by EDWARD SZTUKOWSKI
News Reporter

In their regularly scheduled meeting Thursday, the Boone Town Council decided to support a House bill that would ban the use of coal received from mountaintop removal.

The Appalachian Mountains Protection Act would prevent energy companies in North Carolina from using coal received from mountaintop removal, a controversial method of coal mining that strips the tops off mountains to expose the coal.

“We’d prohibit North Carolina from purchasing coal from mountaintop removal,” Town Council Member Liz Aycock said. “These mountains are sacred, and there are other methods of extracting coal.”

Austin Hall, the North Carolina field advisor for Appalachian Voices, was also present at the meeting.

“Imagine a coal company came in and took the top off of Howard’s Knob and dumped the rubble in Boone,” he said.

Hall visited the town council meeting to urge the town to support the Appalachian Mountains Protections Act, which is controversial due to its opposition from coal companies.

Hall said coal companies argue that without using mountaintop removal to remove coal, there will be an energy rate hike.

“North Carolina is the second largest consumer of mountaintop removal coal in the country,” Hall said. “By distancing ourselves from this, we are actually going to be in an economic advantage later. We can find alternative sources of coal and it’s the right thing to do.”

Hall said in Watauga County, the energy at the New River Light and Power Company is received from the Duke Power Company, which gets its coal from mountaintop removal in West Virginia.

Hall said N.C. Sen. Steve Goss has been a champion of the legislation to ban mountaintop coal mining.

“He understands it’s an economic issue, but it’s the right thing to do. Our state representative thinks it should be ultimately handed on the federal level and isn’t our concern,” Hall said. “Ultimately it is our concern, and the town passing [the resolution] proved that.”

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