Latest Duke coal plant challenge targets Appalachian mountaintop removal
Two environmental organizations went to court today in the latest attempt to stop Duke Energy from building a controversial new coal-burning power plant in western North Carolina. In separate lawsuits, Appalachian Voices and the N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network are challenging the state's decision to issue the plant an air pollution permit.
Appalachian Voices' novel legal approach is based on a provision of the Clean Air Act that requires regulators to consider the environmental impacts associated with the entire cycle of coal-generated electricity, which in Duke Energy's case includes mining coal through mountaintop removal. Duke is the nation's third-largest consumer of coal mined via that method, in which explosives are used to blast off mountaintops, with the resulting debris dumped into adjacent river valleys. The practice has already destroyed more than 470 mountain peaks, buried or polluted more than 1,200 miles of headwater streams, and wiped out some 800 square miles of diverse ecosystems in West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee.
"Giving them a permit for a new coal plant is almost guaranteed to mean devastating impacts in terms of global warming pollution and mountaintop removal mining," says Appalachian Voices Executive Director Mary Anne Hitt.
Earlier this month, Appalachian Voices along with the N.C.-based Canary Coalition filed another federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Energy and the Treasury Department that seeks to end taxpayer subsidies for the building of power plants that burn coal mined by mountaintop removal.
Other than West Virginia, North Carolina is the largest consumer of coal mined by mountaintop removal, followed by Kentucky, Georgia, and Virginia. To find out whether your local power plant relies on coal mined this way, click here.
The other suit filed today by N.C. WARN charges that Duke's proposed Cliffside plant would increase emissions of greenhouse gases at the same time the Southeast already has a glut of electricity. It also claims North Carolina violated federal law by failing to require state-of-the-art controls on mercury and other toxic pollutants from the facility, where construction is already underway.
(Photo of mountaintop removal operation courtesy of Appalachian Voices. For more images from the group, click here.)
Appalachian Voices' novel legal approach is based on a provision of the Clean Air Act that requires regulators to consider the environmental impacts associated with the entire cycle of coal-generated electricity, which in Duke Energy's case includes mining coal through mountaintop removal. Duke is the nation's third-largest consumer of coal mined via that method, in which explosives are used to blast off mountaintops, with the resulting debris dumped into adjacent river valleys. The practice has already destroyed more than 470 mountain peaks, buried or polluted more than 1,200 miles of headwater streams, and wiped out some 800 square miles of diverse ecosystems in West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee."Giving them a permit for a new coal plant is almost guaranteed to mean devastating impacts in terms of global warming pollution and mountaintop removal mining," says Appalachian Voices Executive Director Mary Anne Hitt.
Earlier this month, Appalachian Voices along with the N.C.-based Canary Coalition filed another federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Energy and the Treasury Department that seeks to end taxpayer subsidies for the building of power plants that burn coal mined by mountaintop removal.
Other than West Virginia, North Carolina is the largest consumer of coal mined by mountaintop removal, followed by Kentucky, Georgia, and Virginia. To find out whether your local power plant relies on coal mined this way, click here.
The other suit filed today by N.C. WARN charges that Duke's proposed Cliffside plant would increase emissions of greenhouse gases at the same time the Southeast already has a glut of electricity. It also claims North Carolina violated federal law by failing to require state-of-the-art controls on mercury and other toxic pollutants from the facility, where construction is already underway.
(Photo of mountaintop removal operation courtesy of Appalachian Voices. For more images from the group, click here.)
Labels: Appalachian Voices, Cliffside, coal, Duke Energy, mountaintop removal, NCWARN
1 Comments:
Simply from an environmental damage perspective, coal strip mining in the eastern US underscores the fact that coal isn't clean. An organization called "America's Power" - the "clean coal" people - continue their propaganda campaign for use of coal. Track what they are up to by checking out their website and signing up for their e-mails: http://www.americaspower.org/
Meanwhile, the US, Europe and Israel continue to import growing amounts of coal from Colombia, the perfect storm of human rights violations, multinational irresponsibilty and environmental destruction. Southern Company leads the way in these dirty imports, via Mobile, AL. For more info, see
http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia_coal.htm
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