For the second time, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s (DEQ) State Air Pollution Control Board delayed action on the Buckingham Compressor Station’s air permit, part of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s (ACP) course through the Farmville area.

The board cast the vote during its Wednesday morning meeting.

This is the second time the board delayed the vote, having done so following its meetings Nov. 8 and 9.

The permit concerns the 53,783-horsepower compressor station that would be located off Route 56 and would be connected with the ACP, which is expected to span 600 miles, crossing Buckingham, Cumberland and Prince Edward counties.

The permit included 51 requirements for the compressor station, including that the operations practice proper emission controls, that equipment be installed with the proper monitoring devices, that the appropriate fuel be used and regulated, that the emissions fall within the necessary limits and be properly tested and evaluated.

The Buckingham compressor station will be the only compressor station in Virginia used by the ACP.

DEQ representative Gregory Bilyeu confirmed the result of the meeting. He said the board, during the meeting, decided to “initiate a new written public comment period.”

He said the details of the written public comment period would be announced soon.

“Specific Board documents discussed today to be considered during the public comment period will be made public before comment period begins,” Bilyeu said Wednesday.

He said the board discussed amendments to the permit that would make the permit more stringent.

The amendments discussed were not immediately available before presstime.

Bilyeu said per the board’s instructions, those amendments would not be part of the public comment period consideration.

Bilyeu said the incoming board members did not participate in Wednesday’s meeting. He said it is not known currently whether the new board members would participate in the next board meeting.

Two prior board members, Rebecca Rubin and Samuel Bleicher, were removed from the board in November. This decision from the Governor’s Office created controversy as Rubin and Bleicher were among the board members deliberating the air permit for the Buckingham Compressor Station.

Heidi Dhivya Berthoud, secretary of Friends of Buckingham, an organization advocating against the pipeline, attended Wednesday’s meeting in Richmond.

She said she and her colleagues had not anticipated a vote to delay.

“We were so unprepared for that,” Berthoud said. “We thought it was going to be a yes or a no.”

“For us, delay is pretty much always a good thing,” Berthoud continued. “There’s so many things happening right now. You never know what’s going to be the straw that takes this thing down.”

Aaron Ruby, spokesperson of Dominion Energy, a main partner with the ACP, said the delay was discouraging but trusts that the permit is sound.

“While we’re disappointed with the additional delay, we’re confident the Board will approve the permit after considering all of the facts,” Ruby said. He estimated that the permit recommended is the most stringent air permit with the strongest environmental protections of any compressor station in the country.

The final draft permit, the permit engineering analysis, the air quality analyses review, the public participation reports, a full written copy of the spoken comments given during the Sept. 11 public hearing at Buckingham County Middle School and responses to public comments can be found at the Virginia DEQ website.

According to a previous Herald report, approximately 85 signed up to speak with 81 speaking at the Sept. 11 meeting in total.

According to the summary and responses to the public comments document, more than 3,800 emails were submitted during the public comment period given by DEQ between Aug. 8 and Sept. 11.

“One email included a spreadsheet containing over 1,100 individual names and associated comments,” the summary cited.

The DEQ also received more than 500 written comments via postal mail.