The six, including Chesapeake Climate Action Network executive director Mike Tidwell, were arrested for "peacefully refusing to vacate the road leading to the plant," according to a statement from Tidwell
Trial for trio of Jewish activists
by Paula Amann
News Editor
Caption: Trisha Benton is arrested at the entrance to the Dickerson Generating Station in upper Montgomery County. Six protesters received citations. (Doug Koontz -- Frederick News-post Via The AP)
As he waited last Friday in a Rockville courtroom before his sentence came down, Mike Tabor thought his livelihood was on the line.
For some 30 years, the Takoma Park man has run a farm in Needmore, Pa., so for most of the year, his workday involves an interstate commute. A prolonged probation, he said, would have put a crimp in his rural enterprise.
But he and five other defendants got a sentence of $100 and 10 days suspended jail time from Montgomery County District Judge Cornelius J. Vaughey.
"I haven't gotten arrested since the civil rights era," said Tabor, 62, one of three Jewish activists sentenced Friday. "We're not people who committed a crime -- it was a statement of conscience."
Tabor, along with Rockville Rabbi David Shneyer, Riverdale activist Jonah Blaustein and three others, were tried for their part in a protest at the Dickerson Generating Station last Nov. 10.
The six, including Chesapeake Climate Action Network executive director Mike Tidwell, were arrested for "peacefully refusing to vacate the road leading to the plant," according to a statement from Tidwell.
Some 15-20 also took part in the protest, including a local Jewish legislator, Montgomery County Council vice president George Leventhal.
The Dickerson plant, which sits amid the foothills of Sugarloaf Mountain, alongside the Potomac River, across from Leesburg, has drawn attention from environmentalists for its emissions. The Atlanta-based Mirant Corporation owns the largely coal-fired plant, along with three other power plants in Alexandria and in Prince George's and Charles counties.
"When you see someone or some institution doing something wrong, it's an obligation to speak out about that wrong, or you're part of the wrongdoing, too," said Shneyer in a phone interview Tuesday, citing links between air pollution and respiratory illnesses such as asthma.
"If we were more attentive to the quality of the air we breathe, we'd be healthier," said Tabor. "It's affected my immediate family."
Both he and Shneyer have sons who suffer from asthma, Tabor said.
But Mirant spokesperson Steve Arabia disputed the protesters' claims of emissions problems.
"These publicity stunts don't really help the debate," countered Arabia, the company's director of external affairs.
He pointed to new technology installed in 2003 and 2004 that allegedly cut nitrogen oxide output by 40 percent and slashed particulate matter emissions by 75 percent.
"That's a very strong and demonstrable improvement in the Dickerson station," said Arabia.
"We are planning to reduce mercury and sulfur emissions at all four of our power plants" in the area, said Arabia, who did not cite a timeline for the plans.
But he voiced concern that Mirant might have to compete with other companies that aren't making similar changes.
"We don't think it makes sense to spend hundreds of millions when our competition don't," Arabia said.
But activist Tidwell disputed the Mirant spokesperson's case.
"That argument is specious because virtually every state surrounding Maryland is mandating greater pollution reductions from coal-fired power plants than has Maryland," countered Tidwell.
He cited higher standards for nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide in Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and North Carolina.
In an opinion piece in The Washington Post last month, Leventhal drew attention to four emissions -- nitrogen oxide, mercury, sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide -- from the four Mirant plants.
"Maryland has the fifth-worst air quality in the country, yet Mirant's four coal-burning plants ... keep on polluting," Leventhal wrote in part. "It's time the General Assembly used the power granted it under federal law and passed a four-pollutant bill. We need this legislation now -- for our air, for our climate and for our children."
Mirant lobbyists in Annapolis, Leventhal charged, have kept power plant cleanup bills from getting out of committee.
"They reduced their nitrogen oxide, but they can do more on nitrogen oxide and need to reduce other pollutants," Leventhal said of Mirant in a phone interview Tuesday.
With his sentence set, Tabor says he'll be winding down his activism as the farming season heats up in March and April. Then it's back to the toil of growing heirloom apples and tomatoes.
This story was published on Thu, Feb 17, 2005.
