WVDEP meeting in Gilbert addresses Adams Fork Energy project proposal
- WVOW News
- 23 hours ago
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Robert Fields & Shana Nelson | WVOW News
GILBERT Dozens of Mingo County residents turned out Thursday for an in-person public hearing conducted by the state Department of Environmental Protection.
That meeting in Gilbert had to do with air quality permits applied for by TransGas Development Systems, LLC, a New York-based company aiming to build a natural gas power plant at the former Twisted Gun Golf Course property in the Wharncliffe area and another identical one adjacent to the Mohawk Industries facility at Holden on the Mingo/Logan county line.
Those power plants are proposed as “certified microgrid” facilities, designed to function independently from the broader electrical grid, and are proposed with the goal of powering future data centers. A data center is essentially a large open facility lined with powerful computers that is meant to process a large volume of digital traffic. Data centers are necessary for everything from the basic Google search to the rapidly expanding AI industry. They also require a large amount of water to keep the systems cool. TransGas is proposing tapping into an approximate 1.5 trillion-gallon aquifer in Mingo County, using the same mine water that many residents in the area rely on for wells, to cool the facilities.
There were a number of points of confusion clarified at Thursday’s meeting. First, this is a project still in its infancy. While powering data centers is part of the goal, DEP officials say there is no permit information tied to any data centers at this point in the process, meaning the possibility of such a facility hasn’t even been considered by the department yet. When TransGas does want to build a data center, Division of Air Quality New Source Review Program Manager Joe Kessler said the company will have to undergo an entirely separate permitting process.
One question that has been asked in this process is whether the law establishes expiration dates for permits issued by the DEP. According to Kessler, the permits applied for pre-construction, such as the two requested for the power plants, do not expire. However, he clarified that there are more permits to consider once a facility is built.
“Our NSR permits – this permit when issued doesn’t have an expiration on it. So there’s no expiration date on this permit. If they change something, change the emission limit or something else that’s defined as a modification, they’re going to have to come back, go through another permitting process to get those changes in the permit,” Kessler said. “This facility will have to get another permit when it starts operating. That permit will have to be renewed every five years.”
Each of the proposed power plants will have 117 turbine engines with the ability to operate on natural gas and diesel fuel. A hundred and fourteen of those engines are permitted to operate at one time, leaving three on standby for emergencies or regular maintenance. Maintenance is required on those engines every day. DEP officials said those engines have to use both dry and wet methods to control emissions. The dry system will use what is known as selective catalytic reduction (SCR), which, according to the EPA, uses chemical reactions to convert the most harmful emissions to less harmful gases. Wet systems are installed downstream of dry systems and use a lime or limestone slurry to further remove harmful gases, preventing them from being released into the atmosphere.
There are ten modes of operation for that array of engines, according to DEP officials, each projected to capture and remove differing levels of pollutants. However, under normal operating standards, the predicted efficiency for most of the harmful pollution reduction is 99 percent.
An ammonia plant, also proposed for the Twisted Gun property, has already received an air quality permit based on the claim that the facility would be a “minor source” of air pollution. The “minor source” designation, according to DEP standards, allows for up to 250 tons per pollutant per year.
Greenhouse gas emissions are not considered in the state’s permitting process.
However, according to property owner Ernie Sammons, none of that matters in the context of an ammonia plant because he says that plant is off the table.
“This project has been ongoing and off for the last several years. It was originally going to be a diesel plant. That got canceled because the market changed,” he said. “This ammonia plant will not be built. It will not be built because it’s not economically feasible.”
The ammonia plant was first announced in 2023 after a similar coal-to-gas project proposed for the same site in 2008 was never built. The facility was initially linked to the Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub, but that partnership ended after natural gas producer CNX withdrew from the project. Federal officials also rejected TransGas’ effort to qualify for a lucrative hydrogen production tax credit, leaving questions about how the plant would be funded and operated.
Governor Patrick Morrisey has called for new steps to support the data center industry in West Virginia, signing House Bill 2014 in May to establish a Certified Microgrid Program and a High Impact Data Center Program, which he described as a major move for economic development. Recent job numbers show employment continues to decline in the state, and Morrisey has previously praised data centers’ potential to provide both manufacturing and high-skilled positions.
Sammons claimed that the power plants would produce up to 400 jobs in Mingo County. It’s unknown how many positions would be created by a data center, but activists assert that those job numbers would be limited.
Outside of air quality, the officials at Thursday’s meeting were unable and, moreover, not authorized to discuss any issues regarding any non-air quality impacts such as jobs, property values, economics, energy issues or any related areas.
Instead, the DEP explained that they only determine and enforce compliance with state and federal air quality rules and regulations.
One of the concerns voiced by residents in recent months has been the alleged redaction of information by TransGas dealing with the engines and the emission capture technologies. Kessler claimed at the meeting that there are very few details that are actually redacted.
“We’ve got a 150-page permit application, we’ve got a however-many-page evaluation where we summarize, and we go through all the rationale for our preliminary determination. We have a draft permit with individual emission limits, with monitoring requirements, with performance testing and test methods. We have locations specified. We have all of this information,” he said.
“What has been claimed ‘confidential’ is the make and model of the engines.”
The DEP held a virtual public hearing in August, but many residents found issues in accessing the meeting. Thursday’s meeting came at the request of Mingo County residents who went to Charleston asking the DEP for transparency.
Links to all of the relevant DEP documentation can be found below:
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