Upstate Today: Santee Cooper took another step closer to constructing a 1,320-megawatt coal-fired power plant along the Pee Dee River in Florence County when Department of health and Environmental Control (DHEC) and the Bureau of Air Quality granted the project an air permit on Dec. 16. Plans are to build the plant on 2,709 acres of land near Kingsburg, 25 miles southeast of Florence, and according to Laura Varn, Santee Cooper spokeswoman, the news is uplifting. “This is the major permit that …