The decision on Entergy Mississippi's 754-megawatt gas plant in Ridgeland now sits with a nine-member state board that meets Tuesday, Oct. 13 at 9 a.m. at MDEQ's Jackson office, 515 E. Amite Street. The Mississippi Environmental Quality Permit Board issues, denies, and modifies air permits, and MDEQ's own hearing record states plainly that the final call is the board's, not the agency staff's.

The permit at stake is Air Reference No. 1720-00100, a Prevention of Significant Deterioration permit to construct for the Traceview Advanced Power Station at 1972 W County Line Road. MDEQ received Entergy's application on June 11, 2025, according to the hearing transcript filed with the agency. The plant is rated at 750 megawatts in the transcript and 772,200 kilowatts in the draft permit's emission point table, a difference of roughly 22 megawatts between the two documents.

The public comment record closed at midnight on July 14, 2026, after a hearing at Greater Pearlie Grove Missionary Baptist Church at 1640 West County Line Road in Jackson. The transcript runs 88 pages. MDEQ air division chief Jaricus Whitlock opened the hearing by drawing a line the agency has had to repeat: this permitting action is for a power plant, not a data center. "I know that's been some confusion about that matter in the media," Whitlock said, according to the transcript.

That confusion is not incidental. The plant's customer base is the reason it exists. Entergy Mississippi has said the Ridgeland site sits adjacent to an existing high-voltage transmission corridor, and that building the same plant elsewhere would cost hundreds of millions of dollars more in interconnection infrastructure. The company's own project page describes a more than $1 billion investment with construction starting in 2026 and an in-service date in 2029.

The draft permit authorizes a specific equipment list, and it is worth reading closely. Emission point AA-001 is the combustion turbine with a supplementally fired duct burner, a combined cycle with heat recovery steam generator and steam turbine generator, rated at 4,983 MMBtu per hour of heat input. The rest of the list is small: a 2,180-kilowatt diesel emergency standby generator, a 235-kilowatt diesel firewater pump, a 5.01 MMBtu per hour natural gas dewpoint heater, and four storage tanks holding 4,150 gallons of diesel, 500 gallons of diesel, and 400 gallons of condensate each.

The control technology is prescribed in the draft. Nitrogen oxides are capped at 2 parts per million using selective catalytic reduction. Carbon monoxide is capped at 2 ppm using an oxidation catalyst. Volatile organic compounds are capped at 1.5 ppm. Sulfur dioxide control is achieved by burning pipeline-grade natural gas and nothing else. MDEQ's modeling found the facility compliant with all applicable standards, PSD increments, and significant impact levels, and the transcript notes Madison County is currently in attainment for all national standards.

One number in the draft permit has nothing to do with emissions and everything to do with timing. Condition 1.19 states the permit to construct expires if construction does not begin within 18 months of issuance, if construction is suspended for 18 months or more, or if construction is not completed within a reasonable time. If the board approves the permit on Oct. 13, that clock starts running almost immediately, and Entergy would need to be moving dirt at the West County Line Road site by roughly April 2028.

The permit also carries a condition that Entergy cannot satisfy on its own. Condition 1.4 puts the burden on the permittee to obtain all other approvals, including "all required local government zoning approvals or permits." The Ridgeland site straddles the Hinds and Madison county line north of West County Line Road between Livingston Road and the Natchez Trace Parkway, which means the local approvals are not a single jurisdiction's to give.

Separately, the water side of the project is still open. MDEQ's facility record for Agency Interest No. 89056 shows a pretreatment application, MSP092492, marked "Application Determined Complete, Draft Permit Preparation in Progress" as of July 23, 2026. The air permit can be granted while the water permit is still being drafted, which means the Oct. 13 vote is not the last regulatory gate.

The construction side is already moving. MDEQ has issued general permit construction coverage MSR109942 for the Traceview site effective Aug. 24, 2026, running through Jan. 31, 2027, and a modification to coverage MSR109619 effective Aug. 19, 2026, that now names the Green Acres Substation. The earlier coverage under MSR109619 was issued under the name Madison County Advanced Power Station before being renamed Traceview on May 7, 2026. The substation appearing in the permit record is the first public paper trail of the grid-side work.

What's next: The Permit Board meets Tuesday, Oct. 13 at 9 a.m. at 515 E. Amite Street in Jackson. MDEQ's agenda page lists the agenda as "Coming Soon," so the Traceview item is not yet formally noticed. The board chair is Brian Perry of the Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce, and the vice chair is Jennifer Wittmann of the Department of Marine Resources. Anyone who wants to know whether the vote happens Oct. 13 or slips to the board's November meeting should watch the agenda posting at mdeq.ms.gov, or call (601) 961-5041 to confirm the date and location.

After the air vote, the next document to watch is the draft pretreatment permit MSP092492, which is still in preparation. The staff contacts listed on the facility record are Jeffrey Bland for air permitting at (601) 961-5112 and Rusty Parrish for water permitting at (601) 961-5193. Entergy has said construction starts in 2026 and the plant comes online in 2029, and the 18-month construction deadline in Condition 1.19 is the first hard date that would show whether that schedule holds.