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SEXUAL IDENTITY, Opinion II
The
Blue Banner
The News
in Brief
Woodfin power plant stirs residents into action
By Ashley Horne
Copy Editor
New liaison to
help with
school money
Wilma Sherrill, former
General Assembly member, j
started as special assistant to !
Chancellor Anne Ponder for
external affairs Monday.
Sherrill will volunteer for her
first six months because of a
provision requiring a cool-off
period before lawmakers can
become lobbyists. Campus
functions and education will not
be included in her duties,
according to Sherrill, who will
serve to help lawmakers under
stand what is being done with
university money.
Conference
addresses
diversity issues
“The State of Black
Asheville” Conference, the
brainchild of UNC Asheville
political science professor
Dwight Mullen, will be held on
Saturday, Feb. 17. Sessions
will cover such issues as hous
ing, law enforcement and
healthcare. Each panel will also
include a member of the
Asheville City Council.
Childcare and lunch will be free
and open to the public.
Teen kills five
in Utah mall
An 18-year-old Bosnia immi
grant killed five people in a
mall in Utah earlier this week
before being shot dead by
police officers.
Investigators say they do not
know what made Sulejmen
Talovic open fire, although
speculations have arisen over
Bosnia immigrants having
higher mental health trouble
because of their experiences in
the war.
Local leaders and communi
ty members are attempting to
quell off any anti-Bosnia senti
ment that arises.
Authorities arrested two local
residents after they posted a large
banner in protest of Progress
Energy’s and the Buncombe
County Commissioners’ plan to
build a new oil-burning power
plant in Woodfin.
“Climbing up on a billboard and
dropping a giant banner is kind of
a way to draw a lot of attention to
this issue going straight to the pub
lic because the elected officials
and the government are not listen
ing,” said Micah Lee, environmen
tal activist and member of Rising
Tide North America, an organiza
tion frying to fight the root causes
of climate change.
Lee and fellow protester, Abigail
Singer, 27, local resident, climbed
a billboard off of U.S. 19-23 early
last Tuesday morning and dis
played a banner saying, “Burning
Oil Ain’t Progress - No New
Power Plant in Woodfin.”
The protesters planned the event
ahead of time and alerted the
media in order to let more resi
dents know about this issue. Their
protest lasted for three hours until
the Asheville City Police
Department and Fire Department
removed them from the billboard
and charged them with trespassing
and resisting arrest, according to
Lee.
“Global Warming, it’s got to
stop. There’s no reason to be burn
ing any more fossil fuels at all,”
Lee said.
Several hundred county resi
dents began talks with the County
Commissioners after Progress
Energy announced in December
plans to build the new plant to
meet the high demand for energy.
The plant will be considered a
“peak” plant running only 10 per
cent of the time, and to be used
when energy needs are highest.
The energy produced will
replace 250 mega watts of energy
the company will lose in 2009,
when a 20-year contract expires,
according to Ken Maxwell,
Progress Energy Community
Relations Manager.
“In an ideal world, we would
love to build a plant that could
generate 130 mega watts on
demand and have zero emissions,”
Maxwell said. “That would be the
best of both worlds, but that is cur
rently not available.”
The County Commissioners
recently voted to lease county-
owned land in Woodfin that lies
Photo Contributed by Mk ah Lee
Environmental activists and Rising Tide North America members Micah Lee and Abigail Singer stand on top of the billboard they covered with
a banner to protest the new Woodfin power plant. They stood up there for three hours before they were ordered down by Asheville Police
Department and Fire Department. Later, Lee and Singer asked for donations at a climate change lecture to help pay for their $800 bail.
along the French Broad River to
Progress Energy for the plant. The
site is an old landfill, which limits
county uses and this power plant
will produce some form of tax rev
enue for the county, according to
Maxwell. In January, 200 residents
gathered at a Commissioners’
meeting to ask them to consider
alternative energy sources, accord
ing to Lee.
“Every chance there has been for
public input, lots and lots of peo
ple have put in public input, but
the County Commissioners just
leased the property for the
Progress Energy plant for a $1 a
year,” Lee said. “They leased it
unanimously after dozens of peo
ple spoke on why they shouldn’t.”
Most public concerns surround
the enviromnental impact of the
fossil fuel plant.
The conservation organization
Western North Carolina Alliance
predicts the plant will produce 247
tons of nitrogen oxide, 97 tons of
particulate matter and 2.4 tons of
sulfur dioxide per year, which they
believe are small estimates as
many peak plants end up running
an average 80 percent of the time.
“Of course the emissions are the
main concern,” said Dee Eggers,
UNC Asheville associate professor
of environmental studies. “We
have emissions
that will con
tribute to global
warming, ozone
and particulates.
Those things,
ozone and par
ticulates espe
cially, have a
strong, scientifi
cally validated
negative effect
Micah Ixc
on respiratory health.
We’ve already got a higher rate
of respiratory illness in this area
than national averages because
we’ve already got such significant
air quality problems.”
Progress said they first tried to
contract energy capacity from
other generators in the Southeast,
but most regions are experiencing
the same growth and high demand
for energy, according to Maxwell.
“So most likely, a lot of those
power generators do not want to
commit their capacity for the long
term,” Maxwell said. “They didn’t
want to make a long term commit
ment knowing they might need
that capacity for themselves with
their own growth.”
For immediate resources to ful
fill the demand. Progress saw
building the Woodfin plant as their
only real option, according to
Maxwell.
Environmentalists suggest the
company look at safer alternative
sources of energy or decrease the
high demand through efficiency
and conservation programs.
“If we build this plant, one thing
we could do that would set it up to
be a part of a sustainable energy
future, would be to make sure
t’rogress Energy purchases equip
ment that can run on biodiesel,”
Eggers said. “Biodiesel has far
fewer emissions associated with it
and it can be part of a sustainable
energy system.”
Progress considered biodiesel
but current concerns with the
quantity available, price and quali
ty of the product had them looking
elsewhere, but they have not ruled
out biodiesel for the future.
Progress chose an environmen
tally safe product using ultra-low
sulfur fuel, which will significant
ly lower levels of sulfur dioxide,
according to Maxwell.
“Our first priority is our mandate
which is to provide reliable,
affordable energy to this region,
and we want to do that with mini
mum impact on the environment,”
Maxwell said. “Certainly the $200
million we have invested in the
clean smoke stacks project out at
our Skyland plant, coal plant,
speaks to that level of commit
ment.”
With an ever-increasing
demand for energy, environmen
talists see conservation as the
only real long-term solution.
SEE Plant page 31
LoveFest educates, titilates students
By Sara Pardys
Staff Writer
A few student organizations
spent this week showing the love
at LoveFest, a week full of events
and activities geared towards
healthy relationships, safe sex and
alternative choices.
“LoveFest is a week of loye-relat-
ed issues,” said Bobbi Castrovinci,
sophomore student and LoveFest
organizer. “We’re just trying to get
, people aware.”
SGA kicked off the week’s
events with the Condom Olympics
and an Alliance-sponsored kissing
booth on the Quad, according to
Castrovinci. The condom fairies,
members of Peers Advocating
Wellness Strategies, handed out
condoms and information.
The festival also included events
such as a screening of the movie
“Rent” with a chocolate fountain,
a recycled Valentine card station,
making Valentines for troops over
seas and a retirement home, a
Pizza n’ Pom discussion with
Campus Cmsade for Christ, an
HIV/AIDS Myth Buster session, a
Women’s health fair and an osteo
pathic medicine forum.
At Monday’s Condom
Olympics, students learned about
proper condom use.
“We showed people the correct
way to put them on and take them
5hanna Arney - Staff Photographer
Senior psychology student Sara Livingston and sophomore student
Lara Martini hand out condom roses as Condom Fairies, representing
the peer education group, Peers Advocating Wellness Strategies.
off,” said Castrovinci. “People
came out and put condoms on a
gourd to show that they’ll fit
everybody.”
Condoms, however, were not the
only method of birth control pre
sented during LoveFest. Student
Health Services provided dental
dams, and LoveFest participants
also handed out information on
sexually transmitted diseases and
abstinence, according to
Castrovinci.
“It’s important at our age to
know about condoms and different
birth control options,” Castrovinci
said.
On Tuesday, NSCS made a
donation to fund AIDS research
for every student that stopped by
their booth in Highsmith
University Union wearing red.
Later on Tuesday, the Western
North Carolina Aids Project partic
ipated in a Myth Buster-style panel
about HIV/AIDS in America.
“We’re trying to break the myth
that it’s a far away, exotic virus,”
Castrovinci said. “It is here at
UNC Asheville. It’s going to really
hit home.”
On Thursday, the women’s
health fair had a variety of activi
ties for students. Students indulged
in complimentary mocktails (alco
hol-free cocktails) while various
speakers held informational ses
sions, including a speaker from
Mary Kay Cosmetics on skin care.
Throughout the week’s events, ,
ASIA sold Hershey’s Kiss roses to ;
benefit the Breast Cancer Society, i
“It is National Sexual Health
week this week and it is
Valentine’s Day week,”
Global warming causes
dangerous climate changes
By Aaron Dablstrom
Staff Wrher
In a lecture given at UNC
Asheville, Environmental
Consultant Lenny Bernstein spoke
about his work with the
Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, warning of the
dangers the planet faces as a result
of global warming.
“If half of Greenland and half of
Antarctica melts
or breaks up, sea
levels worldwide
H
“One-hundred-and-fifty-thou-
sand people are already dying
every year directly from the effects
of climate change, and many thou
sands more are becoming environ
mental refugees,” Singer said.
“Within 50 years, nearly 40 per
cent of terrestrial plants and ani
mals are expected to be driven to
extinction as their native ranges
are eliminated by changing tem
peratures.”
UNC Asheville
students agree
— i3tuMviii.a agicc
wll rise by 18 to something needs
20 feet, displac- people are already dying ^
"’'“’‘'"eveo; year directly from the
LaSghai ^lone^ffects of climate change ^
and putting much
of south Florida
under water,”
said Abigail
Singer, a member
Tide, an
Abigail Singer
Rising Tide Member
SEE LoveFest 21
with Rising
organization seeking
awareness on global warming.
Mountain glaciers and snow
cover decreased in both hemi
spheres, and continues to do so,
but at faster rates, according to a
report filed by the IPCC.
Singer is one of many voices
speaking out in response to U.S.
inaction on the subject.
“Nothing that
we do today will
make things stop
right away, but the
United States
needs to produce legislation that is
going to curb C02 emissions,”
said Kristen Masi, senior environ
mental studies student.
Global warming occurs because
of the accumulation of greenhouse
gases, according to Singer. These
gases, predominately carbon diox
ide and methane, accumulate in the
SEE Climate PAGE i\
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