The pros: Surry County coal plant

DENDRON Surry County Administrator Tyrone W. Franklin thinks of the proposed Cypress Creek power plant as a redevelopment project that will bring good jobs as well as energy.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Dendron was a big company town, built and run by the Surry Lumber Co. to house its mills and employees.

The company -- the largest processor of yellow pine timber east of the Mississippi River -- thrived, and by the 1920s nearly 3,000 people lived in Dendron. The town's very name comes from the Greek word for "tree."

But the forests were used up, the business soured and the company went out of operation in 1927. With its passing, the town withered and the plant site lay fallow. Today about 350 people live in Dendron.

Now the Old Dominion Electric Cooperative wants to build an approximately $4 billion, 750to 1,500-megawatt power plant -- serving about 375,000 customers -- on the 1,600-acre site.

"Basically what this is, is a redevelopment project. It's on the former site of the lumberyard," Franklin said. "In my mind, there's no real impact in that area because this was once a highly developed industrial site."

ODEC chose the Surry location after a multistate search, in part because it is near electricity-transmission lines and a railroad. ODEC holds an option on the property, but the co-op also has a backup site in Sussex County.

Economic stimulus

To Surry, the sixth-smallest county in the state by population, the plant could be an economic windfall. According to the co-op, construction would require 2,400 to 2,600 workers.

"We feel like the majority of those workers are going to come from the area," said Jeb Hockman of ODEC.

Said Franklin: "In this economic climate, that's enormous."

And when Cypress Creek goes into operation, the plant would employ 200 to 225 permanent workers.

"It'll create jobs at home that [local people] can get," said Dendron native Henry Bailey. "It'll benefit a lot of people that don't have transportation to work. They can walk to work."

Surry's median household income of $45,659 is only 76 percent of the state median, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Eleven percent of the county's population lives below the poverty level, compared with 9.9 percent for the state as a whole.

"Those of us on the Board of Supervisors, all five of us, we think [the plant] is a good idea," said M. Sherlock Holmes, the county board's chairman.

"We have the responsibility for looking out for the people of Surry's health," Holmes said, "but also to provide the money for the things we need to do."

Schools, library, water and sewer infrastructure, public recreation facilities -- all could use the tax money the new power plant would provide, Franklin said.

Old acquaintance

Dominion Virginia Power operates the 1,598-megawatt Surry Power Station, the state's first nuclear power plant, in the Southside Virginia county.

The utility is the locality's largest employer, according to the Virginia Employment Commission.

Surry has an annual budget of $28 million , and Dominion Virginia Power's $9 million in yearly taxes pays for almost a third of the government's expenses, Franklin said.

"We know power plants," the county administrator said. "We feel pretty comfortable with a company like this and a power plant being proposed at Dendron."

Not everyone is totally in favor of the plant.

"I disagree with it because of [possible] health hazards," said Doris Thompkins Harden of Dendron.

"I think a good number of people want a lot more information on the pros and cons," said Nancy Shope, the Dendron town clerk.

Soaring needs

ODEC needs the Surry plant because population growth and personal energy use -- think big new houses with flat-screen TVs, computers and electronic systems -- are rising faster than the company's capacity to produce power.

"We're still growing at 2-plus percent a year" in a recession-dogged economy, ODEC's David Hudgins said. That's twice the rate of Dominion Resources Inc., the state's largest electric utility.

ODEC, based in Henrico County, provides electricity for 11 electric cooperatives -- nine in Virginia -- that distribute that power to homes and businesses, primarily in rural areas.

ODEC and its member cooperatives are not-for-profit utilities, the co-op said, and ODEC serves more land area in Virginia -- about a third of the state -- than any other utility.

The co-op generates about 1,900 megawatts of electricity from power sources it owns. That includes 50 percent of a coal-fired plant in Halifax County and 11.6 percent of the North Anna nuclear power plant in Louisa County. In both cases, Dominion Virginia Power owns the rest.

Now, ODEC can generate all but 60 to 80 megawatts of the electricity it needs. It makes up the shortfall by buying electricity on the open market.

But by 2020, ODEC projects, it will need about 2,700 megawatts, or about 800 megawatts more than it can generate. By 2028, the cooperative will need nearly 3,500 megawatts -- and the demand just keeps going up from there.

Reliable, low-cost power

Buying power can be expensive. That's one reason why ODEC wants its own power supply -- to hold costs down.

"A lot of people think, 'Well, utilities want people to use more electricity because we make money,'" said Jackson E. Reasor Jr., ODEC's president and CEO. "That might be true for some but not for co-ops.

"Our obligation to our members at ODEC is to provide reliable, environmentally balanced power at the lowest possible cost," he said.

Contact Peter Bacqué at (804) 649-6813 or .

Contact Rex Springston at (804) 649-6453 or .