Future of Virginia air board committee in question

The future of a committee convened by the State Air Pollution Control Board to improve public engagement and transparency in environmental permitting is in doubt with new leadership on the panel.

Board Chair James Patrick Guy said he was “not disposed to … continue the committee at this time.”

“If there’s a need for it in the future we can certainly discuss it,” he said.

The Committee on Public Engagement was created in 2019 in the wake of the panel’s controversial approval of an air permit for the now-canceled Chickahominy Power Station in Charles City County.

Its inception also followed the granting of an air permit for a compressor station in the predominantly Black community of Union Hill in Buckingham County that was intended to be part of the now-canceled Atlantic Coast Pipeline. The permit was later overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit on the grounds that the air board and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality had neglected to consider environmental justice impacts and less polluting measures.