"The utility’s environmental justice analysis lacks community health data, according to attorneys representing affected residents."
"CHESTER, Va. — For the first 60 years Duane Brankley lived here, about a mile and a half from a coal plant owned by Dominion Energy, coal ash coated the shingles on his roof and the insides of his lungs.
The coal plant finally closed in 2023, but soon Brankley could be facing an even more insidious air pollutant: fine particulate matter, or PM 2.5, from a new natural gas plant, the Chesterfield Energy Reliability Center, that Dominion wants to build on the site of the old coal facility.
Given what he’s experienced, Brankley is concerned about the future air quality in his neighborhood as the utility seeks a needed air permit for its new facility, one of six future natural gas plants the utility claims are necessary to meet periods of peak demand on the electric grid that it says could soon be strained in Virginia by data center development.
Along with an air permit review, the proposed natural gas plant needs a construction permit that includes Dominion’s environmental justice analysis that purports to evaluate the harm facing surrounding underserved community members, like Brankley. But attorneys from the Southern Environmental Law Center, representing the Chesterfield County Branch NAACP, Mothers Out Front and the Central American Solidarity Association, say it lacks community health information and does not adequately assess risk exposure to the plant."
Charles Paullin reports for Inside Climate News September 18, 2025.
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