This week I'm going to be in Wise County, where Dominion Power is planning to build a $1.8 billion coal-fired power plant. Members of the Sierra Club, Appalachian Voices, Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards and CCAN are putting on events around the meeting of the Air Board on Tuesday.
There's been a lot of talk about the old ways here in Appalachia. Today is the first day of my trip to Wise County to see what we're fighting for, to get to know the people who are fighting in this community to stop this plant and to attend tomorrow's Air Board meeting, where they will decide whether or not to grant Dominion's final permit.
We started the day by helping the Clinch Coalition build a trial in Jefferson National Forest. The forest is a glorious example of the Appalachian eco-diversity. Hickory, Red Oak and Beech gave way to rhododendron and hemlock. Hemlock is rare these days because of a small beetle, the woolly adelgid, which has infested large numbers of hemlock stands in Virginia. But these hemlock were free from infestation, as was the forest in general. There are few invasive species there, even though the roads and more populated trails have numerous examples of invasives like kudzu. The rhododendrons were still in bloom, and as we looked out over the vista of mountains and deep forest, the scars from mountain top removal mining were clearly in view.
A quarter of this county has been destroyed by mountain top removal mining. We visited black mountain with Larry Bush, whose family has been living there for generations, and we witnessed the intense scarring that mountain top removal mining cuts into this landscape. Miles of land, where a mountain once stood, was leveled, barren and destroyed.
Communities like this have had few resources to stop these mines. If a proposal is presented and community members object, they are ignored. "These regulatory agencies act like buffers between the coal companies and the people," Larry said, "they're there to make it easier for the coal companies to ignore the people."
Devastating costs have been paid by the people of Wise. Larry took us to a site where a coal company started mining with out a permit and caused a rock slide. A rock fell and smashed into a house and killed a small boy. The company was slapped with a small fine and no criminal charges were pressed. This is the old way of things in Virginia: whatever's good for coal is what's good for Virginia. Politicians, government officials, and industry all participate in this mode of thinking.
It was this thinking that led to looser environmental regulations on coal. We passed 4 huge coal silos on the way up the mountain. I was told that this was a coal-cleaning facility that is now lying unused. When the Bush Administration decided that the restrictions on cleaning coal to get high BTU grade coal were too tough on industry, this facility closed. Now, coal of any grade can be used in coal-fired plants. Dominion's Wise County plant is going to use some of the dirtiest form of coal-waste coal-which had been banned until the regulations were dismissed.
The town of Appalachia has been subject to the ebb and flow of coal's value. At the turn of the century and during the coal boom this was a hopping town. I'm told that on weekends, the crowds down main street were so thick you'd have to elbow your way through them. There was a theater, restaurants, and all the amenities of a boom town. In the fifties, with mechanization, people were put out of work and moved away. The town doesn't have a grocery store, no bars, no restaurants (but it does have a taxidermy shop!).
But you can still tell that the old way of thinking is still strong here. Dominion has already started to work at the site of their proposed coal plant-a crane is there, cars have consistently been at the site. And townspeople are already starting to question whether the debate is still going on-which makes sense because it looks like work has already begun. They are assuming that they will get their permit, and that the people here will stop fighting it.
Tomorrow we'll be hearing the first testimony at the Air Board hearing. There are people from all over the state here to testify-I've meet people from NoVa, Richmond, Charlottesville, Blacksburg-all these people who have come to show their support for all the people in Wise who are still fighting the plant.
Stay tuned for photos and more tomorrow!
My thoughts and prayers are with you all!!!
My favorite quote...
The back-and-forth nature of the permitting debate, and how ever-stricter limits are proving acceptable after all, has led environmentalists to suggest they were right all along."It's not state-of-the-art technology, as Dominion claims," said Tom Cormons, an attorney and state director of Appalachian Voices, an environmental group.
"They clearly have had the ability to do better, but simply didn't want to - until they were pushed to spend the money," Cormons said from his Charlottesville office. "It's green-washing, pure and simple."
Dominion and Big Oil... where's the difference?
Here's the link the the VP article (I think the Roanoke Times one was shortened)... http://hamptonroads.com/2008/0...
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/0...
If I was on the Air Pollution Control Board and had to choose between conservation that would negate the need to build the Wise County plan and the others or appoving the permits to go forward, then the choice is clear. Building a power plant for the sake of building is not a good enough reason.
I have only heard a few people in the media talk about the quickest and surest way to attack the global energy crisis, and that is pushing agressive energy conservation policies and practices. It requires changeing habits and behaviors at the individual level and in the public and private sectors of business. This will have an immediate impact and will save more money per person than gimmicks like repealing the national gas tax through Labor Day.
The individual power of the purse is more powerful than most realize. I'm not suggesting something like everyone not drive for a day, but cut inefficientcy or reduce it to the minimum by combining trips to run errands around town, carpooling, cutting lights off in rooms when you leave, the same stuff we were taught growing up. The time of excess is over.