Opinion
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An unhealthy alliance
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Published: March 1, 2009
Mountaintop mining, which blasts the tops off mountains, doesn't happen in North Carolina. But coal produced by that mining produces electricity for many of us. North Carolina should break from that practice, and a bill filed last week in the state House sets the stage for a compromise that could make that happen.
"By transforming the majestic mountains of the Appalachian coalfields into flattened, eerily lifeless moonscapes, mountaintop removal coal mining, of all the methods of extracting coal, poses the greatest risks to human health, local communities, the environment, real property, personal property and wildlife resources," according to the bill from Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Guilford County Democrat.
"By consuming coal extracted by mountaintop removal mining to provide power to our homes, businesses and economy, North Carolina is responsible, in part, for the permanent destruction to date of the Appalachian coalfields and the wildlife resources of the Appalachian mountains," according to the bill.
The bill, if it becomes law, would ban electric public utilities that operate in North Carolina from purchasing or using coal from mountaintop mining. It would be enforced by prohibiting errant companies from recovering the cost of their coal through customer rates, as they're allowed to do by law.
Mountaintop mining is an extreme form of strip mining, which the Journal has long opposed. In the 1970s, investigative reporting and editorials in the Journal and in its sister paper, the now-defunct Sentinel, were instrumental in thwarting a company's efforts to bring strip mining to Northwest North Carolina. Strip mining and mountaintop mining destroy the beauty of mountains and their value to the natural tourism industry, and they reduce property values. The mining also ravages ecosystems, including watersheds.
Duke Energy says it must balance environmental concerns with its responsibility to customers to purchase the "most economical coal." The company says that prohibiting it from using the high-quality coal extracted through mountaintop mining would cut its coal market in half, resulting in higher prices for customers, because it would face the challenge of finding and using other sources of coal. Progress Energy has similar concerns.
The transition to other coal would take a lot of time and money, said Vince Stroud, a vice president for Duke Energy. The shift would require significant changes in plant boilers.
The company's conservative estimate is that the ban would result in a 5-percent annual hike in residential electric rates, and an 8-percent annual hike in industrial rates, said Marilyn Lineberger, a spokeswoman for Duke Energy. And other companies would continue to purchase coal mined from mountaintops, she said.
But the nonprofit agency Appalachian Voices, based in Boone, says that banning North Carolina plants from using coal from mountaintop mining will not have a significant impact on rates, because several other sources of coal are available. The bill allows for a phasing out of using coal from mountaintop mining. The executive director of Appalachian Voices, Matt Wasson, said that such mining will eventually be outlawed, and the utility companies should be facing that reality now, so scrambling for new coal sources won't lead to rate hikes. And while coal is a reasonable energy form for now, eventually utility companies must use cleaner sources of energy.
That said, there's certainly no guarantee that the ban wouldn't cause a rate hike, and that's the last thing needed in a recession.
With that in mind, Harrison and other lawmakers should work out a compromise with the utility companies. The bill should be amended to say that any ban should only apply to a utility company's work in North Carolina; the ban couldn't stop a company that operates in this state from using, in another state, coal mined from mountaintops. That's up to lawmakers in those other states.
And to avoid sharp rate increases, the ban should be imposed gradually. What's needed is a spirit of compromise, like that among Gov. Mike Easley's office, lawmakers, environmentalists, Duke Energy and Progress Energy that produced the Clean Smokestacks Act in 2002. That law has reduced air pollution from coal-fired plants.
Then, just as now, there was a clear hazard. Lawmakers heard of premature deaths, increases of childhood asthma and other breathing problems caused by soot from power plants. The act allowed the companies to phase in clean-up procedures over several years, and to freeze electric rates to pay for the machinery to reduce pollution. The companies did not have to decrease their rates during that time, resulting in windfalls for them.
Stroud said the mountaintop issue is different. The Clean Smokestacks Act imposes restrictions on the company's plants, he noted, while a ban on using coal from mountaintop mining would restrict what the company could do in the marketplace.
This compromise would take more effort. But it's well worth the trouble. It's time for North Carolina to break its addiction to mountaintop mining. Other states should do the same.
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