Our guest speaker for July’s Activist Sunday was Belvin Olasov from the Charleston Climate Coalition (CCC). Olasov spoke about a gas megaplant joint venture between Santee Cooper and Dominion Energy that, if completed, will threaten the pristine Ace Basin Wildlife Preserve, contribute massive amounts of air and water pollution, and cost rate payers millions.
You can help prevent this catastrophe by signing the petition to tell Dominion NO megaplants in the ACE Basin and then ask everyone you know to do the same. Then you can sign up for CCC’s mailing list to stay in the know.
If you aren’t familiar with the ACE Basin, it gets its name from the Ashepoo, Combahee, and Edisto Rivers (ACE) and is one of the largest undeveloped estuaries on the East Coast. It provides diverse habitats and abundant wildlife. The basin is one of the few truly untouched pockets of nature left on the South Carolina coast and is home to nine federally endangered species and six federally threatened species. The basin also provides habitat for many other state designated threatened and endangered species. In addition to its ecological value, it is also a beloved recreation site for fishing, bird watching, kayaking, hiking and more.
The history of the megaplant site, outside the town of Canadys in Colleton County on the banks of the Edisto River, is disturbing and obscure. The site is the former location of a coal plant, decommissioned after 50 years of polluting the air and water outside of Canadys. While the plant operated, residents experienced documented increases in respiratory diseases such as asthma, and increased mortality due to the pollution. Now they want to subject the people of southern South Carolina to a new round of pollutants, jeopardizing the air quality of nearby residents, the health of the ACE Basin ecosystem and the water quality of the Edisto River, which provides the source water to Charleston Water Systems.
If completed– or not (remember the $8B VC Summer Nuclear Plant fiasco?)-- the energy companies have the green light from the state legislature to increase our energy rates to pay for the project. That includes the associated pipeline from Mississippi to bring the gas to the plant where it will be converted to electricity. South Carolina already pays the 3rd highest energy rates in the country–once again we are striving for number one in all the wrong places.
Earlier this year, the legislature paved the way for this joint venture by passing a law allowing publicly owned and privately owned utilities to work together on the same project. However, this is by no means a done deal. The project still has to go through a maze of approvals and permitting, starting with the Public Service Commission. If they are successful in convincing the PSC, they will still need to get state, federal and local permits before construction can begin. The whole process could take up to ten years to complete, but we need to start fighting now before it has an opportunity to gain momentum.
Olasov spoke about similar projects that were defeated through grassroots activism, including the Keystone XL pipeline, the Dominion pipeline through Appalachia, the expansion of the Woodbridge gas plant, and the Transmountain Pipeline in Canada. These projects and others were stopped by the people, using protests, public comment, and writing to elected officials. The CCC is partnering with several other like-minded agencies to defeat this project and have plans to canvass Canadys neighborhoods, table at local events, protest at Dominion offices, and much more. But they need our help.
SHL will be supporting the CCC in their ongoing efforts to fight against this project. Engaging in this fight is one way to practice humanist values, such as our commitments to environmentalism, peace & social justice, global awareness and service and participation. For more on our humanist commitments, click here.
If you would like to watch Olasov’s presentation to SHL, you can find it on our YouTube Channel.