MULTIMEDIA

Today a committee of North Carolina lawmakers will debate a ban on importing coal that is mined from Appalachian mountaintops. Duke Energy strongly opposes the measure. WFAE's Julie Rose reports:

Mountaintop coal removal requires blowing up several hundred feet on the top of a mountain, and it can devastate communities like Peachtree, West Virginia where Bo Webb lives.

"I live beneath a mountaintop removal site and it's gotta stop," says Webb. "My family's health, our safety's at risk, they're destroying all of our communities in southern West Virginia for a lump of coal."

Webb joined several hundred protesters in Uptown Charlotte yesterday opposing Duke Energy's plans to build a new coal-fired unit and continue using coal mined from mountaintops. Duke Energy spokeswoman Marilyn Lineberger says about half of its coal comes from mountaintop removal, because it is low in sulfur as most of Duke's power plants require.

Under the Appalachian Mountains Preservation Act, North Carolina companies like Duke and Progress Energy would not be able to renew their mountaintop coal contracts once they expire.

Lineberger says Duke Energy only supports a federal solution to the problem of mountaintop removal - not a state ban.

"That would not stop the practice of mountaintop mining," says Lineberger. "All that would do is make our customers a captive audience for markets that we would have to go outside, investing millions and millions of dollars in retrofits."

Of the 50 states, North Carolina and Georgia are the two largest consumers of coal mined from mountaintops. A version of the ban has been introduced in both states.

Today's hearing is only the first of many hurdles the measure will have to clear before it would become law.

More info:

The Appalachian Mountains Preservation Act (HB 340) is sponsored by Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford). It will be heard by the House Standing Committee on Environment and Natural Resources Tuesday, April 21 at 12 p.m. in Room 643 of the Legislative Office Building, Raleigh.

What most people do not realize, and what the state legislature needs to understand, is that "mountaintop removal" and "mountaintop mining" are two completely different things. While the former removes the top of a ridge, to recover all of the coal prior to reclamation, the latter includes all other forms of coal mining-- including contour stripping (which leaves the top of the mountain untouched) and also underground mining (which produces waste rock materials that require disposal). All of the above require hollow-fills of some kind, which EPA has begun to deny through a continued, protracted moratorium of permit issuance through their oversight authority under the Clean Water Act in 1972, and as subsequently ammended. If controlled fill placement permits are unobtainable, coal mining is not possible. It is that simple. The good state of North Carolina need only sit back and watch as the wheels that are already set in motion squeeze to a trickle the supply of coal available to North Carolina for electrical power generation. The real issue is not how we should punish states like West Virginia, Kentucky, and Colorado for mountaintop removal (about 12% of coal production) and mountaintop mining (the other 88%). The real issue is how are we going to meet our electrical energy needs when the coal supply we depend upon becomes unavailable-- from any source, at any price. You guys in the Raleigh big house better do your homework and find out the facts before voting for something detrimental, just to be politically correct. Obama and his "agents of change" are already deciding the future of North Carolina's power supply-- not her citizens. Let's not pour more gasoline on the fire.

A great chance to stand up to corporate greed and recklessness. Hundreds of mountain top ecologies throughout Appalachia have already been savaged by this short-sighted practice that destroys irreplaceable highland landscape. Wiping out mountains to get at filthy fuel is clearly acceptable to some, but the rest of us should stand up and oppose this deplorable practice. Sustainable long term answers to the energy crisis are shifting to renewable energy sources and reducing the population. This bill would represent a small but serious step in the right direction.

Maybe coal miners and West Virginians should stop using furniture from North Carolina or golf courses, or beach fronts, or NASCAR races. People should stop reacting to the lies regarding mountaintop mining. Perhaps they will like the increased electric bills and the rolling blackouts that will accompany such idiocy.