Grassroots Efforts Versus Big Money for Coal
by Vicki Wolf, March 2008

A strong, grassroots effort, powered by concerned citizens, is sweeping the country calling for a moratorium on building new coal-fired power plants. From the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia to the Navajo People’s Land of Desert Rock, Arizona, young and old are calling for a halt to the building of new coal-fired power plants. Almost half of U.S. electricity comes from coal - the most plentiful, dirtiest fossil fuel in the country.

Meanwhile, the coal industry is spending millions to convince the public and legislators that coal can be clean and must play a role in meeting future energy demands. The Washington Post reported in January 2008 that American’s for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC), a coal industry public relations group, “is waging a $35 million campaign in primary and caucus states to rally public support for coal-fired electricity and to fuel opposition to legislation that Congress is crafting to slow climate change.”

ABEC’s message is that coal-fired plants can be clean and more of them are needed to meet the growing demand for electricity. In sponsorship of the CNN Presidential Debates, the group ran an ad that showed images of blissful grass fields and blue sky. The ad campaign had an impact on the content of presidential debates: Only six of the 2,938 questions asked of candidates by reporters to date have dealt with climate change, according to the League of Conservation Voters.

The coal industry’s main lobbying group, the National Mining Association, also increased its budget by 20 percent this year, propelling its spending on lobbying efforts to almost 20 million dollars. Big coal’s praise of this “cheap” fuel ignores several important facts that impact the health of the planet and the health of people who live near places where coal is mined and where power plant smoke stack emissions pollute the air, water and soil.

Data released in March from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows that carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. power plants rose 2.9 percent in 2007, the largest single-year increase since 1998. Continuing to fuel the country and the world with coal is likely to prevent all the positive efforts from solving global warming. Approximately 501 coal-burning power plants account for 36 percent of U.S. global warming emissions - more than all other sources combined - more than 377 million cars.

The coal industry’s myth of “clean coal” also leaves out the environmental and community devastation caused by mountain-top removal. In Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky, the tops of the Appalachian Mountains are bulldozed and dumped into the valleys, filling in rivers and streams. Flooding, as a result of the mountaintop removal, has taken away land homes and lives. Water contamination from the coal mining is causing serious illness in communities there.

To get to thin seams of coal, mining companies clear-cut the native forests and blow off the tops of the mountains. The waste rock and dirt are dumped into the valleys, permanently filling in streams. This most destructive form of mining has increased flooding, contaminated drinking water and destroyed habitat. The Sierra Club reports that by the end of this century, more than 2,200 square miles of Appalachian forest and mountains will be gone. It is estimated that mountaintop removal could harm more than 240 species of animals.

“Clean coal” ads also leave out the fact that coal ash covers the homes of the Navajo people living in Arizona. In the four corners area there are 33 power plants. They neglect to mention that precious ground water needed for drinking and farming, is being taken to run the power plants.

Coal lobbyists fail to mention that the fish, in at least 20 Texas lakes tested for toxins, are unfit to eat because of mercury contamination from coal-burning plants.

In response to the devastation the mining and burning of coal causes nearby communities, young people are taking a stand against the coal industry. At the recent Coal Moratorium Now! conference, sponsored by Public Citizen’s COALBLOCK Campaign, two young activists talked about the progress they have made in their communities to fight coal companies. One of the young grassroots organizer, Dailan Long, grew up on the Navajo People’s land in Arizona, in a home that had no electricity or running water. His father is a foreman at a coal plant and his two brothers are pipe welders. After going away to college, he came back, took a look around and realized that the coal plants were ruining the land, and the economic benefits for his family were not worth the devastation of the land and health of its people.

Long is now working with Dine’ CARE (Citizens Against Ruining our Environment), to stop Sithe Global Power, the Texas-based owner of Desert Rock Energy Company, from building a 1,500 megawatt coal plant near his home in Burnham Chapter, Arizona. The company recently sued the Environmental Protection Agency for taking more than a year to issue an air quality permit for the plant. Through education and grassroots efforts, Dine’ CARE has been able to slow down the permitting process and get the community involved in challenging the permit application.

Responding to the energy company’s lawsuit, Long told a Navajo Times reporter, “The EPA is in a deliberative process on a very critical issue facing us in Burnham,” Long said. “Desert Rock is not independent of a large industrial complex in northwest New Mexico, and to make a reasonable decision on an air quality permit in the context of existing conditions requires further scrutiny and adequate information.”

Long, working with Dine’ CARE, has gained the support of the Tribal Elders who are working with the group to convince the community and the Tribal Council that the area needs to stop building coal plants and instead pursue renewable energy.

Long says protecting natural resources is part of the Navajo People’s culture. “In the creation stories we are told that the wind should not be contaminated with things that don’t give life.” Long says it takes making home visits and talking to people about their concerns and educating them about moving toward cultural and economic sustainability. Long told the audience of about 60 people attending the Coal Moratorium Now conference, “Look at what coal has done to our lands and other lands. Ask utilities and governors to approve incentives.” As an example of what can be done by citizens he said, “California will not buy power from Desert Rock because consumers don’t want any more power from coal.” He also noted that, “If we change consumption and behavior patterns, we wouldn’t be having this problem so much.”

Another young organizer Hannah Morgan, with Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, told the conference audience of her work to stop Dominion Coal Company from building a new 585 megawatt power plant in southwestern Virginia. Morgan enthusiastically talked about the grassroots effort to get a mile long petition made up of 100,000 signatures to ask Dominion to invest in clean, renewable energy and energy efficiency instead of building a new coal plant.

The group has been getting larger than expected turnouts to public hearings. “We were hoping for about 100 people to turn out,” Morgan says. “We did massive outreach and 300 people showed up. We had people speaking from nine in the morning until nine at night. So it was 12 hours of speaking with the overwhelming majority against the plant which is pretty exciting.” Morgan and the Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards are working tirelessly get a decision to stop the new coal plant by April 8, the date Dominion has set for the new plant’s ground-breaking.

As Long and Morgan point out, with energy efficiency, conservation and clean, renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, energy needs can be made without more coal. A study by researchers with Architecture 2030 concludes that efficiency in building design and operation can eliminate the need for more new coal plants. Buildings consume 76 percent of all the energy produced by coal plants. Their 2030 Challenge calls for all new buildings and development to be carbon-neutral by 2030, starting at 50 percent of the regional energy consumption. Another project that is part of increasing building energy efficiency is the 2010 Imperative, which calls on all design schools to be carbon neutral by 2010 and achieve “complete ecological literacy” in design education.

With individual and grassroots efforts to bring about regional and national change in energy policy, coal power plants can become a thing of the past. Young organizers like Dailan Long and Hannah Morgan offer much hope for the future. As Morgan puts it, “The really inspiring thing is how people are sticking it out and really taking ownership over this issue because they know that this is our future, and they know that this is our present day issue. People from across the state are realizing that coal is not the way to go, coal is not our future.”