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TechnoratiABINGDON, Va. - Pollution from the new coal-fired power plant proposed for Wise County would cause negative health and economic effects across the Mountian Empire region, an ecologist told local activists at a Wednesday meeting.
"The haze that we see today, as I noticed driving up through Mountain City and Damascus and all of that ... there's nothing natural about it," said Matthew Wasson, program director of Appalachian Voices, who said he was speaking for the five environmental groups leading opposition to the plant.
"People have really gotten accustomed to seeing this white haze that obscures the mountains," he said. "That is air pollution ... mostly from sulfur dioxide pollution, mostly from coal-fired power plants in this part of the country."
He said the area loses 75 percent of normal visibility on a typical summer day because of pollution - and it's likely to have a negative affect on the region's growing tourism economy.
He said pollution caused by the plant would also result in more asthma and other respiratory problems, not only near the proposed $1.8 billion Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center outside of St. Paul, but also downwind in Abingdon, Damascus, Bristol and Sullivan County, Tenn.
"More people develop asthma, and people with asthma have more attacks and ... more hospital visits, more school absences, more missed work days ... they may not seem huge to start, but they add up," Wasson said.
"We literally are taking years off of children's lives because of that [reduced] lung function, in Abingdon, in Bristol, in this area."
Dan Genest, spokesman for Dominion Virginia Power, said in a telephone interview before Wednesday night's meeting that the proposed plant would meet all state and federal regulations in place to protect public health and the environment.
"In order to receive an air permit, we have to demonstrate through the permitting process that our power station will not impact human health or the environment," Genest said. "There are standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency and state agencies that we have to meet, and the permit that we have filed meets all of that criteria."
The state's Air Pollution Control Board is scheduled to meet in Wise later this month to hear public comment and discuss whether to grant a permit for the plant. Air board approval is the project's only remaining regulatory hurdle.
"All of the state regulations are designed to protect human health and the environment, and the power station we are proposing to build has been demonstrated through modeling to have no impact on air quality, human health or the environment in that area," Genest said.
Dominion has proposed building its 585-megawatt plant so carbon-capture equipment can be added when the technology is available.
Some claim the technology will be proven five years after the proposed plant goes online in 2012, if permits are granted. Others maintain that carbon capture won't be available for many years, if the process works at all.
At Wednesday's meeting, Wasson said the plant would also encourage more mountaintop removal strip mining in Wise County and the region.
"It's like a bomb, like the world's biggest bomb ever went off," Wasson said of methods used to extract coal in the region, adding it causes flooding, water pollution and other damaging effects.
He said the plant is not needed - and energy companies should invest in solar and wind power instead.
Meanwhile, industry officials have said coal-fired power plants must be added to meet growing demand for electricity.
Pete Ramey, a retired coal miner and activist, also spoke at the meeting.
"We do not have to sacrifice our health and safety for the economy. We have to have both," Ramey said.
"When I was raised up in these communities, I worked in the coal mines ... It's kind of ironic that coal mining today is destroying the very thing my great-grandfather worked for, and I also worked for," he continued. "It's not only a sin against nature, it's a crime against humanity."
© 2008 TriCities.com
30 Comments so far
Show AllPJD, let's be clear. The open pit mining that you saw here in Montana was vestigal to say the least. You saw probably the Berkley Pit in Butte, and maybe the gold mine at Whitehall. Can't really do much about mines that already exist. But I must disagree. There is not "plenty" of open pit mining. In fact, there is very little. There is some stripmining in Eastern Montana too. But that's about it. Once the people of Montana realized the horrific damage that was caused by the heapleach goldmining process, they became outraged. And for the first time in Montana's history, the people of Montana said no to the mining industry.
How about just one more hit!
www.StudentForTheEarth.org
stories like this , I have no problem turning my back on America.
It was recently determined that if just 1% of the contiguous 48's landmass were covered with solar panels it would meet our electricity demand. Alaska could derive its power from wind and geothermal; Hawaii from solar and wind.
Burning coal is dirty and self-destructive for the many but oh-so-profitable to a few.
The power plant support big capitalist busines and got the blessings from bush.
Count the children in your household.
If they equal or exceed the number of parents, your family is part of the problem.
Redneck Hippie,
I was in Montana last year and saw plenty of mining (open pit copper, silver, gold) still going on. But at least that awful cyanide heap-leaching for gold isn't going on anymore.
We had our wars: Matewan, Harlan, and finally Pittston, right near the site of this story. But now, through the bible and the satellite TV, the people (outside of WMMT Radio in Whitesburg, KY - still some fight in them) are largely as a docile as sheep. None of the strip mines are are unionized (few underground ones are either)
With the states of West Virginia and Kentucky becoming a wholly-owned subsidiaries of Massey Energy (in SW VA it's Consol), and both federal and state courts packed with big-business-friendly judges, the only thing that's going to stop MTR is high oil prices. It is cheap beaten-down workers, cheap diesel fuel, and cheap anfo (ammonium nitrate-fuel-oil explosive) that make the whole absurd spectacle of removing hundreds of feet of hard sandstone just to get to a couple 3 ft coal seams economically viable to begin with.
Get involved in and work for clean energy alternatives at your STATE and LOCAL levelS.
State and local jurisdictions are where:
--- industry operating licenses are issued and can be more easily challenged by average citizens
---homegrown land reclamation and environmental laws stand a good chance of gaining wide support
---government officials, especially legislators, are more likely to respond to average citizen concerns
Recognize that in most policy areas your federal government will remain for the foreseeable future an enemy occupying power controlled by international corporations, enabled by quisiling Beltway officials.
Whatever hope is left in this republic for sustainable energy development, now rests with citizens acting independently and creatively within state and local jurisdictions.
I think most Americans still have it inside themselves to do something like this. And if and when they do, they will bring down the entire rotten structure that has for so long presumed to misrule us from Washington, D.C.
You folks are going about it all wrong. Here in Montana, we gave the mining companies an offer they couldn't refuse. Get out, or it's war! Real, literal war. And we had the Environmental Rangers to back it up. Look, the mining companies have declared war on you. Do you have no real men left back there? Take up arms and stop these bastards. It's the right thing to do. It's the American thing to do. The public will support you.
Mountaintop removal is a major problem. We've convinced ourselves that domestic energy is better and safer than imports. There's this big collective whimper about how bad using gasoline is. Meanwhile a huge chunk of Middle America jacks up their air conditioners running on coal. We don't bother to think about where the coal comes from, as long as it's cheap. We don't discern between coal gained through MTR and through better means--despite the fact MTR is an irreversible, God forsaken rape of Appalachia. We do nothing and they get away with blasting these mountains to bits. Then the mercury from coal power plants--even those in China--lands in our water system, then ocean, entering fish and our food chain. We are completely ignorant to the gradual acidification of our oceans from the CO2 and sulfur/nitrous oxides.
The supply chain is dominated by cost as a primary consideration. We are leaving a toxic legacy for our kids and their kids and on down the line. We are also destroying our natural heritage. Who's is going to stand up to these people? They will get away with all they can--including violations of the Clean Water and Clean Air acts, alongside lax enforcement by the West Virginia Dept. of Environ Mgm't and the Bureau of Land Management, who greenlight everything for their friends in Big Coal. Stop MTR now.
But this article is rather mistitled.
It is about a power plant, not Mt. Top Removal. Most of the coal will probably come from the large longwall deep mines in Buchanan and Dickenson counties to the NW - not strip mines. But there area also some pretty nasty strip mining going on on the spurs of Black Mountain in Wise County - some of which is National Forest Land or supposed to be anyway.
A couple years ago, a boulder rolled off a haul road at one of these mines, rolled a half mile and went through a home, killing young child in his bed. Few in this region benefit from the mining. Median household income is only about $22,000 per year, and about a quarter of the population (30% of children) are below the poverty line. The dangerous job of hauling coal off the strip mine in dilapidated trucks might pay 9.00 per hour.
Air conditioning? What's that? I worry about having enough clean air to breathe.
Doesn't the phrase " mountain top removal" just by itself sound like high crime? I once saw a bit of film on tv, and there was this really old guy standing back of his old house where he'd lived his whole life, and he started to talk about the mountain, the one that used to be there, how he remembered looking up at it every day, and then he started to cry and could not talk anymore.
The people have not chosen to trade off their general health & well-being for the luxury and convenience of cheap energy. That choice was made by the capitalists. So much for mass self-determination. God Bless the United States of America!
"There are standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency..."
Hasn't that become an oxymoron at this point? That's the same EPA who said NYC air was super-healthy right after 911, right?
Maybe the EPA "standards" are like the Yoo definition of torture - if yer still breathing, what's the problem?
The brilliant singer-songwriter John Prine made a song on this topic:
*Paradise* :::
{ ©John Prine }
"When I was a child my family would travel
Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born
And there's a backwards old town that's often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn.
Chorus:
"And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away
"Well, sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Airdrie Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill.
"Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.
"When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam
I'll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin'
Just five miles away from wherever I am."
(see ::: http://www.jpshrine.org/index.html for more info on J.P.)
xx
Chlorocardium,
Good point. Indeed, you won't melt. A bit of sweating is healthy.
I consider air conditioning, and the enormous coal-fired electrical output it uses, as at least as big a source of GHG's as transportation.
Air conditioning was just a luxury found in a few places until the early 1970's or so. Now, it become a kind of absolute necessity - really an addiction - even in places with cool summers like New England.
Somehow, civilization went on just fine before the widespread use of air conditioning.
The house I bought in temperate W. Pennsylvania came with central air from the previous owner, but it get used only on the hottest 2-3 days of the year, and it is unlikely I'll do anything if it breaks, except to have the freon properly removed. If you must use AC, just use a small high-efficiency-rated window AC in the bedroom, for sleeping.
What can you do immediately? Turn up the thermostat on yer damn air conditioner a few degrees. You won't melt.
Jim Glover @ 12:45 - converting hydrogen to water (i.e., burning it) releases a LOT of energy. Extracting hydrogen from water (hydrolysis) requires that same energy as input. So any scheme that includes getting hydrogen from water has to have a big energy source, which could probably be used more efficiently by using it directly to do whatever you were going to do with the hydrogen. These schemes for converting H2O to "HHO" (which is just another way to say H2O) are hard to take seriously.
For the locals it's not global warming. It's not even the retardation and autism from the mercury coming out of the smokestack. It's because these people's own kids are having asthmatic attacks because of the ground-level ozone and the frantic ambulance rides scare the parents. You don't get your kid to the clinic in time, that's a dead child, and losing a child hurts like nothing else.
There are so many alternative ways to beat Coal and Oil now.... the Old way is done!
Turn to the Sun.
Yes Robert, I wonder what Jimmy Carter is gonna say about this .... I am becoming a conspiracy nut...Again!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1OWDcWoXHs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8stApCmxYEM&feature=related
If we had pursued conservation, alternative energy, and related measures that Jimmy Carter was implementing, and were killed under Regan & the Bush,s, there would be little or no incentitive for such destructive policies.
Seems there is more and a murder too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6yRn4IAsrU&NR=1
This was on Fox news about a new Japanese car that runs on water converting it to hydrogen with some new kind of generator... If this is true (probably not) why not for power plants too?.
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/water-fuel-car-unveiled-in-japan/39347...
There are so many sins against Nature.
Livestock industries, vivisection, genetic engineering, Michael Jackson's face...
Nothing will likely change. Gotta keep the coal corps. alive, you know!
Americans don't seem to have the courage or the will to fight back anymore, except for the few rabble-rousers. And every day the Bushtapo! dreams up more ways to keep us quiet too.
Too many Americans have a disease that seems to infect people who listen to Rush Limpballs, and others like him.
Oh, well, human extinction will take care of all the problems.
Earth First In All Things And Thoughts, Deeds And Decisions!
http://www.darkskyinitiative.org
Too many humans are a sin against nature.
"It's not only a sin against nature, it's a crime against humanity."