Welcome to ArticleXI.com!
We are a group of environmental advocates united in providing a one-stop source for Virginia's environmental news. We each focus on different issues, but share the vision of a Commonwealth that preserves and protects its natural resources. Please join us!
The following is a blog post by Betsy Shepard of Surry County, Virginia. The largest coal plant ever proposed for the state is proposed within the small town of Dendron, in Surry County and upwind of nearly 2 million people in Hampton Roads, a region already suffering from poor air quality. Somehow Betsy finds time in between raising her kids, running a business with her husband and living life to fight this proposed coal plant and to write awesome blog posts like this one.
______
Recently the issue of "modeling" has come up as it pertains to the proposed Surry Coal Plant.
No, this is not another ad campaign by the "Clean Coal" folks showing scantily clad models pretending to be coal miners-or coal plant operators in this case.
This kind of modeling has to do with making accurate predictions about air pollution from a proposed source, a key component in understanding the impacts of the largest coal-fired power plant proposed for Virginia. And an essential consideration for the 1.8 million Hampton Roads residents who live directly downwind.
According to the EPA, modeling refers:
". . . to a general technique that uses mathematical representations of the factors affecting pollutant dispersion. Computers are used extensively to help scientists model the complex systems responsible for transport and dispersion of air pollutants.
In modeling air pollution transport and dispersion, specific information is gathered for an emission point. This information includes the location of the emission point (latitude and longitude), the quantity and type of pollutants emitted, stack gas conditions, the height of the stack, and many meteorological factors that include wind speed, ambient temperature profiles, and atmospheric pressure. Using this data as input for a computer model, scientists can predict how pollutants will be dispersed into the atmosphere. Concentration levels can be estimated for various distances and directions from the site of the stack." Source: EPA
In 1921, more than 10,000 coal miners marched through southern West Virginia for their right to unionize, for their right to a decent wage, for reasonable hours and other rights that we take for granted today. On Blair Mountain the march erupted into a violent skirmish between the marchers and local authorities and hired coal company union busters. The violence finally ended when federal troops were called in but not until bombs were dropped from planes on miners, an estimated million rounds were fired and over 100 people died.
This mountain is now slated to meet the same fate that over 500 other Appalachian peaks have met. There is coal in Blair Mountain and the coal industry has decided it is best retrieved through mountaintop removal coal mining. Much of Blair Mountain may be blasted to bits and dumped into the adjacent valleys to expose the coal seems that lie within.
For many Appalachian people, local community members, miners, environmentalists, laborers and historians this is simply unacceptable. Earlier this month, a couple hundred people retraced the miners path to Blair Mountain in a 50 mile march through southern West Virginia. At the foot of the mountain, the march culminated in a rally to save Blair on Friday and Saturday, June 10th and 11th.
The rally attracted 1,000 people from the coalfields and all over the United States who would rather see Blair Mountain preserved than flattened for a few seams of coal.
The following is a speech by my friend Betsy Shepard of Surry County, Va given on the evening of Friday, June 10th at the culmination of the Blair Mountain March.
Good evening!!
My name is Betsy Shepard and I am here to talk about my community's fight against the largest coal fired power plant in the state of Virginia-and I will, but first.....can we talk about mountains for a minute?
I grew up in the mountains and being here in the West Virginia mountains is making me feel very nostalgic.
I haven't lived in the mountains for many years, but I can still close my eyes and imagine the bright green fiddleheads of mountain ferns and know exactly what they smell like.
Gov. Bob McDonnell's political action committee (PAC) was recently given a $100,000 contribution in a single week from one family, that of James C. Justice II.
Justice, his wife and two children, each gave Gov. McDonnell's PAC, "Opportunity Virginia PAC," $25,000 according to the Virginia Public Access Project.
Justice is a coal executive in West Virginia and the owner of the Greenbrier resort. He is a billionaire who's money has been made from coal, timber, and corn.
But Justice is the latest in a string of other big-money donations since the beginning of May that have equaled up to $160,000 on top of the $100,000 contributed by the Justices.
Needless to say, these kind of large PAC contributions from coal executives leave McDonnell's position on "clean energy" more dubious than ever.
In the world of politics, you are where you get your money from and if McDonnell continues to drag his feet on the issue of clean and renewable forms of energy, one need look no further than the sources of the contributions to McDonnell's future political ambitions.
While McDonnell fills his political coffers for future political campaigns, Virginians are little closer to realizing a coal-free future than they were before McDonnell came into office as governor.
For men like McDonnell however, the consequences of inaction don't matter because they do not feel the direct and immediate effects. But the issues of global warming and air pollution don't recognize class boundaries, even if McDonnell does.
Not surprisingly, another state permitting body has caved in to the requests of big coal.
On Tuesday, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission unanimously approved a Virginia permit for Old Dominion Electric Cooperative to undertake tests in the James River for its proposed $6 billion coal-fired power plant in Surry County.
Old Dominion Electric Cooperative would like to decide what kind of metal screen would best be used in a pipeline. The pipeline would carry millions of gallons of cooling water every day from the James to the proposed Cypress Creek Power Station.
Residents and environmentalists are justifiably opposed to these experiments, arguing that the tests may inflict impairment on marine life.
Proponents of the experiments will argue that Virginia needs power from coal for the time being and that these experiments will help power Virginia for some time to come.
But it is unclear that Virginia requires a new coal-fired power plant. This unquestioned position seems more like dogma than it does a conclusion based upon scientific evidence. And unfortunately, a lot of precious wildlife is being harmed in the process.
When it comes to new coal-fired power plants in Virginia, the time for compromise is over. They adversely affect human health, ecosystem integrity, and they divert our attention and money away from renewable sources of energy.
Virginia needs its political leaders and its private citizens to finally stand up and say, no more!
For Sierrans and other Americans engaged in the intense fight to defeat the power and influence of Big Coal in our country, there is seldom time to think what Big Coal is up to in the rest of the world.
I had the good fortune to travel to India this month with a Sierra Club delegation and meet India activists from across that country fighting Big Coal as their rapidly developing country decides which energy path it will take. One week after my return, two Indian activists visited the Appalachian coal fields of Virginia.
Our shared experience upon visiting the coalfields and power plants of our respective countries is that wherever coal is extracted and burned, intimidation, poverty, and oppression follow. The circumstances of people living in the coalfields and in the shadows of coal fired power plants are more severe in India than they are in ours, but the similarities are striking.
Our Indian friends were struck by the evident poverty as they drove through the Appalachian coalfields and hollers of southwest Virginia. As they exchanged stories with residents of Wise County with Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, they also saw the dark side of American politics -- public officials and government agencies that put the interests of Big Coal over the health and safety of their own citizens.
Recently, Sierra Club Virginia Chapter Director Glen Besa participated in a trip to India where he, and several colleagues, trained locals on how to fight Big Coal. The following is a post from one of the trip's participants.
When we left for a training session in India to meet with local activists working to protect communities from large-scale coal projects, we didn't know that we'd get an opportunity to see Singrauli, the power capital of India where ten percent of the nation's energy is produced.
But the day after the training ended we pooled our resources and arranged to visit the region at the invitation of Awadesh Kumar, an elder of Indian activism with a bright smile who seemed to know everyone in Singrauli. Awadesh has worked for over thirty years with Srijan Lokhit Samiti (SLS) to protect the residents of Singrauli as they are relocated and forced to live with the impacts of some of the largest industrial projects in the world.
The magnitude of what we were undertaking didn't really sink in until we were on the road to Singrauli. On a good day, the trip takes five to six hours from Varanasi by car over a winding, rural, two lane highway. Anyone who has been to India is familiar with the organized chaos of the roads there, as cars, motorcycles, rickshaws, and bicycles all compete for space. What we weren't prepared for was playing chicken with the never ending stream of Tata trucks carrying rocks, cement, machinery, ash, and who knows what else to and from the industrial sites.
The Sierra Club and Rainforest Action Network released a new report card on April 5 that names and ranks the top 10 financiers behind mountaintop coal mining projects. http://ran.org/reportcard
The top 10 mountaintop removal funders is a who's who of the banking world:
- Bank of America
- Citi
- Credit Suisse
- Deutsche Bank
- GE Capital
- JPMorgan Chase
- Morgan Stanley
- PNC
- UBS
- Wells Fargo
The report card concluded that these ten banks gave over $2.5 billion (that's billion with a "b") in loans and bonds to companies undertaking mountaintop removal coal mining projects.
In a legislative session that has seen debate over the need to cut social services like the Virginia Community Action Partnership, public safety and education one industry has stayed beyond approach: Big Coal.
Yep, the coal industry has seen legislation move forward that would extend the sunset on its $42 million per year subsidy from Virginia taxpayers until 2016. They've won loopholes in Clean Water Act enforcement, and today the Virginia Senate followed the House of Delegates in restricting the ability of regulators to test for water quality.
Follow the flip to get more details on today's vote:
An active association of forty-seven garden clubs, whose members collectively form a group of more than 3,300 civic leaders from around the Commonwealth, the Garden Club of Virginia exists to celebrate the beauty of the land, to conserve the gifts of nature and to challenge future generations to build on this heritage. We encourage our members to be informed advocates for proper land management practices, particularly those involving long-term protection of air, water, and soil qualities; and we encourage local organizations and governing bodies to support responsible residential and commercial development.
With these objectives in mind, the Garden Club of Virginia Board approved a resolution on December 11, 2009 to oppose the Cypress Creek Coal-Fired Power Plant proposed by ODEC for Dendron in Surry County. The resolution follows:
GCV Resolution
WHEREAS, the Garden Club of Virginia strives for the preservation of Virginia's beauty and natural heritage-including clean air and water, healthy terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, and intact landscapes-from the Tidewater and the Chesapeake Bay to the mountains and streams in the western portion of the state;
WHEREAS, the coal-fired power plant proposed for Hampton Roads by Old Dominion Electric Co-operative could:
• Exacerbate mountaintop removal coal mining, a practice that permanently destroys the mountains, forests and headwater streams of southwest Virginia-treasured and irreplaceable parts of our natural heritage that provide clean water to communities, harbor a diversity of plants and animals unequaled in other regions of the United States, and enrich the lives of residents and visitors alike;
• Annually emit millions of tons of carbon dioxide, making it a major contributor to climate change, a severe threat to Virginia's more than 3,300 miles of tidal shoreline, its agricultural sector, and its sensitive wildlife habitats;
• Annually emit thousands of tons of the air pollutants that cause smog, soot, ground-level ozone, and acid rain, impairing human health and natural ecosystems;
• Contribute significantly to excessive levels of nitrogen in the Chesapeake Bay-the most serious problem facing the Bay-through deposition of airborne nitrogen oxide emissions, worsening algal blooms that deplete oxygen levels, killing fish and shellfish and creating "dead zones" in the Bay;
• Also emit a large quantity of airborne mercury in close proximity to the Chesapeake Bay and major tributaries, contributing to mercury deposition leading to the contamination of fish and other aquatic life in waters already subject to fish consumption advisories due to excessive mercury levels;
THEREFORE, be it resolved that the Garden Club of Virginia will work to oppose construction of the proposed plant and continue to advocate for investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy in the state.
With this move, the Garden Club of Virginia has joined the former Director of the VA DEQ and 2008 recipient of the GCV Dugdale Award Bob Burnley in opposing construction of the Cypress Creek plant. Groups fighting to stop the plant include the Chesapeake Bay Foundation; Chesapeake Climate Action Network; Wise Energy for Virginia; Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards; Sierra Club; Physicians for Social Responsibility; Surry Justice; and the Southern Environmental Law Center.
This is awful. Absolutely terrible. Its already pretty bad that the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) used the anti American, anti-democracy Bonner and Associates as their PR firm even though they are known for breaking the law by impersonating public groups and private individuals to promote such things as smoking in the workplace. Even though its a known fact that in order to create a false sense of public support for an issue they hire temp employees, pay them hourly with no benefits, give them two hours of training on an issue, and then tell them to generate as many phone calls and letters to congress as possible in an office that has been repeatedly referred to as a "white collar sweatshop".
They even sent a fake letter to Virginia Congressman Tom Perriello from a non-profit group in his district that focuses on issues of importance to Hispanics encouraging Perriello to vote no on important climate change legislation. They also used the same tactic several on several other congressmen; faking letters from grassroots groups in their districts asking them to vote no on climate legislation -complete with fake letterhead and signatures.
It's even worse that the new group "Faces of Coal" turned out to be complete farces of coal when their website, which was supposed to be showing the faces of people who supported coal, turned out to be photos purchased from istockphoto.com.
Jack Bonner, the president of Bonner & Associates, told the House Select Committee on Global Warming and Energy Independence on Thursday that around June 22 the firm had discovered that a temporary employee had sent letters to Congress falsely representing local chapters of the NAACP, AAUW and other groups.
The panel has been investigating the forged letters since their discovery last summer. It released the results of its investigation at a hearing on Thursday.
The House voted on the bill on June 26, meaning Bonner knew of the forgeries as many as four days prior to the vote.
Six hearings, in six Appalachian coal producing states, were held last week to determine the fate of Nationwide Permit 21. If this permitting process is suspended by the Army Corps of Engineers, coal companies seeking permits for mountaintop removal mining that include valley fills will be held to more rigorous standards, be scrutinized under individual review, and be subject to public hearings before being granted. The public was asked to come out and voice their concerns about the suspension or renewal of the permit, known as NWP 21. A panel of Army Corps representatives listened to politicians that came to stump, miners and contractors that came to fight what they see as outsiders taking their jobs, and environmentalists that came to fight for the health of the people and land of the coal field.
West Virginia, and Kentucky are covered in this blog post as well as Virginia. To see Virginia go below the fold.
Charleston, WV: October 13, Charleston Civic Center
Tensions in the heart of coal country ran to a boiling point when a large group of angry miners pushed anti-mountaintop removal activists against the side of a building. Vernon Haltom of Coal River Mountain Watch was on the receiving side of the fray:
Although a few other people and I were in line and had filled out the registration forms to give comments, the Charleston police made us go out of the building where we were surrounded by more thugs pushing against us, threatening our lives, and again hurling insults. Our group included an eighty-year-old woman enduring 300-pound thugs screaming obscenities within three feet of her ears. After 15 minutes or so of this shameful display, the Charleston police required us to leave. Because it was easier to control a group of 6 or 7 peaceful people than a mob of hundreds of violence prone thugs, and because the police did not want any of us or the police to get hurt, they escorted us off the premises. Essentially, police inability to control the mob resulted in our inability to give verbal comments...Our friends inside the hearing were able to give comments, but were drowned out by the mob. When they complained to the hearing moderators, they were told the clock was ticking. When they left, the police refused to escort the last small group to their vehicles, forcing them to run the gauntlet without protection. The police said, "You all knew what you were getting into; you're on your own," or a similar reply when asked for escort to cars.
(Richmond, VA) Lawyers for the Wise Energy for Virginia Coalition told a state judge today that Dominion Power's 585-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Wise County violates the Clean Air Act on several grounds, and asked the court to invalidate the environmental permits.
During the four-hour hearing before Judge Margaret Spencer in the Virginia Circuit Court for the City of Richmond, Cale Jaffe and John Suttles, attorneys with the Charlottesville-based Southern Environmental Law Center, presented a detailed explanation on how the permits fail to adequately limit emissions of (1) carbon dioxide, a chief contributor to climate change, (2) small particles of soot, which has been linked to lung cancer, heart disease, increased asthma rates, and premature death, and (3) mercury, which can cause severe neurological deficits in infants, fetuses and young children.
The State Air Control Board issued two permits to Dominion in June, 2008, one for hazardous pollutants including mercury and approximately 60 other toxics, and one for other emissions such as particulate matter. SELC, on behalf of the Wise County-based Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, Appalachian Voices, Chesapeake Climate Action Network and Sierra Club, challenged both permits.
Several residents of Wise County traveled to Richmond to attend the hearing, including Kathy Selvage, a coal-miner's daughter who has been the public face for the statewide effort to stop the coal plant, end the practice of mountaintop removal coal mining that is ravaging Appalachia, and compel Virginia to embrace clean energy sources, including efficiency and renewables.
"It seems no coincidence that Wise County was all over the news recently for the free medical clinic that drew thousands of people from my part of the state, many of them with breathing disorders. Coal dust from mountaintop removal mining operations hangs in the air every day, as does pollution from one of the oldest coal-fired plants in the state. Now Dominion is building another polluting power plant in our community. That's why we are in court today - to fight for the right to breath clean air, as well as to drink clean water and to keep our mountains whole, as God made them."
Over the last several years, the Wise Energy for Virginia Coalition has raised a host of concerns about the Wise County coal plant, including air pollution and the health of the local community, water quality, mountaintop removal coal-mining, and the impacts of global warming. They were joined by 42,500 Virginians from across the state who signed petitions and sent letters and comments to state and company officials opposing the project.
As U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello was considering how to vote on an important piece of climate change legislation in June, the freshman congressman's office received at least six letters from two Charlottesville-based minority organizations voicing opposition to the measure.
The letters, as it turns out, were forgeries.
Certainly makes one wonder about other forged letters arriving at other congressional offices. This is bad, very, very bad...
User comments or postings reflect the opinions of the responsible contributor only, and do not reflect the viewpoint of the Sierra Club and/or the League of Conservation Voters. The Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters do not endorse or guarantee the accuracy of any posting. The Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters accepts no obligation to review every posting, but reserves the right (but not the obligation) to delete postings that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate.
ArticleXI.com is paid for and authorized by
Virginia League of Conservation Voters PAC, 530 East Main Street, Ste. 410, Richmond, Virginia 23219, (804) 225-1902 and
Sierra Club VA PAC, 422 E. Franklin Street, Suite 302, Richmond, VA 23219, (804) 225-9113.
This is awful. Absolutely terrible. Its already pretty bad that the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) used the anti American, anti-democracy Bonner and Associates as their PR firm even though they are known for 
They even sent 
P R E S S * R E L E A S E
