My first impression of the situation was confusion. I went with the hopes of gaining some information; however, as I progressed through the different stations or kiosks, I felt that I was gleaning nothing from the stations. The boards of information were set up and had 1 - 2 Dominion people there to explain what I was looking at. No real explanation was volunteered to the onlookers, the spectator was given only the information that Dominion wanted them to hear. If you are like me, and not really into power plants, then the good questions were never asked. I felt intimidated by the whole situation. As much as I have learned in the past 2 years, I think I still would be uncomfortable with this particular "dog and pony show".It's inherently natural for humans to learn from each other, and the tactic used by Dominion curtails this learning process. Humans are hardly any different than herd animals, and they feel safe in numbers of like species, thus humans feel safe with others who listen to questions, process what is said and form other questions and opinions. I would have learned more from this type of meeting if I had traveled around the room with a large group, listening to the questions of others, processing those questions, and forming questions of my own, which in turn would have caused the same process to take place with others in that group, thus a lot of questions and answers. Everyone would have heard the same question and answer for themselves and formed their opinions; however, this is not what took place at the so called informational meetings.
The first of one of these meetings is where I met a young lady who has a daughter with asthma. She was told by one of the "Wise" County Supervisors that her property values would soar. I told her he was full of __(you can fill in the blank with whatever word you choose). I then asked her if that was true, then why didn't we all move to Carbo. This woman could be the poster child of this project. She is a product of Southwest Virginia, has coal in her background, has been educated here and wants to stay here. One of the big threats of this region has been out migration of our best resources (our people) due to the lack of quality jobs. A coal fired plant will only exacerbate the problem. Our professionals will move, leaving behind the poor and aged. What a legacy for "Wise" Supervisors.
I did notice at the meetings that what appeared to me to be a quality question asked of the Dominion representatives at the various stations would sometimes cause several more representatives to move to the station where the question was asked. Then instead of 1 - 2 people answering questions, there would be 4 - 5 Dominion reps there. Most of the people who came to the Dominion meetings only walked around the room and looked at the sign boards. Many did not ask any questions, as they felt it would do no good. I did find out later that this tactic is used by many corporations for various reasons. I believe it is called "Divide and Conquer". How appropriate.