WataugaWatch

Bruce Henderson digs into Duke Energy's dirty legacy of coal ash deposits across North Carolina in today's Charlotte Observer ... which evokes certain memories of the Christmas TVA coal ash spill on the Tennessee River last year.

Coal ash is known to be full of arsenic, mercury, and a dozen other ingredients fit for a witch's brew, and Duke Energy's coal-fired power plants produce tons and tons of it every year. In the NC-5, "Duke had to shut down an old ash landfill at its Belews Creek plant in Stokes County last year after groundwater samples repeatedly broke state safety standards."

Some 2.7 million tons (million tons) of Duke's ash was piled out on the ground between 1992 and 2003 without protective liners that are now required at landfills.

We ain't begun to calculate the true costs vs. benefits of corporatocracy.

And don't even get us started on the fact that much of that coal comes from mountaintop removal mines north of here.

Labels: coal industry, corporate power, Duke Energy, mountaintop removal coal mining

Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corp. draws its power from the Duke Power grid. Eight power plants in that Duke grid burn coal that comes directly from the worst environmental degradation in modern American history, "mountaintop removal" strip mining in West Virginia:

G G Allen power plant, located in Gaston County, NC
Buck power plant, located in Rowan County, NC
Cliffside power plant, located in Cleveland County, NC
Dan River power plant, located in Rockingham County, NC
Marshall power plant, located in Catawba County, NC
Riverbend power plant, located in Gaston County, NC
W S Lee power plant, located in Anderson County, SC
Belews Creek power plant, located in Stokes County, NC

We have learned that BREMCO and other power cooperatives around the state recently bussed employees to Raleigh to lobby in our name against the Appalachian Mountain Preservation Act, which would have stopped state utilities like Duke Energy from burning coal extracted by means of mountaintop removal (which incidentally involves the burying of adjacent creeks with the waste rock and dirt, compounding the destruction).

When the bill's sponsor, Pricey Harrison, withdrew the bill because of the successful lobbying against it, BREMCO employee Renee Whitener sent out an e-mail crowing about the victory and congratulating BREMCO supporters for the success in making power generation in North Carolina safe for strip-miners in Appalachia.

As long-time members and rate-payers with BREMCO, we strenuously object to having the N.C. General Assembly lobbied in our names for the continued wholesale rape of West Virginia and other coal regions. Piously, BREMCO claims that using deep-mined coal would cost its customers more money, which is true ... some 47 cents more per month, according to Appalachian Voices.

We not only object strenuously to the lobbying muscle BREMCO used in our names. We object to the bogus "economics" of tacitly saying a few cents more per month in our power bills out-weighs the wholesale destruction of the mountains north of here because they were unlucky enough to have coal seams buried deep in their bowels. We're also not impressed by the tsk-tsking of various members of the N.C. General Assembly, saying they're totally distressed on the one hand by the reality of mountaintop removal coal mining and totally bulldozed on the other hand by N.C. power utilities to NOT do the right thing.

The "values" of mega-corporations are too often not human values. BREMCO does not represent us.

Labels: BREMCO, mountaintop removal coal mining

During the last seconds of the George W. Bush presidency, the Bushie Environmental Non-Protection Agency attempted to make permanent its rule that mountaintop coal mining in Appalachia could go forward unabated and that coal companies could bury adjacent streams with the "waste" removed from the mountaintops.

The Obama EPA just reversed that policy, putting on hold any new permits while impacts of mountaintop coal mining on streams and wetlands are reviewed.

We join our own J.W. Randolph of Appalachian Voices in applauding that move.

Labels: Appalachian Voices, environmental issues, J.W. Randolph, mountaintop removal coal mining

I watched the segment last night with Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers on the Rachel Maddow Show. Interesting dude.

Interesting partially because he says he's in favor of "building a bridge" to sustainable energy and of zeroing out our dependence on fossil fuel and carbon emissions (Duke Energy, he himself admits, is the third-largest emitter of carbon particulates in the country, because Duke Energy mainly burns high-carbon coal). He says that he's in favor of the so-called "cap and trade" scheme of making polluters pay for permits to burn fossil fuel ... just not in favor of the up-front permitting proposed by the Obama administration. He warns that if he and Duke Energy has to pay for a permit to pollute, he'll have to pass along that cost to his customers.

Why not, instead, take a hit to your (enormous) profits, Maddow asked, since all the rest of us have been paying all along for your (also enormous) pollution? (And isn't it amazing that such a reasonable question can sound so radical?) Rogers essentially ducked the question.

Maddow was forward in her questioning precisely because Rogers has said he wants to wean the country off fossil fuels, and the rest of his recent biography might suggest a certain progressive streak to his capitalism: he's a self-professed "life-long" Democrat and gave some bucks to the Obama campaign.

So Rogers wants some of the same progressive goals that Obama wants. But Rogers doesn't want to pay for them. Smaller profit margin? Unthinkable!

Also unthinkable is limiting his ability to buy cheap strip-mined coal from Appalachia, like a bill currently being considered in the N.C. General Assembly would do. For all his public relations spin about "creation care," Mr. Rogers will do what he has to do to keep that cheap coal moving, harvested only by the wholesale destruction of entire mountains, and that would include leaning (heavily, and as a "fellow Democrat") on the Democratic members of the N.C. General Assembly.

That, and passing along the costs of pollution TWICE to his customers, rather than see any small dent in his massive profits.

So much for "building a bridge" to a sustainable energy future.

Labels: cap and trade, Duke Energy, Jim Rogers, mountaintop removal coal mining, Rachel Maddow

Rep. Pricey Harrison of Greensboro has filed a bill in the N.C. House to ban N.C. power companies from buying coal obtained via mountaintop removal mining, by far the worst and most destructive form of strip mining. Sen. Steve Goss of Watauga has filed the same bill in the N.C. Senate.

Duke Power and other power suppliers in the state are yelping like scalded dogs, since strip-mined coal from West Virginia and Kentucky is generally cheaper than coal from deep mines. Yelping like scalded dogs and simultaneously threatening members of the General Assembly with unspeakable retribution.

But here's the point: though North Carolina has no coal mined from mountaintop removal operations, it's the second largest consumer in the country (behind Georgia) of strip-mined coal. And that's shameful.

Labels: mountaintop removal coal mining, Pricey Harrison, Steve Goss

"That is wrong on such a gut level."

--Austin Hall, looking at pictures of West Virginia mountains scarred by mountaintop removal coal mining (quoted here)

Labels: Appalachian Voices, Austin Hall, mountaintop removal coal mining

Take yer pick. "I do," sez he, at a townhall meeting yesterday in Orlando, when asked if he supported an end to the economically and ecologically destructive practice of mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia.

But, oops. The McCain campaign, realizing how many of its big donors are profiting from the destruction of Appalachia, immediately denied that their candidate had ever said he favored ending the practice. That's what they told the Charleston Gazette:

McCain's campaign initially denied that the candidate favored an end to mountaintop removal, but backed off that when confronted with video of his remarks during an appearance Monday in Orlando, Fla.

These senior moments are piling up on McCain, who yesterday also got all huffy about NATO ally Spain and was apparently willing to go to war with Zapatero.

McCain needs to up his dosage of fish oil. Immediately.

Labels: John McCain, mountaintop removal coal mining