Today I traveled to Wise, VA, a small coal-mining town not far from the Cumberland Gap, to speak at the "public" hearing of the Air Pollution Control Board. This is the second such hearing at which I spoke against granting requests by Dominion Virginia for variances that would allow them to exceed even the lax pollution control standards of the Commonwealth of Virginia; the first was about the landfill to contain the fly ash waste that requires the rerouting of one of the source streams that supplies the Clinch River Watershed.

The difference between the two hearings was enormous. For one thing, since this was a citizen board, it was six or eight times better attended than last month's hearing. That they were even having a hearing rather than simply meeting behind closed doors and presenting their findings to the DEQ was, I am told, a historic event. Since this hearing was considered the last best hope of the activist community, they turned out in force. Since this hearing is the last barrier Dominion has to cross before construction can begin, supporters also turned out in force.

I noticed that there were about three times as many speakers against the plant as for it, and virtually all of the speakers for the plant were middle-aged white men in suits. With one exception, every political office holder, from Delegates to the Statehouse to County Councilmembers, spoke in favor of the plant, while those who spoke against it were much more diverse and included some who stood to gain from the project.

While this Board, like the one last month, was only interested in Dominion's compliance with the requirements of the law and the permitting procedure, I noticed that both sides deviated significantly from that narrow focus. Those in favor of the plant spoke of their faith, trust, and belief in Dominion's compliance, but they offered no evidence. Those opposed brought in the health and safety effects of air pollution, habitat destruction, and quality of life issues.

My contribution to the hearing was vastly different than that of last month's hearing, too. Since I was an organizer this time, I had taken the responsibility to do some in-depth research. I had distilled perhaps 300 pages of reading down to five pages of typed notes which I had distributed to the activists, and from that, I had built a one-page statement which I read with passion. My five-minute talk was very gratifying, and I reproduce it below.

Coal-fired power plant technology was the topic at a luncheon presentation on June 17, 2008 at the Martha Washington Inn in Abingdon sponsored by the National Parks Conservation Association. Keynote speaker Doug Cortez, engineer and managing director of Hensley Energy Consulting, showed conclusively that the technology exists right now to deploy a coal-fired power plant with zero CO2 emissions such as the one currently in service in Kingsport, TN. A design promise of compatibility with some unspecified technology to be retrofitted at some unspecified future date does not justify building a new plant that emits CO2. I am delighted that Dominion is funding research on the carbon sequestration problem, but let them use it to clean up their existing plants.

If this Board permits this project, this Board, Dominion, and the Commonwealth of Virginia will likely find themselves prosecuted by the EPA, the NPS, and a coalition of NGOs. There is no such thing as adequate mitigation and no acceptable non-zero level of emissions. I urge this Board to exercise due diligence and conduct a thorough investigation of the available evidence and make a decision based on the big picture over the long haul. In view of the fact that all of these costs will be borne by the ratepayer anyway, doesn’t it make more sense to invest in renewables now?

The other thing that made this a truly memorable day was my encounter with artist Jeff Chapman-Crane whose work "The Agony of Gaia" was on display in the lobby of the school where the hearing was held. I can't begin to describe the work except to say that it is shocking and breathtaking. The link above is not the highest-resolution version on the web, but I like it because it's embedded in a slide show that will provide you with a look at the heart-stopping beauty of these mountains along with the heart-breaking ugliness of the mountaintop removal industry that is required to feed our addiction to energy over-consumption. The text engraved on her base is in a separate blog entry.