The founders of the Bhavana Society Forest Monastery came here looking for a slice of densely wooded land where Buddhist monks, nuns and lay people could meditate in sylvan surroundings.
“They were looking for the quietude, the natural environment, for people to come to, as opposed to the concrete jungle most people live in,” said Bhante Rahula, vice abbot of the monastery since 1987.
But 24 years after the Buddhists bought the land, they say that quietude is now threatened by plans for a $1.1 billion power line that would entail clear-cutting a 200-foot-wide swath of forest nearby.
The monastery is part of a battle in three states between two electric companies on the one hand and thousands of landowners and residents on the other over the 260-mile, 500-kilovolt transmission line.
Opponents of the line say it is nothing more than a way for the East Coast to plug into cheaper coal-fired power from the Ohio Valley. The region should instead build its own more environmentally friendly electricity generators, they say, and do more to conserve energy.
“We don’t need this here,” said Susan Foster Blank, a lawyer whose cattle ranch in Washington County, Pa., would be crossed by the power line. “We don’t need more electricity. We won’t get any of the benefits, but we will get more pollution.”
“NIMBY” seems to translate across all languages.
Power lines cause pollution? Since when, may I ask? Or are they talking about visual pollution?
My first reaction was, “tough, these things happen.” But I wondered if I might have thought about it differently if it were a Catholic or Eastern Orthodox monastery.
And #2, I suppose if the coal-burning plant was exporting more electricity, might they ramp up their coal-burning? But I know here, our coal-burning plant actually pollutes the air very little because of chemical scrubbers they use. So I’m not really sure what the connection would be between the power line and pollution either.
Y’all need to understand…my native state has been blasted, clear-cut, mined, and otherwise exploited for every natural resource it has. It remains resource rich and dirt poor-or at least typically Appalachian in its economic prosperity level. There is no mechanism for sharing all that wealth. Most of it ends up in the hands of people like the Massey Coal Company, with the people that live near or on top of the resources get pennies on the dollar, if anything. Folks are not inclined to support another exploitation of the land in any case.
Visual pollution is an issue in a state that relies on being pretty for part of its economic engine-if it is that. Many people who have moved to the state are looking for solitude. Retirement is becoming a leading industry. And there are a lot of places to be alone. That power line goes through very little, outside of Morgantown.
But you also need to understand that the WV government will kow-tow to corporate interests every time, regardless of who is in power. The pressure for ANY sort of development, after years of recession because there is just nothing there, is enormous. There is no systematic plan, and even when there is, it gets thrown out the minute somebody starts throwing money around.
My question is this: given the environmental damage the state has already sustained through large corporate interests using mountaintop removal methods to get to coal (not to mention illegal dumping and clear cutting that dates back 100 years) , do you really want to cut a 200 foot-wide swath through the state? Even if there are scrubbers being used at these plants that mitigate the CO2 damage, how do you compensate people near this thing for what they are losing-namely solitude and a beautiful place to live?
Where does it end? Shall we just turn the entire state into the East Coast’s dump/power plant? We once had a better balance between industry and the environment-back in the late ’60’s and 70’s, but with automation and free-trade, that is gone. I guess we just get to cut down our tress, just before we blow up the mountains that they sit on.
(The writer lives in Baltimore, Maryland. My forebears worked in the coal and chemical industries in south central West Virginia.)
Randall