virginia DEQ to protect its citizens, not foster Dominion's noncompliance with the law."
Richard Zuercher, spokesman for Dominion's nuclear operations, said yesterday that the company has no comment on the appeal.
However, he added, "We are in full compliance with the law, and always have been."
The appeal is not related to Dominion's plans for a possible third reactor at North Anna.
That reactor, if built, would not add to heated water going into Lake Anna. Cooling towers would be used instead of lake water.
Dominion has received an early site permit for the reactor, and last week applied for a combined operating license.
Lake Anna, encompassing about 13,000 acres, was created in the early 1970s to cool the plant's nuclear reactors. The lake borders Louisa, Spotsylvania and Orange counties.
Rusty Dennen: 540/374-5431