A War on the Future

Three days ago, Coal River, WV, was one of the Appalachia's most promising wind-power sites. Coal River Mountain had the potential to begin a new, bright, renewable future for a region ravaged by its dependence on King Coal. A citizen's coalition had applied for permits to construct the wind farm -- and investors were lining up.

But Massey Coal had a different idea. Instead of creating an enduring community and a national asset, one that would have supported 50 jobs in perpetuity, Massey wanted to preemptively begin blowing up Coal River Mountain starting Wednesday. Backed by West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin, Massey appeared to have the go-ahead for its plan to destroy the mountain. Governor Manchin's initial response to the wind farm porposal? Wind advocates should "do what any responsible energy producer would do: Identify and acquire a site for their project, and obtain the permits and infrastructure necessary to make that project happen." Manchin said he was perplexed by why Coal River Wind was so focused on "this particular site."

How about this, Governor? They are focused on this particular site because it's about to be blown up. And they didn't know it was going to be blown up until August 29, when Massey announced it would blast in a classified ad and informed residents within .7 miles of the blasting zone.

It's clear that no one could have obtained permits and infrastructure in the 13 days between the first public notice of the proposal to destroy the mountain and the proposed beginning of the blasting. And it's just as clear that Manchin is simply a handmaiden for Massey.

But Coal River Mountain got a reprieve. Massey isn't just reckless about what they do to streams and communities. They are also sloppy, and they had failed to get all the permits they needed. So West Virginia regulatory agencies intervened to stop the blasting -- for now -- even if the Governor didn't like it.

But what kind of society makes it easier to get a permit to blow up a mountain than to get one to erect a wind mill on top of it? Big Carbon is making war on our future, and we are letting them.

Comments

[plebeianswillrevolt]

Thanks for this blog Carl. I had no idea about this looming environmental disaster. Another reason to hope Obama gets elected. McBush won't stop it.

[sheila]

not to state the obvious, but won't they be dynamiting the mountain to build the large, flat foundations for giant wind turbines? ALL LARGE SCALE, REMOTE POWER PROJECTS HURT OUR ENVIRONMENT!!!

we need to focus on point of use solutions, not on dynamiting, blasting, scraping, poisoning, draining, and otherwise obliterating our open spaces, just to recentralize Big Energy monopolies.

time to support every house in VA getting solar panels and their very own small windmill, and stop suggesting that dynamiting for wind is ok. it's not.

[Egalitare]

Then stop equating the environmental degradation from removing several mountains and the tailing stream it will produce to that of placing relatively small foundations on a mountain that will stay in place and have little impact on water quality and existing ecosystems.

I understand the zeal of you folks who want exclusively distributed energy production, but we are not there in terms of mass public consciousness. The citizens of West Virginia are moving in the right direction of the continuum here: renewable large scale energy IS BETTER THAN coal generated energy every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Your solution works just fine for homeowners in NOVA, Suburban MD and every other affluent suburb which can afford to fork out the upfront costs of individualized energy production, but that's not the majority of us.

[joebaggadonuts]

I guess there's o comments because everyone understands this as truth. Coal companies blow up mountains without permits but windfarmers get stopped because they don't get permits for the same mountain the governor and the coal company want to blow up.