The Mile Long Petition

Please help in getting a mile long petition to deliver to Dominion CEO Tom Farrell, Dominion Shareholders, and Governor Kaine on May 8th.

• Sign the Petition

• Help Get petition Signatures

• Receive blank petitions and get them filled! -We also send helpful tips on how as well as fact sheets to hand out.
• Download Petition Sheets

Delivering the Mile-Long Message to Dominion

The mile long petition will be presented on May 8th at Kanawha Plaza, a park next to the Dominion building in downtown Richmond at 8th and Canal Street, Richmond, VA 23219. Hundreds of people are expected to some and show their support for clean energy and their opposition for this plant.

Click Here for Details about the Rally

The SCC Says Dominion Coal Plant Won’t Capture Carbon

On July 13, 2007, Dominion Power applied to the State Corporation Commission for approval for a coal plant in Wise County that it promised would be “carbon capture compatible.” In a finding on March 31st, the State Corporation Commission approved construction of what it termed a ‘conventional coal’ facility. This confirms what opponents have been saying all along, that Dominion has no plan to capture the estimated 5.4 million tons of global warming pollution the plant would emit every year. The SCC stated “we make no finding herein as to whether the Coal Plant is “carbon capture compatible, clean coal powered.” Instead the SCC found that the plant qualifies at minimum, as a onventional coal plant.

The SCC also stated that “[W]e do not find that it is reasonable or prudent for the company to incur any amount of costs above the the cost estimates that comprise the projected level of $1.8 billion.” Meaning that if the cost of the plant rises above current levels, Dominio, instead of ratepayers will have to pay the difference. The SCC stated in an earlier finding that even a 1.8 billion dollar project would raise electricity rates enough to potentially cause the loss of nearly 1,500 jobs across the state due to those ratepayers having less money to spend on goods and services.

Attention now turns to the Air Permit, currently being reviewed by the Citizen Air Board, and to Governor Kaine who is set to appoint two new members that would have the power to weigh in. Please see this Bristol Herald Courier Article

Bird Dog the Gov!

Bird Dog: To scout out, and find. Citizens and activists from around the state have been making a point to be everywhere the Governor is, and to let him know that we want him to use his power to stop this proposed dirty coal plant. So far Virginians have held signs, asked questions and caused a ruckus in Charlottesville, Harrisonburg, Fredricksburg, Richmond and Alexandria. In recent weeks, Kaine has hardly had a public appearance where he hasn’t heard someone asking him to take action.

Download the Bird Dog Packet to get tips and pointers on how to have an effective action!

Click Here to find out where he is going to be.

Press hit -Governor Still on Wrong Side

Check out this Associated Press story in March 8th’s Roanoke Times

Excerpts:

“Dominion Virginia Power lowered its profit expectation on a coal-fired power plant in southwest Virginia because of questions about whether it will be able to capture carbon dioxide emissions…As a result, Dominion will not be eligible for a bonus credit allowed by state law for plants compatible with carbon-capture technology. That will lower Dominion’s profit margin on its investment to 12.12 percent from the 13.75 percent it originally sought.”

“‘Dominion is absolutely failing to plan for federal laws on global warming that are just around the corner,’ Cale Jaffe, an attorney with Southern Environmental Law Center, said Friday. ‘If Dominion does not build this plant to capture greenhouse gases, ratepayers will be left holding the bag.’”

Mike Tidwell, the Director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, tells the story of our fight.

“The Market is Speaking and its Not Saying More Coal Plants”

-A Feb 24th Article about the fate of new Coal plants in America from the WV Charleston Gazette. Excerpt:

 

“By the end of 2007, plans for 59 coal-fired power plants across the country were cancelled or seriously delayed, in large part due to rapidly growing wariness among prospective investors. Just when King Coal was looking invincible, the big bucks began bailing.

Citing concern over the cost of future carbon regulations that are expected from Congress perhaps within the year, many of the banking industry’s heavy-hitters have begun seeking more economically secure ventures.”

 

Virginians Urge Governor Kaine to Love our Mountains and Oppose this Plant!

This Valentine’s day concerned Virginians and activists from the Wise Energy for Virginia Coalition met with the Governor’s representative, Stephen Walz. Over 1,000 Valentines to the Governor, made by individuals from across the state, were delivered to the Governor, asking him to Love Our Mountains. The Wise County Power Plant would contribute to Mountain Top Removal Coal mining, which has already affected 29 mountains in southwest Virginia and the proposed coal plant would require more of this destructive form of strip mining. The Valentines carried such sentiments as, “I ? Mountains” and “Be a Hero, Stop the Wise County Power Plant.”

Click Here to see the Richmond Times Dispatch Article

Dominion Power’s Dirty Plans for Virginia

Mike Tidwell
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Washington Post

The following OpEd by CCAN director Mike Tidwell ran in the Outlook section of the Washington Post on Sunday, Jan. 27th

Fact: Virginia gets less than 1 percent of its electricity from “green” sources such as the wind or the sun. Fact: Virginia ranks 38th among U.S. states in energy efficiency. Fact: Climate change is real, and fossil fuel substitutes are needed, according to President Bush’s State of the Union address last year. So how would Dominion Virginia Power respond to these facts?

• Savagely blow up entire mountains in southwest Virginia.
• Feed the resulting exposed coal to a proposed power plant that is unnecessary and would cost ratepayers at least $1.8 billion.
• Create lots more greenhouse gases in the process.
• Doom the good people of southwest Virginia to living with a brutal extraction industry that has no future.

Whew! Talk about getting everything wrong.

Astonishingly, Gov. Tim Kaine supports Dominion Virginia Power’s controversial 585-megawatt coal plant proposed for Wise County. He supports this despite three more facts. First, a senior aide of the governor recently admitted that there’s “less than 10 years’ worth of commercially viable coal left in Virginia.” Second, more than 200 Virginians packed a hearing room this month in Richmond to denounce the proposal being considered by the Virginia State Corporation Commission. Third, Kaine’s energy plan includes passages explicitly discouraging the development of “conventional” power (i.e., fossil fuels) until the state has maximized efficiency and clean-energy development.

Maximized?

Virginia has one of the most bloated, inefficient electricity loads in America. Per capita use is roughly twice as high as it is in California and New York. Just phasing out inefficient light bulbs, as Congress has mandated beginning in 2012, would eliminate electricity consumption in Virginia equal to half the entire output of the Wise County plant. And using money-saving “smart grid” systems — a technology that painlessly shuts off air conditioners for brief moments and invisibly manages other electricity use in homes — could save the electricity equivalent of two Wise County plants. So why are we building this facility?

Thankfully, there’s still time for Kaine and the legislature to kill this disastrous power plant idea and create, instead, a real and lasting energy prosperity for southwest Virginia and the rest of the state. Beyond efficiency, federal estimates show Virginia could get 12 percent of its electricity from wind farms using just a small area of land. Yet Dominion’s wind-power investments equal less than 0.5 percent of its total mid-Atlantic generation capacity. And the best the state government has done on efficiency is offer a four-day tax holiday to Virginians who buy efficient bulbs and appliances.

The Clean Energy Future Act, a bill now before the Virginia General Assembly, would correct these glaring deficiencies. It would follow the lead of dozens of other states in setting robust but realistic statutory targets in clean power, efficiency and “green jobs.”

Twenty five percent of the land area in beautiful Wise County, in the heart of Appalachia, has been destroyed by mountaintop removal and other mining in the past four decades. Let’s save the mountains still standing and embrace durable, sustainable industries there such as cultural tourism, outdoor recreation and wind farms. Let’s simultaneously retrain and support the coal miners who’d rather build solar panels and windmills anyway, if only they had a governor and legislature willing to stand up to Dominion and finally say stop!

– Mike Tidwell

Radio Ad the Wise Energy for Virginia coalition sponsored in SW Virginia:

Click HERE to listen to the other ads

Virginian’s

SCC hears a resounding NO from Virginians

Virginians show up in what may be record numbers to tell the State Corporation Commission how they feel about the power plant. Tuesday, January 8th was the SCC’s scheduled time to hear public comments, and they got an earful. The hearing lasted until 9:00 PM to accommodate all the speakers. About 20 residents from southwest Virginia made the six and a half hour trip to Richmond. In all about 300 people showed up at the event, overflowing he courtroom and filling the overflow room as well. Of those 177 signed up to speak, many had to leave before their names were called and 122 were actually sworn in and testified; 29 spoke in favor of the plant and 93 spoke against. Photo Courtesy of Appalshop

See Related Press:
Richmond Times Dispatch Article

Bristol Herald Courier Editorial

Excellent Radio Coverage

This is a home made video made by Matt Sutherland of Castlewood. He lives downwind of the Clinch River Power Plant (AKA Carbo). He will also live downwind of the proposed plant should it be built. His children attend the K-12 school within two miles of the plant site.

Bristol Herald Courier Staff Speak Out Against the Coal Plant

“Dominion Power plant is no Bargain for the region”

Excerpt: “Given the mounting evidence of potential harm to the environment and the health of the region’s residents, we cannot support this project any longer. Unless something changes drastically, this plant should not be built here.”

Read this milestone of an editorial by the largest newspaper in Southwest Virginia

Choking on the Politics of Coal

• Check out this Roanoke Time’s Editorial that came out Thursday, December 13th.

Wise County Citizens Speak Out

• Click here to listen to the radio coverage or download it as a Podcast.

Monday, in St. Paul, VA — ground zero for Dominion Virginia Power’s proposed Wise County coal plant — over 100 citizens raised their voices to question members of the Department of Environmental Quality. Residents raised a variety of concerns. The hearing was organized for DEQ to get input on their ‘draft permit.’ Well, input they got. And a lot of it!

The meeting started with a short technical presentation from the head of DEQ for SW Virginia. In essence, he explained how DEQ felt that the plant was going to be “clean coal” and that is met all requirements. Honestly, it was pretty boring, and everyone was eager for the Q&A.

Kathy Selvage from the Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards kicked off the Q&A by asking about mercury.
How much mercury will the plant emit? Just over 70 pounds a year, but don’t worry, its all “within regulation”.
But don’t 1 in 6 women of childbearing age have unsafe levels of mercury in their blood? Don’t worry, it’s within regulation.

Kathy pointed out that just 1/70^th of a teaspoon can contaminate a 25 acre lake. “We’re doing the best we can”

A minister from a neighboring community grew quite emotional when he asked why they chose to build the power plant less than a mile from the local elementary school. “Our modeling shows that all the of pollution will be at ‘protective limits’. They kept using this term ‘protective limits. Personally, I think NO POLLUTION is the most protective limit.

Tom Cormons from Appalachian Voices echoed concerns raised by the National Forest Service about the plants impact on Linville Gorge Wilderness in the Pisgah National Forest. People at the hearing ranged from high profile names like the local celebrity Frank Taylor who repeatedly asked about pollution levels and the cumulative effects of the multiple power plants upwind from St. Paul, to concerned parents who have children attending St. Paul schools (the schools are all less than a mile away from the construction site).

While the DEQ had plenty of specific answers when it came to the amount of pollutants the power plant would emit, they maintained that they could not comment on the effects they might have. According to EPA data, the CARBO coal-fired power plant, also located in St. Paul, is responsible for 59 premature deaths each year. How many will occur from the proposed plant? DEQ couldn’t say.

A resident who lives right off the main road asked about pollution from transportation. Dominion estimates that the plant will require six hundred diesel coal trucks a day to feed coal for the plant. Will it lead to more mountaintop removal coal mining? More smog? DEQ couldn’t say.

In fact, the DEQ maintained throughout the question and answer period, that their realm of study only pertains to how the pollutants of this plant would relate to the legal limits of pollutants. Basically, the DEQ claims that it is beyond their ability to do anything about the plant’s potential This inability to give a straight answer on so many important issues seemed to only cause the local citizens to want to ask more, harder hitting questions. In the end, only two or three defenses of the coal industry were voiced by attendants.

OUR COUNTER-BRIEFING

Before the DEQ briefing, Matt Wasson of Appalachian Voices held a “community briefing” to give citizens a chance to hear another side of the story. Word of our presentation was spread through talking to folks who came to the earlier DEQ question and answer period, and through the efforts of Kayti Wingfield from Sierra Club and myself hitting the town, going from business to business to reach out the locals, and we were surprised to hear so many residents concerned about the power plant. About thirty people showed up to the basement of St Therese Catholic Church around the corner from the elementary school. As folks gathered and got settled, free pizza and soda in hand, it was obvious that these families were excited to learn more. Matt’s presentation used images of the existing power plant in Russell County, mountaintop removal in Wise, and Google earth imaging to paint the picture of exactly what the Coal industry has done and will continue to do to south west Virginia if allowed to continue with plans to build this power plant. It showed that Wise County is the second most heavily strip mined county in all of Appalachia with 25% of the land being destroyed. It showed that unemployment, poverty, suicide rates, and the number of disabled citizen’s all correlate directly with mountaintop removal mining. It showed that there is not much coal left in SW Virginia, and how this plant would require much more mountaintop removal. The picture of what will come should this power plant be built is clear, and is damn ugly. Those who came and saw the presentation wanted more to do, and some were ready to come to the SCC hearing in Richmond on January 8^th.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Despite our concerns, this process is moving forward. We need to stay active, tell our neighbors and friends, and get involved!.

1. Volunteer to get more involved. It’s clear that we need to get more folks from Southwest Virginia to the hearing.

2..Please consider donating to the Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, www.samsva.org. They are the leading voice in Wise County on this issue. But we’re not leaving them stranded. Sierra Club, Appalachian Voices, CCAN, stand in solidarity with SAMS.

 

Is THIS for Lovers?

 

Few Virginians realize that mountaintop removal coal mining has destroyed more mountains in Virginia’s coal counties than almost anywhere else in Appalachia. Click here to view a a slideshow on Flickr of mountaintop removal in Virginia.

Wise County Citizen’s Propose a ‘Mile Long Petition’ against proposed Power Plant

A coalition of citizens and conservation groups announced the Wise Energy for Virginia campaign at a press conference in Richmond, VA, on September 25th. The campaign is a major effort to to challenge

the building of Dominion’s proposed new coal-fired power plant in Wise County, Virginia, and to encourage Virginia to accelerate a shift to smart energy solutions including efficiency, conservation, and renewable energy.

The coalition launched the campaign just days after the New York Attorney General started an investigation of Dominion, questioning whether the company adequately disclosed investor risks associated with new coal-fired power plants. If built, Dominion’s proposed coal-fired power plant would worsen global warming, accelerate mountain-top removal coal mining, encourage the construction of new transmission lines, and further pollute
Virginia’s air, land, and water.

The campaign kick-off includes the start of an effort to collect signatures from citizens on a “mile-long petition” telling Dominion Resources that its proposed coal plant is not wanted or needed. The coalition plans to present the petition to Dominion executives at a Dominion shareholder’s meeting in 2008.

“We ask all Virginians who have concerns about Virginia’s forests, watersheds and mountains, all the damage done to our planet by the burning of fossil fuels, to join us in this effort,” said Kathy Selvage, Vice President of the Wise County-based Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards (SAMS), which was formed to protect the way of life in Southwest Virginia. In a symbolic gesture, Selvage signed the first entry line of the citizens’ petition at the press conference.

View a Google Map of the Proposed

 

Wise County Power Plant

Click here to learn more about the campaign to stop the Wise County Power Plant