This Valentine’s Day, mountain lovers from all over the commonwealth asked Governor Kaine to be their Valentine.
Virginia students, faith leaders, and activists delivered hundreds of Valentine’s Day cards to Gov. Kaine asking him to protect Virginia mountains and stop the Wise County power plant. Dominion Virginia Power is slated to break ground on the 585 megawatt coal plant as early as mid April and Virginia residents are urging the Governor to block its construction.
It’s not just southwest Virginia, or even the Richmond area that’s against this plant, it’s everyone. Arlington County Clerk of the Courts and climate champion Paul Ferguson (architect of the Fresh Aire initiative and pictured speaking on right) joined other leaders at a press conference in Arlington that same day to echo Virginians’ concerns about the coal plant and call for a real investment in clean energy.
“This plant is not only bad for Wise County, it’s bad for all of Virginia,” said Geoff Cox, a student at the University of Richmond who led the drive on his campus to collect Valentine’s cards. “My future is being threatened by global warming and my state is being destroyed by mountaintop removal mining. Another dirty coal-fired power plant is the completely wrong direction for Virginia.”
The media loved it. WAMU, the local NPR station that serves Northern Virginia, covered the Arlington press conference and CCAN Director, Mike Tidwell, did a long interview with Pacifica radio. Down south, the Richmond Times Dispatch did a GREAT story on the event and WRIC, News Channel 8, actually followed the activists into their meeting with Steve Walz, Kaine’s aide. WVTF, Western Virginia Public Radio and WCVE, Richmond Public Radio both covered the Valentine’s Day drop-off.
The plant is required to use coal mined in Virginia, which will exacerbate the practice of mountaintop removal coal mining. Twenty-nine mountains in Virginia have already been destroyed by mountaintop removal mining, a form of coal mining that blows the top off of mountains to reach the seams of coal below.
The coal plant will spew out more than 5.6 million tons of global warming pollution each year, the equivalent to adding one million cars to the road. Virginia is one of the most susceptible states in the nation to global warming. It has 3,300 miles of tidal shoreline
