A much anticipated set of rulings on challenges by a group of environmental organizations to Plant Washington’s water and air permits were issued recently by Administrative Law Judge Ronit Walker in Atlanta. In her order the judge denied motions for summary judgment on many of the counts. Of the 16 total counts contained in the legal challenges, four counts were denied, two were decided in favor of the appellants and the remaining ten were assigned for adjudication either in a hearing or through EPD’s internal processes. The two issues that were decided in favor of the appellants were procedural matters related to the water permits that must be addressed. Specifically, the judge agreed with the environmental groups challenging the permits that the EPD should have required Power4Georgians to include a pollution monitoring site at the point where cooling tower water will be discharged into the Oconee River. Plant Washington was designed with a monitor at the retention pond, which will be onsite, but not on the Oconee. Ironically, the monitoring of retention pond water is significantly more thorough than monitoring at the site of discharge into the river. Water that has been captured and cooled in the retention ponds will be diluted by rainwater before being discharged into the river, so meeting pollution control standards at the discharge site is considerably easier than meeting those standards immediately after the water is discharged from the cooling towers. “While the directive may be to replace the on-site monitor with monitoring facilities at the Oconee River discharge site, we believe that it is even more prudent to monitor both locations, and therefore we will revise our plan to do just that,” said Dean Alford, spokesman for Power4Georgians. “Our intention is to go beyond what the petitioners requested in their appeal because monitoring only at the Oconee River discharge site is not enough by itself.” The second part of the appeal that was upheld by Judge Walker related to the inter-basin transfer of water. While Plant Washington actually sits in the Ogeechee River basin, water necessary for plant operations will be acquired through a network of pipes from the Oconee River and used onsite. Water from the cooling towers will be captured in onsite retention ponds and sent back to the Oconee cleaner than when it was pumped from the river. Because Plant Washington sits in the Ogeechee River basin, and despite the fact that no water will come from or be discharged into the Ogeechee, Judge Walker ruled that it still constitutes an inter-basin transfer. The judge ruled that the state should have included the inter-basin issue in its public meetings and in its notice for those meetings. Therefore, she directed the EPD to provide that notice and hold a public hearing on the inter-basin transfer issue. <top>