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Coal: Not Just a Climate Killer

2008-06-30T19:49:18Z

In a single year, less than one in 100,000 Americans contract a rare form of bone marrow cancer. In Pennsylvania coal country, the rate is 15 times higher.

This chilling stat opens an eye-opening, heart-rending short documentary produced by the American News Project. The video portrays the story of local residents suffering from coal ash that is poisoning their water and, many contend, making them ill. (Yes, it’s not just the smokestack air pollution that threatens our health.)

Make no mistake: No matter how many millions of dollars Big Coal spends on PR to spew its propaganda, there is no such thing as “clean” coal.

The same goes for the dubious process of converting coal into liquid as a alternative to oil for transportation. This “dirty fuel” has all the negatives of solid coal – from mining to toxic emissions – with the added touch that the process to create liquid coal doubles global warming pollution. NRDC’s movie on this – Crude Substitute– profiles yet another eastern Pennsylvania community suffering the consequences of dirty coal.

Big Coal Getting Lucky in Kentucky

2008-05-16T02:45:05Z

I had to reread this story to be sure it wasn't actually from The Onion. Taxpayer dollars going to spew propaganda to children about the wonders of coal and the benefits of MTR?

Unbelievable. Sadly, outrageously, this is totally true. Yet again the coal industry manages to surprise - but not shock - me.

What is shocking, however, is the lame excuse and shameless defense of this boondoggle by the very public servants who are charged with protecting the public interest.

King Coal by any other name.

2008-05-15T16:38:39Z

It looks like changing your name is the new trend in the coal industry. A few weeks ago I wrote about ABEC (American’s for Balanced Energy Choices) changing their name to ACCCE (American Coalition for Clean Coal Energy), and if you thought that was a mouthful wait until you read this. Today comes news that ABECC (Americans for Burning Every Chunk of Coal), whom I wrote about last month has changed their name to ACCCCCCC (Americans Cashing Checks from Coal Companies 'Cause Coal is Cool), whew!

Look, the coal industry can come up with benign sounding names for anything. What they call surface mining is really Mountain Top Removal. What they call overburden is really the tops of mountains. When they dump rock, waste and debris into valleys they call it fill. Their so-called sludge ponds are actually cesspools containing millions, and sometimes billions of gallons of toxic mining pollution.

So don’t let the name change fool ya’. King Coal by any other name, is really just the same.

ABEC Trying to Make a Clean Break?

2008-04-17T18:40:55Z

They say a leopard can’t change its spots. That goes double for the sooty paw prints of the coal industry’s well-fed pet – otherwise known as Americans for Balanced Energy Choices. Or, if you will, the artists formerly known as ABEC.

Today the group announced that it will henceforth be known as the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. ABEC’s former president, Stephen Miller, gave an interview this morning to discuss his new organization, ACCCE.

I can’t help but wonder if ABECC had something to do with all this.

Lights, Camera, (Liquid Coal) Action!

2008-04-07T17:30:45Z

With gas prices soaring, the clamor for liquid coal is growing. While coal companies lustily eye the prospect of converting coal to liquid transportation fuel as a boon for industry, everyone else should see liquid coal for what it really is: a boondoggle.

Congress should keep its mitts off our tax dollars when it comes to granting Big Coal’s wish list. Not just a bad investment, liquid coal would worsen global warming.

To learn more about the folly of liquid coal, check out this cartoon. Also, our brand new movie on the topic is helping to spread the word. It even got props today from the New York Times’ Andy Revkin.

The Global Warming Bargument

2008-04-02T22:00:00Z

I’m a firm believer in Ben Franklin’s maxim: “Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” And I enjoy a lively debate as much as anyone. So what do you get when you mix beer and arguments? Bar brawls maybe, but I'm talking about a brilliant cocktail known as a “bargument.”

This cheeky buzzword – defined by the Urban Dictionary as “a debate on any subject which takes place in a bar and is primarily caused by just the right amount of booze” – is the subject of a clever new book, appropriately titled Barguments. Who wouldn’t enjoy downing a couple-three micro-brews and pondering such age-old questions as:

“Who wins a fight between a Tyrannosaurus Rex and five angry Grizzly Bears?” (T-Rex)

“Could John and Ponch arrest the Duke boys?” (Nope)

“Best ‘brothers’ band of all-time?” (Allman)

Why not apply this entertaining concept to the energy debate? Sure, it’s a serious issue that requires thoughtful analysis and thorough study. But, heck, talking about work stuff might just give us the excuse we need to knock off early for Happy Hour.

So, there is your challenge: Start a bargument over global warming.

Cheers!

ABEC is reading our blog, and we're not alone.

2008-04-01T22:12:44Z

How about that comment from ABEC on ABECC? Of course, it should be no surprise to anyone that the coal industry has the resources to pay top dollar for PR flacks. For proof that they have been earning their coal-smudged paycheck, check out some of ABEC's more recent comments on other blogs:

http://bagnewsnotes.typepad.com/bagnews/2008/01/undebatably-a-b.html

http://www.rfkactionfront.com/2008/03/coal-awareness-week-bonus-rfk-action.html

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=02&year=2008&base_name=the_coal_truth_election_editio

http://www.mmmfiles.com/mmm/index.php/2007-11-30/76/

http://blogforcleanair.blogspot.com/2007/12/coal-industry-front-group-brags-about.html

http://www.ecospace.cc/culture/kansas-coal-power-1107.htm

If you’re interested, here’s a really cool new Google map from the good folks over at DeSmog Blog that tracks ABEC’s mischief around the country.

April Fools and Dirty Fuels

2008-04-01T14:00:00Z

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you have no doubt heard about Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC). This corporate front group’s lust for coal is demonstrated by its $30 million dollar advertising blitz on television, newspapers, subways and busses.

If you live in D.C., back in December you might even have come across people dressed as Santa, hired by ABEC to hand out lumps of coal.

So it is perfectly appropriate that April Fool’s Day brings forth a new shill for Big Coal, this one even more ridiculous – albeit more truthful – than ABEC. Behold: ABECC.

Many Mountains. One Voice.

2008-02-21T19:37:09Z

It's good to know that Kentuckians have laws to protect their communities from the abuses of our throwaway society. While spending time recently in the eastern part of the state, I was relieved when I read a front page story in the Floyd County Times about folks not just fined, but sent to jail for illegally dumping refuse along a county road. Watch out litter bugs or you may get unlucky in Kentucky!

But as bad as that particular problem is I have to wonder if broken glass, busted furniture and assorted trash cluttering roadsides and streams is really the highest priority pollution in need of enforcement. You would think that the authorities in eastern Kentucky have bigger fish to fry – namely those pesky coal companies that are literally blowing up mountains and burying the streams below with tons of rock and mine waste. Tackling unsightly litter is all good and well, but seriously, what about the rampant valley fills obliterating and polluting entire watersheds all over Appalachia?

Along with a few other NRDC colleagues, we took a trip to the region to meet with the Alliance for Appalachia, a coalition of local citizen groups fighting the coal companies that specialize in this most rapacious and reckless form of strip mining. Several groups have excellent websites, but a couple of especially good starting points to learn more about the growing movement to save America’s most ancient peaks are www.ILoveMountains.org or www.StopMountaintopRemoval.org.

You may have heard about this atrocity taking place primarily in West Virginia, western Virginia, eastern Kentucky and parts of Tennessee. Maybe you’ve watched documentaries or viewed videos about mountaintop removal coal mining, or even read some of the excellent books on the subject, such as Jeff Goodell’s Big Coal or Erik Reece’s Lost Mountain. But trust me, you simply cannot comprehend the scope and severity of the problem until you travel to Appalachia and bear witness to this tragedy.

During our visit we trekked the back roads of the coal fields in West Virginia and Kentucky, dodging speeding coal trucks laden with lumps of “black diamonds”, watching huge excavators eat away high-wall seams, staring slack-jawed as giant earth movers dumped endless layers of dirt down mountainsides, and wincing whenever high explosives reduced ridges to rubble.

Of course, it was down in the hollows where the worst impacts of mountaintop destruction hit home – literally. It’s there, along the narrow roads leading to and from the mines, where we met some of the victims. People like Dalven Ratliffe, a local pastor whose Kentucky home – and those of his neighbors – bear cracks in the walls, ceiling and foundation from the constant rattle of blasting.

We heard harrowing first-hand accounts of the harassment and lies by the coal companies who will stop at nothing to secure the leasing rights to residential property so they can expand the mining. Rev. Ratliffe refuses to sell out to Big Coal – but the result of his courageous stand is not just relentless industry abuse but also cold indifference if not outright hostility from government regulators who see their jobs as protecting coal profits, not the public interest.

We met a number of gracious folks who told us their stories and showed us how their lives are being ruined by environmental destruction fueled by a mix of senseless corporate greed and shocking government corruption. Most amazing to me, however, is the resilience of these folks despite the ugly legacy of Big Coal’s power over the people.

Take Rick Handshoe, for example. His family has lived on the same chunk of land at the foot of the mountains in that neck of Kentucky for over 200 years. Rick’s certainly not your typical activist – in fact, he’s the opposite of someone who usually fits that description. A friendly, fair-haired 47-year old, he became an outspoken opponent of mountaintop removal a few years back only after the mining crossed over a few ridges to his own back yard. Now his home and those throughout the valley are under siege – from burning coal ash that clouds the sky, from black dust that coats cars (and everything else), from dried up creeks where water flow is cut off by the valley fills, from methane gas that seeps into wells and faucets.

Unlike a lot of folks who feel there’s just no way to win against the coal companies, Rick is a leader fighting the good fight with help from Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. He’s doing this not just for his own sake or for the future of his daughter’s generation, but for everyone who’s suffering from this injustice.

Rick’s father lives nearby in a house built over 60 years ago by his father, which is catching all kinds of hell from the sprawling coal operation that moved in next door a couple of years ago. As we visited with Clinton Handshoe on his front porch, he ran his finger through the coal dust covering the plastic furniture and told us: “I drove a coal truck years ago. I’m not against coal. I’m against this.”

Everybody – not just in Appalachia but all over America – should be against the travesty of mountaintop removal coal mining. And everybody who cares should find a way to join the fight to save not someone else’s but our mountains. This destructive mining must end if for no other reason than so Mr. Handshoe can once again sit on his porch in peace and enjoy the view, in a world without the constant pounding of machinery against rock that is slowly but surely reducing his beloved mountains to a flat, dead moonscape.

Border Puh-lease

2007-10-23T21:03:56Z

According to Robert Frost, fences make good neighbors. But I wonder what good ole Bob would have said if his neighbor had hastily erected a wall along the property line, in the process cutting down the apple trees, bulldozing the vegetable garden, killing the livestock and polluting the drinking well?

I seriously doubt that could happen in any town anywhere across America without sparking the neighborhood association’s ire, unwanted attention from the local permit police, criminal fines and a big fat lawsuit.

Now imagine that the barrier in question is a 700-mile, two-layer fence along the U.S.-Mexico border ostensibly intended to keep illegal immigrants out, but guaranteed to wreak havoc on the environment.

Today the Department of Homeland Security waived 19 environmental, cultural and other federal laws in order to proceed with construction of that border wall (and a road) in southeastern Arizona.

DHS Secretary Michael Cherthoff invoked this broad waiver for the first time – under authority granted by Congress in 2005 in the passage of the REAL ID Act – after a federal judge halted construction earlier this month to protect the ecologically fragile San Pedro National Riparian Conservation Area.

You betcha, Sec. Cherthoff has the “right” to ignore any and all laws of the United States when it comes to constructing barriers along the border.

Certainly we can secure our borders without bulldozing America’s public lands.

In this case, the border wall threatens one of the last free-flowing rivers in the southwestern United States. This unique and biologically diverse watershed, internationally-renowned for its natural beauty, attracts visitors from around the world. Home to some 250 species of migratory birds, the San Pedro River region has been designated a Globally Important Bird Area by the National Audubon Society, and a World Heritage Natural Area by the United Nations.

Aside from the habitat damage resulting from the controversial border fence, local residents should be concerned about their own quality of life. Aside from the fact that the river also supplies clean drinking water to thousands of residents (on both sides of the border), this action demonstrates that the director of Homeland Security has is a license to waive any law, for any reason – or for no reason at all.

Just consider this sample of the fundamental laws now rendered moot by the Bush administration:

Clean Water Act
Clean Air Act
Safe Drinking Water Act
Solid Waste Disposal Act
Superfund
National Environmental Protection Act
National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act
Migratory Bird Treaty Act
National Historic Preservation Act
Archeological Resources Protection Act
Historic Preservation Act
Antiquities Act
Noise Control Act
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
Federal Land Policy and Management Act
Farmland Protection Act

Message from the Bush administration: America is a nation founded on the rule of law – but apparently not when the Homeland Security agency is involved.

Think about that for a moment. Laws that protect the environment, safeguard public health, ensure consumer and workplace safety, prevent unfair business practices, and ban discrimination – none of these laws (or any others for that matter) apply to the agency entrusted with protecting the American people.

Ironically, the one thing that pesky wall is keeping out of America is democracy itself.

There is a tiny sliver of hope, which is that Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) has introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that would secure America’s border with Mexico while reducing the negative impact on local communities and natural resources, including national parks, wildlife refuges and monuments that are home to endangered species. The “Borderlands Security and Conservation Act of 2007” (H.R. 2593) would amend existing immigration and border security laws, including REAL ID and the “Secure Fence Act”, to help alleviate the impacts of border enforcement on public lands, wildlife and borderland communities.