CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV/AP) - Six protesters were arrested in uptown Charlotte Wednesday morning after they erected a banner outside the Duke Energy Center.
The protesters are affiliated with Greenpeace, an international environmental group. The 20-foot tall banner read "Duke Energy: no dirty rate hikes" and protestors wore T-shirts that read "Be a good neighbor."
All of the activists were from North Carolina and the protest took place outside the headquarters as Duke employees were arriving for work.
Arrested were Annie Vereen, 30, Brady Bradshaw, 21, Emilia Wicker, 21, Monica Embrey, 24, Vanessa Haugh, 21 and Steve English, 61, according to police.
All were charged with resist, obstruct and delaying arrest and blocking a sidewalk.
Greenpeace is asking Duke to not renew a single new contract for mountaintop removal coal, deliver at least a third of Duke's energy from renewable sources by 2020 and quit coal altogether by 2030.
Duke Energy Spokesman Dave Scanzoni said it is ironic the same environmental protestors wanting the company to improve its environmental friendliness are now protesting the company for trying to do so.
"We have done a lot of work upgrading our power plants in recent years," Scanzoni said.
The controversial rate increase Duke Energy had proposed was tied directly to the cost the company has spent upgrading older power plants, building new ones and reducing the company's carbon footprint, Scanzoni said.
When asked if the company would eliminate coal altogether one day, which is Greenpeace's biggest demand, Scanzoni said it was tough to say.
"That's hard to forecast but we're moving toward having a lower carbon footprint."
On Tuesday, several Greenpeace protestors climbed a smokestack that towers over a power plant near Asheville.
Progress Energy spokesman Scott Sutton says a handful of
protesters scaled the column at the Asheville Power Plant in Arden on Monday
morning.
Sutton says the utility's highest priority is to safely
remove the protesters and protect the 400-megawatt plant that serves Progress
customers in western North Carolina.
Greenpeace
spokeswoman Keiller MacDuff says activists have secured themselves to devices
including the coal loader and conveyer belts. She says the group thinks plants
like the one in Asheville that use coal damage the environment.
Sutton says the group has also hung banners around the
facility. He says police are working to remove the protesters.
Copyright 2012 WBTV with The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
