Column amplified paranoia

Column amplified paranoia

It was with interest that I read Andrea Hopkins’ Jan. 20 column, "Our position on power plant has evolved with the evidence." In response to Delegate Terry Kilgore’s column, she explains the paper’s position on Dominion’s Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center has "evolved," via scrutiny, to "opposition."

The reasons cited are climate change, poor air quality and mountain-top removal. Scrutiny would question the net impact on air quality and climate change, given the questionable long-term viability of an older, less-advanced nearby facility. Scrutiny would investigate the actual extent of and potential for mountaintop removal in Southwest Virginia.

Scrutiny would examine which alternative form of "clean" energy is realistically going to meet ever-growing demand. Scrutiny would address the cleanup of local rivers through reclamation of gobpiles, the potential for improved markets for certain forest products and the effects of harnessing locally-developed natural gas, along with biomass, for power generation.

Printing and amplifying the shrill paranoia of those supposedly progressive-minded individuals and organizations whose life work is to oppose anything that continues our evolution away from outhouses and buggy whips is hardly akin to weighing evidence and reaching conclusions.

Speaking of an ax to grind, I like Ms. Hopkins’ admission of her coal sensitivities by revealing how her grandfather and great grandfather "eked out a living in the mines" while the wealth was confined to the mine owners. Such socialist-style rhetoric ignores the fundamental truth of reward as standing unreservedly accessible in this country to anyone with the willingness, determination and capacity to assemble necessary resources and assume extraordinary risk. This rationale for her sensitivities – a tie to her past – manages to perfectly employ the exact logic that a paragraph earlier, in a reference to the Kilgore column, she summarily dismisses because it is an attempt by Kilgore to "bind us to the past."

Speaking of investigation, I like Ms. Hopkins reference to Kilgore’s "anger" at having been revealed by the paper "like many of his colleagues" for taking a donation from Dominion. The implication is obvious. The truth is not. In 2007, Dominion made 275 donations to Virginia candidates and committees totaling $770,149: Republicans (49 percent), Democrats (50 percent), other (1 percent). A complete breakdown of the donations is available at vpap.org.

Opinion, half-truths and misplaced context are fine for the commentary section. But when these things drift onto the front page, disguised as a news report, then what we have is just plain, old-fashioned bias. When the paper encourages the State Corporation Commission to "nix" the plant, it has taken the next step to that of activist.

I agree that it is your paper’s duty to hold elected leaders accountable. I also agree your paper has "a duty to scrutinize every angle of the Dominion plant project" and "to weigh the evidence."

Bobby Campbell
Abingdon, Va.