Coal Comfort 2
Lately, there has been quite kerfuffle in my local rag about the coal dust that covers much of the western part of Norfolk.
Indeed, it has reached the point that a muckety-muck from the Norfolk Southern wrote an op-ed disparaging folks who don’t like waking up to find coal dust on their properties and vehicles. According to the muckety-muck, the Norfolk Southern wasn’t there, didn’t do it, didn’t see a thing, there’s nothing to see here, move along folks.
I’ve driven past the Norfolk Southern’s coal piles–huge mountains of powdered coal waiting to be loaded on ships bound for China. If you haven’t seen them, you would have trouble believing them.
Turns out, they are grandfathered in.
May 11, 2014 at 3:48 pm
I remember seeing those coal piles when transiting to the Outer Banks many years ago. “The world needs steel” sayeth the man, and therefore it needs coal. I have to laugh. Yes, used to make steel where I lived for a long time. Then that proved too expensive for the financial lords of our nation and most of it went elsewhere. “China is going green, clean tech!” trumpeted the famous idiot aka as Tom Friedman a couple years ago. Global warming will be good television, for a while.
May 11, 2014 at 10:27 pm
Some days, I’m glad I’m old.