Alexandria doesn’t have any mountains, which were at the heart of a protest conducted by the Sierra Club in Market Square this week. But it does have a $34-million agreement with Mirant, the coal-fired power plant nestling the northern edge of the city’s waterfront. In a settlement arranged last summer, the Atlanta-based energy company consented to spending $32 million to reduce output of particulate matter from the plant and $2 million to control fugitive dust. Now, as Sierra Club leaders spoke about how the demand for coal was driving the business of mountaintop removal mining, several protestors expressed mixed emotions about living in the wake of that agreement.

"Sometimes you have to pay a price to get what you want," said Dick Moose, who lives near the plant and spent years pushing the city to take action. "I just wish the price hadn’t been so high."

Lehmann said his neighbors in north Old Town are pleased with the reduced amount of pollution, a short-term goal of city officials who brokered the deal. But he said the long-range goal of closing the plant remains in place. Yet even the most ardent environmental activist in Market Square Tuesday afternoon could not offer any sort of timeline for when that might take place. For now, the plant remains a fact of life in Alexandria — creating more demand for coal and the product of mountaintop removal mining.

"We would like to see the Mirant plant closed," said Glen Besa, Virginia chapter director for the Sierra Club. "But the law allows for the burning of coal, and there are limits to how hard you can push a company like Mirant. We pushed them pretty hard."

THE EVENT IN Market Square was staged by a group of environmentalists known as the Wise Energy for Virginia Coalition as part of a series of protests staged across the commonwealth to call for an end to mountaintop mining. According to the coalition, 67 of Virginia’s mountains have already been destroyed by the practice, a form of surface mining in which explosives remove up to 1,000 vertical feet of mountain to expose coal. In many cases, excess rock and soil are dumped into an adjacent valley. One proposal supported by coalition would be for Virginia to ban the use of coal acquired throughout the mountaintop removal process.

"I would rather go at this directly," said Gov. Tim Kaine, who was in Alexandria Tuesday to speak to a tourism association. "I am heartened that the new administration in Washington is taking a hard line on this."

Meanwhile, environmental issues continue to shape the 2009 campaign season. As they do in every campaign season, environmental groups have asked candidates to fill out extensive endorsement questionnaires on a host of environmental issues. Although the questionnaires were wide-ranging, positions that the groups were looking for candidates to take include opposing a new coal-fired power plant in Surry, opposing mountaintop mining and supporting a tax credit for land conservation. Incumbent Democrats David Englin (D-45), Charniele Herring (D-46) and Adam Ebbin (D-49) received the endorsement of the Sierra Club and the Virginia League of Conservation Voters.

"In my view, these are knee-jerk endorsements," said Chris Marston, chairman of the Alexandria Republican City Committee. "I don’t think these endorsements will mean much because I doubt these groups are going to come out to Alexandria and actually turn out their voters for these candidates."