I should have added this to my account of state-level coal backlash:
The U.S. Forest Service is warning Virginia environmental officials that pollution from a $1.6 billion coal-fired power plant proposed for Wise County would violate federal clean-air laws.
In a letter to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, the supervisor of the Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina said the plant proposed by Dominion Virginia Power would pump enough sulfur dioxide into the air to possibly damage plant life and visibility in the 12,000-acre Linville Gorge Wilderness.
This part is particularly, and bitterly, amusing:
The plant, called the Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center, would potentially emit 25 million pounds of pollutants into the air each year, including those that cause smog and acid rain, along with 5.3 million tons of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. It would be one of the biggest polluters in the state, though Dominion refers to it as a “clean coal” plant.
