Thanks, Spaw, but actions speak louder than words, and my actions and choices don't match my words to the extent they could, and I do not deserve your praise. Regarding that June 26 post, it is the questions at the end that I most ponder, and about which I am ever most ambivalent in terms of making personal choices.

That "Part 2" you proposed needs to be put out there. I'm 99.9% certain the power plant shown in the trailer is the John Amos plant on the Kanawha River, near Winfield, and only a few miles from my mother's house. The building of that plant, and during the time of it's early operations after the first unit went into operation in 1971 was a major economic engine of our area during most of my adolescence and early adulthood. I can not count the number of friends, boyfriends, and fathers of friends who worked at John Amos during that long process. Even my ex-husband, before I knew him. My ex's father had a mechanical engineering company that made him a moderately wealthy man, not directly working at John Amos or for the coal mines, but from construction and maintenance of banks, hospitals, government buildings and other businesses made possible by the economic engine of the John Amos plant. Good paying union jobs - electricians, boilermakers, iron workers, etc. The construction and early operation of the John Amos plant not only created new jobs, it offered replacement jobs for many of the trade union positions that were being lost as EPA regulations led to Union Carbide, FMC, Westvaco, I.E. Dupont and DOW chemical scaling back their presence in the Kanawha Valley - moving many of their plants to Asia where there were no unions and little environmental regulation.

Today, John Amos directly employs 320 workers, but provides jobs for many more who work for contractors. It is the largest power plant in the American Electric system, and in spite of spending billions of dollars for pollution control, ranks anywhere from the top 10 to the top 50 of power plants in the world in terms of emissions of carbon dioxide, sulfer dioxide and nitrogen oxide, or combustion residue (fly ash.)

The John Amos plant current burns 7 million tons of coal per year.

Except for Jay Rockerfeller (and before his demise, Robert Byrd-who finally "saw the light,") all of West Virginia's Washington politicians and the acting Governor since Manchin went to Washington, have raised the hue and cry against recent EPA regulations on CO2 emissions that will result in a few aged and small power plants being shut down 4 years earlier than American Electric had planned. Even American Electric is saying it is not such a big deal as the plants were slated for closure anyway. They are being driven by the coal lobby, and the very effective propaganda campaign of "Friends of Coal" throughout West Virginia.

Currently there is a big propaganda battle being waged in WV over a proposal by American Electric to build huge transmission lines to send power New Jersey. New Jersey is willing to pay a higher rate for power than are West Virginians. But most of the true costs of providing that additional power will be shouldered by West Virginia. The legal fight, because that is where the laws and legal grounds are more clearly defined, will focus on the right-of-way issues and private land ownership. West Virginians, however, will as always, shoulder most of the long-term costs when the effects of MTR and increased pollution by coal-fired power plants is factored in.

I fully understand why so many West Virginians see environmental protection as the enemy even though I disagree. We all want to be able to support our families, to offer financial stability to our children and grandchildren.

Those billboards put up by "Friends of Coal" that I have been seeing for a number of years are pure propaganda. I have never seen billboards with opposing messages or propaganda along the West Virginia Turnpike. Fact is, environmental and socially responsible lobbies also produce and rely on propaganda, but they can offer nothing to counter the propaganda put out by the coal lobby because they offer no alternatives for the region. The rest of the country is not willing to share in any sacrifice.


A new anti-Obama billboard has recently gone up along the turnpike-my son spotted and pointed it out to me with outrage (I must be doing something right:>). I can't remember exactly what it says, but the gist is Obama is with malice destroying coal industry jobs in West Virginia - includes a map of West Virginia with the southern coalfields in red. It is propaganda to the extent it implies ill-intent or lack of concern for the implications of government policies. It is also an accurate geographical representation of sacrifices that will be made by the people of the coalfields that will neither be shared nor willingly mitigated by the country at large.