It’s Getting Hot In Here

Hello youth climate activists!

Earlier this week Dr. James Hansen, the well known, outspoken member of the not so youthful movement for climate action, coming off of an informative and inspiring, if less than exciting, appearance at Virginia PowerShift, wrote the following essay in defense of the brave Wise 11. These young folk stood with community activists from Southwest Virginia against the destruction of more mountains in Southern Appalachia, and against global climate chaos by locking themselves to the gates of Dominion Power’s planned power plant in St. Paul Va.

Like he did with the 6 Greenpeace activists in the UK recently, Dr. Hansen defended the actions of Rainforest Action Network, Blue Ridge Earth First!, Mountain Justice and sds as necessary steps to protect the global good, to halt climate and ecological degradation before it leaves an inhospitable planet. Maybe soon we will see Dr. Hansen out there with Al Gore?

Obstruction of Justice

“You’re Hannah, right?”  Hannah Morgan, a 20-year old from Appalachia, Virginia, was one of 11 protesters in handcuffs early Monday morning September 15 at the construction site for a coal-fired power plant being built in Wise County Virginia by Dominion Power.  The handcuffs were applied by the police, but the questioner, it turns out, was from Dominion Power.

“Mumble, mumble, mumble”, the discussion between police and the Dominion man were too far away to be heard by the young people.  But it almost seemed that the police were working for Dominion.  Maybe that’s the way it works in a company town.  Or should we say company state?  Virginia has got one of the most green-washed coal-blackened governors in the nation ( http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20080529_DearGovernorGreenwash.pdf ).
It seems Hannah had been pegged by Dominion as a “ringleader”.  She had participated for two years in public meetings and demonstrations against the plan for mountaintop removal, strip mining and coal burning, and she had rejected their attempts to either intimidate or bargain.
“Bargain?”  What bargain is possible when Dominion is guaranteed 14% return on their costs, whether the coal plant’s power is needed or not.  Utility customers have to cough this up, and they aren’t given any choice.  The meetings and demonstrations were peaceful. Forty-five thousand signatures against the plant were collected.  But money seems to talk louder.
Dominion’s “mumble, mumble” must have been convincing.  Hannah and Kate Rooth were charged with 10 more crimes than the other 10 defendants.  Their charges included “encouraging or soliciting” others to participate in the action and were topped by “obstruction of justice”.  Penalty if convicted: up to 14 years in prison. [Why does this remind me of Jim Jobe in "Grapes of Wrath"?]
“Obstruction of justice??”  My first thought was that this case might help draw attention to the inter-generational injustice and inequity of continued building of coal-fired power plants.  Is the Orwellian double-speak in the charge of “obstruction of justice” not apparent?

Continue reading ‘James Hansen: Obstruction of Justice?’

Citizens opposed to National Coal Corporation mining the Sundquist Wildlife Management Area

Yet another action from Mountain Justice in Defense of the Appalachian Mountains! Please Support Fellow Activists.

CAMPBELL COUNTY, Tenn., July 20 - Residents of coal-impacted communities throughout Tennessee and Appalachia took a stand today for the mountains of East Tennessee by marching on Zeb Mountain, a surface mining site owned by Knoxville-based National Coal Corporation. In the tradition of American Civil Disobedience, the march, organized by United Mountain Defense, Mountain Justice, and Three Rivers Earth First!, included a diversity of coal-impacted citizens ranging from hunters fighting for the state’s wildlife to religious leaders promoting environmental stewardship

Continue reading ‘APPALACHIAN RESIDENTS GATHER TO MARCH ON ZEB MOUNTAIN’

For the last year in Virginia we have been fighting tooth and nail against a new coal fired power plant in Wise Co., Va, one of the few coal producing counties in this state, and a place where King Coal still definitely reigns, though today we dealt him a mighty blow.

Below you will find a dispatch from CCAN blogger Susanna, part 3 of a series about this last week in Wise, which you can find over at their Blog.

“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.

Today was the final day of the Air Board Hearing concerning the Wise County coal plant. The room was full of hope after yesterday’s comment period, and the board acknowledged the powerful citizen outcry over the plant’s health and environmental impacts. But ultimately, they approved the plant. While they significantly strengthened the emissions regulations, they did nothing to address mountain top removal mining or CO2 emissions.

They went as far as they could, without doing more harm than good. Fearing litigation from Dominion, they made no strong statement about regulating CO2—without the regulatory framework from the EPA, the Board felt it wasn’t able to take a strong stand. “My hope is,” stated one Air Board member, “that strong, forceful legislation will come at a federal level and that Governor Kaine will take state-specific actions to address CO2.”

It was because of the “loud public clamor” that the Air Board decided to take up this permit and make it as strong as it is now. Dominion will have to make a considerable effort to meet these demands, including cleaning up their mercury emissions. Dominion walked in the door expecting that their permit would get rubber-stamped approved with a 72 lb mercury emissions regulation. The Air Board demanded that they reduce that to 4.45 lbs per year. That’s a 120% reduction, made possible only by the strong grassroots outcry about this plant.

Continue reading ‘Winning and Losing in Wise Co., Va’

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. Continue reading ‘Blue Ridge Earth First! Stops Business as Usual at Dominion Power’