The end result of a destructive process.

Representative Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford) tried to remedy North Carolina’s dirty secret in the past legislative session, introducing the Appalachian Mountains Preservation Act, which gained 27 co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle and companion legislation in the state Senate. But the Act didn’t pass the 2009 session. Looking back at some of the more responsible stories coming out at the time the legislation was introduced, a few key misperceptions about cost, efficiency, etc., were even then easily dispatched by capable reporters.

The Institute for Southern Studies reports that the price difference from mountaintop coal vs. underground is not all that noticeable:

But Matthew Wasson, a mining expert with Appalachian Voices, pointed out that the average price difference between underground and surface-mined coal from central Appalachia was only about $3 per ton, or about 5 percent. By the time the costs of transporting the coal to a power plant, converting it to electricity and transmitting the power are factored in, the cost difference amounts to a small fraction of the 9 cents per kilowatt hour that North Carolina residents pay for electricity, he said.

Meanwhile, Appalachian coal is already some of the most expensive in the world, selling for $70 to $140 per ton over the past six months compared to $12 to $14 per ton for coal from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin.

Last year, Raleigh, N.C.-based Progress Energy raised their rates by 16 percent almost entirely as a result of the rising price of Central Appalachian coal. And in 2007, the company was accused of “failures of management” and required to return $13.8 million to its Florida ratepayers for continuing to use expensive Appalachian coal rather than switching to lower-cost western coal, the Raleigh News & Observer reported.

One senses a sort of willful ignorance on the impacts of MTR practices on local communities. The argument that MTR coal is cheaper isn’t true everywhere you look; and the begrudging approval that the devastation isn’t in North Carolina is ethically dubious and irresponsible.