Duke’s proposed gas plants would leave communities to bear costs of increased air pollution

CHAPEL HILL, N.C.— Clean energy advocates urged the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality on Friday to deny or modify two pending draft air permits for Duke Energy’s proposed Roxboro and Marshall gas-fired power plants, which would harm the health of neighboring communities and double down on climate-warming pollution. The Southern Environmental Law Center, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, and several other environmental organizations submitted comments.

According to Duke’s draft permits, the proposed gas plants would generate higher levels of dangerous pollutants than the retiring coal facilities located at the same sites that they would replace. Across the street from an elementary school, the Roxboro plant would generate significantly higher levels of carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds – chemicals which can cause liver, kidney, and nervous system damage.

Additionally, Duke is trying to evade permitting requirements that would otherwise force it to install and operate stricter controls to reduce pollution from the proposed Roxboro gas plant. Other recently permitted similar facilities have limits for harmful smog-forming nitrogen oxides that are seven-and-a-half times lower.

Duke’s own analysis reveals that both proposed plants may increase the neighboring communities’ risk of cancer from toxic air pollution. Despite noting these risks, the utility monopoly’s draft permits fail to include effective monitoring measures for carcinogenic pollutants like sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid.

“No one should have to worry that the air they breathe could make them or their children sick,” said Munashe Magarira, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. “Duke’s plans disregard the health of the communities living closest to its proposed gas plants, while undermining North Carolinians’ collective safety by stalling action to address harmful carbon pollution.”

Duke has argued that its plans for a massive methane gas buildout will help the company achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 – even though gas-fired power plants warm the climate with carbon and methane. The Roxboro gas plant would release more than twice the amount of carbon pollution as the coal plant at the same site and fail to comply with Clean Air Act regulations that limit carbon pollution from new gas plants. That poor planning, advocates noted, could result in cost overruns that Duke’s customers would bear.

“Rather than lead the way on climate action through sufficient investment in clean, carbon-free energy, Duke recklessly seeks to replace one expensive, polluting resource with another,” said Shelley Robbins, senior decarbonization manager at the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. “The proposed Roxboro and Marshall gas plants would threaten public health and ramp up climate change even as North Carolinians suffer the impacts of a warming world.”

Over the past several weeks, North Carolinians voiced their opposition to approving the permits at two public hearings.

Mikaela Curry, campaign manager at the Sierra Club, said, “We urge the state to prioritize North Carolina families by denying Duke’s permits, or at a minimum, hold it to emissions standards other new highly polluting facilities must meet. Duke’s plans, as they are, would leave communities that have already endured years of exposure to air pollution even more vulnerable. As coal plants retire, now is the time to build a safer future – not force North Carolinians to shoulder the externalized costs of Duke’s pollution with their health.”

“These permits reveal astonishing levels of toxic pollutants and lack of effective air quality monitoring that further the impacts of climate change on a state already ravaged by one of the worst natural disasters in our history. These proposed projects will drive up already escalating energy prices and pose an increased threat to North Carolina — that should be enough to compel state regulators to act,” said Luis Martinez, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council.