Fifteen years is a long time. Fifteen years ago, “Married with Children” aired its final new episode on Fox. Fifteen years ago, Mike Tyson tried to bite Evander Holyfield’s ear off in the middle of a boxing match. Fifteen years ago, Prodigy was still in the internet-provider business. Remember them? Didn’t think so.
The point is, 15 years is a long time. So when Dominion Virginia Power presented its plans for the next 15 years of energy production to the SCC, we were curious. When we found out that the plans had NO land-based or off-shore wind and a negligible amount of Virginia-made solar power, our curiosity turned into varying degrees of frustration. So we organized. And you came. Together, we rallied. And it was awesome!
Speaking at the rally outside of the SCC/Dominion IRP (integrated resource plan) hearing yesterday was myself, Glen Besa of the Sierra Club, Jeff Ryan of Solar Services, and Dr. Ravi Gupta. Joining us was a rousing bunch of around 50 enthusiastic supporters. All of us were voicing our opposition to Dominion’s 15 year IRP. We came to show our support for a future Virginia that had less pollution and more clean energy jobs. Fifteen years of the same global warming pollutants in our environment is too much to tolerate. Fifteen years of increased asthma and other respiratory illnesses is too costly to put a price on. Fifteen years is simply too long to refuse to use new technologies that are cleaner and more efficient.
We need the cleaner environment and our economy needs the clean jobs. Thanks so much for all of your help and encouragement. Yesterday we showed Dominion and the SCC that we care enough about our communities and our planet to come out and strongly voice our opinion. Given the extraordinary amount of media hits we received from the event, I’m sure our voices were heard. We want clean energy and we want it NOW!
