My alarm went off at 6:00 am. The rain was falling outside and I could count on hours of sleep on one hand (and no thumb). The urge to hit snooze was overwhelming, but I had a job to do! It was November 6th, election day, and I had to get COAL on the ballot!
I was one of over a hundred volunteers participating on “Vote No on Coal”, an outreach campaign designed to educate people about the proposed coal-fired power plant Dominion Virginia Power wants to build in Wise County, and why we as citizens need to say NO NEW COAL. This plant will cost $1.6 billion in taxpayer money, emit millions of tons of CO2, and bring further environmental and health hazards to the already impacted communities of SW Virginia.
Our goal was to collect signatures for a “mile-long petition” that Kathy Selvage and other members of Wise-County based Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards will present to Dominion at their annual shareholder meeting.
Early reports show that the day was a huge success. Over the course of 5 hours in Burke, Virginia I collected 75 names, met the president of a homeowners association, the president of a temple, and several amazing new volunteers. In Fairfax, Mike Tidwell, director of CCAN, exchanged some friendly words with Senator Dick Saslaw, while volunteers in Arlington actually convinced several county supervisors to sign! Reports are still rolling in, but it looks like we had over 100 volunteers who collected several thousand petitions.
On top of that, we should keep our eyes on the 400+ students who are part of Virginia Climate Action Network, who have pledge to collect over 30,000 petitions in the next two months. Many were organizers or attendees of www.powershift07.org
The officials elected on November 6th will need to make difficult choices regarding Virginia’s energy future. Will they choose dirty energy or will they lead us on a path toward a clean energy future?
CCAN is part of a larger coalition fighting the proposed Wise County power plant. Coalition members include Sierra Club, Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, and Southern Environmental Law Center
VOLUNTEERS are petitioning at polling locations in the following cities. Contact Josh Tulkin to connect with a local volunteers: Abingdon, Alexandria, Amissville, Annandale, Appalachia, Arlington, Ashburn, Blacksburg, Blue Ridge, Burke, Broadlands, Charlottesville, Colonial Beach, Emory, Fairfax, Fredericksburg, Great Falls, Harrisonburg, Herndon, Knoxville, Lanexa, Lovettsville, Lynchburg, Manassas, McLean, Occoqueen, Poquoson, Reston, Richmond, Round Hill, Salem, Springfield, Vienna, Washington, Williamsburg, and Wise.
