Wind company says no federal 'nexus' for project

MONTEREY — Highland New Wind Development responded to question from supervisor David Blanchard last week, explaining no further environmental assessments were required for its electric utility prior to construction.

Blanchard had asked whether the county or its Technical Review Committee had received any, and if not, he said the county should have a letter from state reviewing agencies listed in HNWD's state permit order.

HNWD attorney John Flora replied to TRC member Roberta Lambert in a letter July 31 that there is no "federal nexus" associated with the project. "This means there are no federal imposed requirements to obtain an environmental impact statement, or what is sometimes called a 'NEPA' review," he said. "There was, of course, and as you witnessed, very intense scrutiny conducted in 2006 and 2007 by the Commonwealth of Virginia."

Flora explained the State Corporation Commission asked the Department of Environmental Quality to coordinate reviews by other agencies. "DEQ compiled all the comments and responses obtained from all interested state agencies in a 41-page summary of comments. Page two of the comments provides a list of permits and approvals that may be required and all of those have been dealt with or are listed in the list previously provided … that was reviewed and agreed upon after the insurance of the SCC order by staff members of (SCC and DEQ)," he wrote.

Further, he said, the DEQ report compiled all the recommendations submitted by other agencies. "It is important to note that these are not permits or requirements, but simply recommendations, many of which were not accepted or adopted in the final SCC order," Flora said. "Although the commission is required to consider a number of important factors, the majority of the two-year SCC process and the majority of the SCC final order focused on the environmental impact of the wind project. During that two-year process, the environmental impact was reviewed, discussed, argued and debated at length. A number of studies, or what could be called environmental assessments, were submitted as part of the record at the commission. Highland County, as a participant, and you, Roberta, as the person listed to receive all filings, did in fact receive copies of all of those environmental assessments."