EPA says an environmental review prepared by the Tennessee Valley Authority for the retirement and replacement of a major coal-fired power plant is inadequate.
In a letter this week, the regulator took issue with a final environmental impact statement issued by TVA last month around the demolition and replacement of the Kingston Fossil Plant — located about 40 miles west of downtown Knoxville, Tennessee.
EPA called for portions of the final review to be revised and be made available for public comment in a supplemental EIS. Addressing deficiencies would “strengthen the defensibility” of the review, EPA said, and “ensure that TVA’s final decision is fully informed.”
TVA, the nation’s largest public power utility, plans to retire the nearly 70-year-old plant by the end of 2027 and replace it primarily with a natural-gas-fired plant with a 1,500-megawatt generation capacity. That course of action is opposed by several environmental groups. TVA’s plans are being watched closely as the Biden administration pushes for a decarbonized U.S. grid by 2035 and the utility aims to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
