COLUMBIA, S.C. - South Carolina environmental regulators voted Thursday to uphold air quality permits given to state-owned utility Santee Cooper to build a coal-fired power plant in Florence County.

The 4-2 vote came despite misgivings voiced by several regulators and the opposition of the governor and environmentalists.

“I think a lot of people realize this is a 50-year commitment to a questionable power source,” environmental attorney Blan Holman said after Thursday’s vote.

The decision gives Santee Cooper important approval needed for the $1.25 billion, 600-megawatt boiler that the company says it needs to meet demand for electricity while it is building a nuclear power plant with South Carolina Electric & Gas and Co. The permit allows the company to build two boilers, which would cost $2 billion, but Santee Cooper officials have said they plan to build just one.

The next step is an environmental impact statement to be completed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The plant also still needs permits for water and wetlands issues.

Thursday’s vote was held because several organizations had asked the Department of Health and Environmental Control board to reconsider the air permits issued by the agency’s staff, saying the permits allow too much mercury to be released by the plant.

Opponents also said cleaner technologies for meeting the electricity demand should have been considered in issuing the permits and staffers should have put restrictions on releases of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that gets much of the blame for global warming.

“We all wish there was some technology out there for zero emissions,” Santee Cooper spokeswoman Laura Varn said, adding that the plant will be one of the cleanest coal boilers in the country. “This facility meets all the requirements of the law.”

Opponents of the plant, including the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund and the South Carolina Wildlife Federation, plan to appeal the board’s decision, Holman said. That appeal will be made within the next 60 days and would be heard by an administrative law judge.

Two board members wanted staffers to do more work on the permits to see whether the mercury emission limits could be reduced.

“I think the mercury limit is too high given the already burdened area,” said board member Edwin Cooper, a Columbia attorney who voted against the permits.

The plant will be built along the Pee Dee River. DHEC has issued warnings telling people to limit the amount of fish they eat from the Pee Dee and dozens of other rivers and streams in South Carolina because of high mercury levels.

“Do we function as automatons, just processing applications and issuing permits?” Cooper asked as he tried to win support for having staff rework the permits.

Board members voting to uphold the permits said they don’t necessarily support coal plants, but they thought the staff had complied with the law in issuing the permits.

“Our role was not whether I like coal power,” said Dr. Coleman Buckhouse, a board member from Florence who voted to uphold the permits. “The question before us today is did the staff properly issue this permit.”

Beside the environmental groups, the state Natural Resources Department and Gov. Mark Sanford also have said they don’t think the plant should be built.

About 30 people gathered outside DHEC’s Columbia offices before Thursday’s meeting to protest the proposed plant. Among them was Kay Nichols, 67, of Columbia who grew up in West Virginia.

She left that state in the 1960s because the only available jobs were in the coal mines.

“They can’t fool me; I know coal’s dirty,” Nichols said.

The Rev. Michael McClain is a member of the National Council of Churches and the Environmental Justice Organization, which works to educate people around the plant about the potential dangers.

“Yes, it may bring you a job, but it’s also going to bring you health problems,” McClain said.

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