CHARLESTON — Two of the three appeals regarding the state Department of Environmental Protection’s handling of air quality permit applications for a proposed power plant for a data center in Tucker County were dismissed during an Air Quality Board Evidentiary Hearing Wednesday morning.

Representatives from Tucker United, the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy and the Sierra Club, the three groups who filed the appeal, went before the West Virginia Air Quality Board Wednesday. They were joined by representatives from Fundamental Data, the company looking to build the proposed Ridgeline Power Plant between the towns of Davis and Thomas.

Even though the Air Quality Board dismissed two sections of the appeals — one of which had to do with fugitive emissions, while the other sought to identify the objective of Fundamental Data’s project — representatives from the three groups filing the appeals were happy with how things turned out, especially since a motion to dismiss the third section of the appeal was denied.

“We still have 15 of our original 17 objections to the appeal in place,” Nikki Forrester, spokesperson for Tucker United, told The Inter-Mountain Wednesday afternoon. “So there are basically 15 things that we are still fighting on.

“The two they dismissed were about fugitive emissions from mobile sources and the other one was that the end user of the data center should be taken into consideration. With the third one not being dismissed, we still have many avenues forward, which is good. And the big takeaway for us is that the Air Quality Board is looking to find a way to get our attorneys and expert witnesses access to what they claim to be confidential business information, which would give us the ability to calculate pollution emissions.”

The Air Quality Board discussed the third section of the appeal, which contained the confidential business information issue that was brought up during the hearing. The board agreed to give both parties a Nov. 12 deadline to reach an agreement on what will be made accessible. If the two sides can’t come up with an agreement, the Air Quality Board will make a decision on the matter. An evidentiary hearing is now scheduled for Dec. 3.

“The next hearing in December is when our witnesses will be called to the stand and there will be a very long discussion about the appeal,” Forrester said. “The hearing today was really just to consider those motions that were talked about. The next hearing will be the big one and will be the one where we have a chance to state our case, express our concerns, point out the flaws that we found so far, and address those 15 other objections that are still in place.”

The proposed Ridgeline Power Plant would be a 500-acre natural gas power plant fueling a data center.