By: Lydia Crawley The Parsons Advocate
The WV Department of Environmental Protection has reached out the Parsons Advocate to clarify that the Ridgeline Power Plant Project’s Air Quality Permit has not been approved. While the application has been deemed complete and appears to meet all qualifications, no determination has been officially made, Chief Communications Officer for the DEP Terry Fletcher said.
“We’ve not actually approved the permit for the Ridgeline facility,” Fletcher said.
Fletcher reiterated the approval process for the Air Quality Permit. Currently, according to Fletcher, the permit is still under the public comment period.
“We get an application in and we review it and once its deemed complete and we review it, based on that evaluation, if it looks like its going to meet all the air quality requirements, then we will send it out to public notice and public comment,” Fletcher said.
The public comment period lasts 30 days, Fletcher said, at which time at the end, a review of the comments is taken into consideration when a determination is made.
“At the end of that 30 day public comment period, we’ll review any comments we receive and then respond to the comments and make a determination,” Fletcher said.
Fletcher said no determination has been made on the Air Quality Permit as of yet.
“We’ve not actually approved anything at this stage,” Fletcher said.
The Parsons Advocate incorrectly reported in its headline last week that the permit had been approved based on information supplied in the latest DEP emails stating that a preliminary evaluation had deemed that all State and Federal requirements will be met by the proposed facility and a draft construction permit released for the facility.
