Blue Ridge Earth First! Stops Business as Usual at Dominion Power

Hello to the Movement. This is my first post to IGHIH, and Im excited to be representing my bio-region and my corner of the movement to all of yall, who have inspired us so much already.

Today I’m writing as a member of Blue Ridge Earth First! Down here in the Blue Ridge, we’ve been joining arms with people from across Appalachia, Virginia and further afield to defeat Dominion Power’s proposed Wise County coal-fired power plant. If built the plant would spew 5.4 million tons of CO2, while increasing mountaintop removal coal mining in places like Wise Co., where 25% of the county has already been strip mined. We have attended hearings, written public comments, marched in rallies, signed petitions, organized rowdy spring breaks and presented Fossil Fools awards, and today we took the fight against this plant to the next level.

Yesterday morning as the sun rose on a beautiful spring day in Richmond, Va, three Activists with BREF! locked themselves down in a blockade of the one road into the main head quarters of Dominion Power. Quickly, the morning rush was turned into a mile long line of cars in the middle of downtown. 20+ supporters, supporters of a sustainable future and sane energy production, chanted and held signs for the whole time that Dominion’s operations were effectively halted.

Like many in the movement for Clean Energy, Environmental Justice and Sustainability, BREF! recognizes the need for a diversity of tactics in achieving our goals. We also recognize that the time was yesterday for a movement wide escalation. It’s past time to turn up the heat in the fight against coal, nuclear, and eco-cide in all of our communities. On Tuesday we did just that in our fight here, and it felt good

So yeah, thats whats up down here in the Blue Ridge. We are also helping to organize Mountain Justice Summer Virginia, and we would love to host anyone who wants to get involved in the fight against mountaintop removal in Appalachia this Summer. We will be working on community organizing in the coal fields of SW Va, putting together the 2008 South East Climate Convergence, and working throughout the state to keep putting the heat on fossil fools everywhere. So come on down folks, and stand with. Peace

About

I am a moon-watcher and star-gazer in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and I just finished up studying anthropology at James Madison University in Harrisonburg. In order to more aptly manifest a cultural evolution towards love, balance, humility and freedom within every community I co-depend upon, I seek to organize, develop, promote and join with empowered communities of self-determination and liberty. As a pan-Appalachian defender with Mountain Justice and Blue Ridge Earth First!, I help to organize confluences of those who Love Mountains, Watersheds, Forests, Human-Animals and Non-Human-People, and Communities of inter-dependence. What gets my heart elated is creating directly and democratically free-spaces, where we all can continue to co-create the world we wish to live in, die in, love in and sustain in ever dynamic, evolving, perpetuity. I dig dancing in the dirt, drumming with a waxing moon, and planting seeds that grow into great bearers of earth magic. I long for cool creek mud and warm forest moss beneath my toes. I stand in solidarity, fire in my heart and humble anger in my fists, with any person who rages against cages of oppression repressing their innate Divinity.