AN ILL WIND – The Secret Threat of Coal Ash

First, I would like to thank those who got our grid power back on here in Virginia after Hurricane Irene knocked it out about 24 hrs before Irene made landfall in the Outerbanks of NC.

One thing that being out of power for more than a couple days does do is make you realize how dependent we all have become on ‘the grid’ and how we really need to change that at some point, don’t you think? Between dangers of outages like this, and potential threats from terrorists on our infrastructure, it just seems to make sense that we figure out a way to get the power we need but by decentralizing from The Grid.

Over the last month, since August 4th, we have intermittently had to deal with the smoke and ill air quality of the wildfire in the dismal swamp. There were times when here in our little town there was smoke hanging in the air, and in our very homes when we woke up in the morning and were having trouble breathing. It was particularly bad for my Jim who is on an oxygen concentrator. Thankfully, Hurricane Irene, actually did one thing that was good, it almost (but not quite) put out that wildfire. I hope they can get the 30 or so hot spots put out before it dries out again.

Because I have a problem with the whole issue of dangerous coal ash, and huge coal plants close to people’s homes and spewing dangerous arsenic, and so much more into our air, does not mean I don’t appreciate The Grid or those who work to provide and maintain, and restore that power after natural disasters like this. My only complaint is the dangerous ways in which they often do that; meaning coal – from the cradle to the grave and the health and environmental dangers it poses.

Coal from Mountain Top Removal to this ILL WIND of coal ash that sends ‘sandstorms’ of coal ash directly over the reservation when the winds blow wrong, and other coal plant travesties around the country and around the world, to ODEC trying to get a 1500 MW coal fired power plant in Dendron, VA and Surry County rolling over to get the money they are promised and the empty purse of promised jobs (yeah, how many and for how long, and what of those who live here?) To the whole of a region like Hampton Roads that will be adversely affected by a 1500 MW coal plant with a prevailing wind that will draw that smoke/vapor over other areas in Hampton Roads.

From the text at Youtube:

See the whole project at http://www.earthjustice.org/illwind

The Moapa River Indian Reservation, tribal home of the Moapa Band of Paiutes, sits about 30 miles north of Las Vegas and about 300 yards from the coal ash ponds and landfills of the Reid Gardner Power Station. Coal ash is the toxic ash and sludge left at the end of the coal burning process. It’s laced with arsenic, mercury, lead and other heavy metals. It’s the second largest waste stream in America and it’s currently unregulated.

If the conditions are just wrong, coal ash picks up from Reid Gardner and moves across the desert like a toxic sandstorm sending the local residents running for their homes. The reservation has lung, heart and thyroid disease rates that are abnormally high and the power plant is currently seeking to expand its coal ash storage capability.

The film An Ill Wind tells the Paiute Indians’ story.

View and interactive presentation of the story at:

http://www.earthjustice.org/illwind

Watch the complete film at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL49Ibc0L88

And learn more about coal ash at:

http://www.earthjustice.org/coalash

Many thanks to the Moapa Band of Paiutes for allowing us to tell this story and to Vinny Spotleson of the Sierra Club and Dan Galpern of the Western Environmental Law Center for helping with the project.

I guess we as individuals and families really do need to start thinking about how we can get ourselves off the grid … if more homes are off the grid, these big coal plants wouldn’t even be considered necessary…

Happy Earth Day!

Just wanted to say Happy Earth Day!

According to Wikipedia:

John McConnell first introduced the idea of a global holiday called “Earth Day” at the 1969 UNESCO Conference on the Environment. The first Earth Day proclamation was issued by San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto on March 21, 1970. Celebrations were held in various cities, such as San Francisco and in Davis, California with a multi-day street party. UN Secretary-General U Thant supported McConnell’s global initiative to celebrate this annual event; and on February 26, 1971, he signed a proclamation to that effect, saying:

May there be only peaceful and cheerful Earth Days to come for our beautiful Spaceship Earth as it continues to spin and circle in frigid space with its warm and fragile cargo of animate life.

BOLD emphasis mine.

VA DEQ, EPA, and USACE … last hope to block largest coal plant in Virginia?

Well, after February 1st Dendron Town Council (DTC) Meeting where they approved everything that ODEC Old Dominion Electric Cooperative) wanted, and February 4th Surry Board of Supervisor (BoS) Meeting where they approved everything ODEC wanted, and the Sussex Meeting the same night where they approved everything ODEC wanted … see a trend here? … It looks like the VA DEQ (Department of Environmental Quality), the EPA, and the USACE (US Army Corp of Engineers) may be the last best hope for the folks who are concerned about ODEC’s plans to build Virginia’s largest coal fired baseload 24/7 power plant in the tiny town of Dendron in Surry County, Virginia.

I sometimes wonder at any kind of logic being used in rural counties that are experiencing revenue challenges in the economic turn down we have been experiencing.

I see totally unbelievable decisions being made by our local governments with no thought to how it will affect the Hampton Roads area, the Chesapeake Bay and James River, or the farms that naively think that they will be able to continue farming safely after this plant is operational, or even our little town. Or their thinking that somehow the blood money they have taken and will continue to take from ODEC will protect them against the economic bad times and keep the county going forward, or give them any kind of good sleep at night. Yeah, maybe in the short term, but what about the long term?

What about the downwind and downline affects to people, including children at the Surry County School system? What about the affects upon those who are ill from the particulate matter, mercury, sulfur dioxide, ozone, and more that will be spewed by such a huge plant that makes our town look like it’s a dwarf by comparison? There are so many issues that are not addressed, and all I heard from the proponents of the Cypress Creek Power Plant is that they trust our government and ODEC to do the right thing?!?!

Well, the floodgates are open now. All that stands in their way now is the VA DEQ, the EPA and the USACE.

I have always believed that even in the face of terrible things — because life is full of all kinds of things; good, bad and indifferent — that God is able to take the worst lemons that are dealt to us, and somehow make the best lemonade out of them. I pray that somehow, in some way, that will happen with this situation. I can’t see it now, but I sure hope so.

But I did learn something important about this situation. You can’t fight dollar signs. Logic and facts mean nothing when huge amounts of money are thrown at local governments, churches and people who are suffering from economic turn down.

I will be hoping and praying for that lemonade … because these are the bitterest and most rotten lemons I have every seen.

Virginia waterways ranks second-dirtiest in country

Adding insult to injury … Virginia waterways ranks second-dirtiest in country (HamptonRoads.com)

Virginia has the second-dirtiest waterways among the 50 states.

That’s according to a recent study by the Environment America advocacy group tallying the amount of pollutants discharged into bodies of water across the nation.

Based on numbers reported to federal authorities, only Indiana had more toxic chemicals released into its waterways by industry than Virginia’s 18 million-plus pounds in 2007.

Sad. Really sad.

So yeah, I see where they are going … the state’s waterways are already a disaster area, so let’s let ODEC add insult to injury by building the state’s largest coal fired power plant – running 24/7 at 1500 MW in Dendron, (Surry, VA.) Hmmm….

Clash in Alabama Over Tennessee Coal Ash

Clash in Alabama Over Tennessee Coal Ash (NYTimes)

Almost every day, a train pulls into a rail yard in rural Alabama, hauling 8,500 tons of a disaster that occurred 350 miles away to a final resting place, the Arrowhead Landfill here in Perry County, which is very poor and almost 70 percent black.

This ‘windfall’ of dumping all this dangerous coal ash in their landfill will “add more than $3 million to their County’s budget of about $4.5 million” the article goes on to say. This little Alabama county has an unemployment rate of 17 percent and only a chosen few really were able to get any work from this so called ‘windfall’ for the County.

Some of us here in Dendron, Virginia, in Surry County, where ODEC proposes to build a 1,500 MW coal fired power plant with a coal ash/fly ash landfill in our little town’s back yard have been wondering the same thing some of Perry County residents have been wondering:

But some residents worry that their leaders are taking a short-term view, and that their community has been too easily persuaded to take on a wealthier, whiter community’s problem. “Money ain’t worth everything,” said Mary Gibson Holley, 74, a black retired teacher in Uniontown. “In the long run, they ain’t looking about what this could do to the community if something goes wrong.”

And in just one of many parallels between the thinking in Perry County Alabama, and here in Surry County:

County leaders, who are mostly black, bristle at accusations of environmental injustice, saying that the ash is perfectly safe and that criticism has been fostered by outsiders, or even competitors who wanted the ash disposal contract for themselves.

And this:

But in Perry County, a lack of trust has permeated the debate. Residents said they feared equipment failure, flooding, tornadoes or lack of oversight at the landfill, where the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, whose notably lax regulation of coal ash permits most landfills to use it as a cover material for other waste, will be responsible for enforcement.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Cownan River Map that includes the Blackwater River system in Virginia that flows to the Arlbemerle Sound, NC.

One of the major differences is the distance to the water table in Perry County and here in Dendron in Surry County. Here in Dendron, that water table is only about 4 feet (and many are still on their own wells in the surrounding area of the County), and wetlands are on at least two sides of the proposed site within contamination distance to the Blackwater River system that flows to the Albemerle Sound, NC:

The Blackwater River was a transportation route in the 17th and 18th centuries, connecting the Chesapeake Bay settlements with the Albemarle Settlements. It was one of the few rivers of colonial Virginia that did not empty into Chesapeake Bay yet lay close to the colony’s oldest settlements on the James River. Settlements in the Blackwater’s drainage basin were founded very early in Virginia’s history. As a result, the Blackwater River became one of the early migration routes southward from the James River into the region then called Southside Virginia, and beyond into the Albemarle District of Carolina (later North Carolina). Today’s usual definition of Southside differs somewhat from that of colonial times.

Of course, ODEC wants to build a 15 mile pipeline directly to the James River for ingress and egress of water for cooling.

One of the other major differences between Perry County and here in Dendron is the railroad cars. The railroad cars here in Dendron will bring in the coal to ‘make’ the coal ash to be stored in the landfill and when that gets full, to find some place to take the coal ash off their hands, like Perry County, or golf greens in other Counties, or maybe put it in concrete to build things all over the place.

Must read article.

gamkqrhtuy

Covenant – FightingGoliathFilm.com

One doesn’t have to be what some would consider to be traditional environmentalists to be against further polluting our air, water, land, blowing up ancient mountains, endangering children’s health, or the elderly and those that are ill.

more about "Covenant – FightingGoliathFilm.com", posted with vodpod

Judge rules for the health of Wise County Residents

Judge rules for environmental groups on Virginia power plant!!!!

You can download the decision here: http://wiseenergyforvirginia.org/downloads/Wise%20Decision.pdf

In a momentous victory for clean energy advocates in Virginia, a Richmond Circuit Court judge ruled today that the State Air Pollution Control Board violated federal environmental law in permitting Dominion Power’s coal-fired power plant in Wise County in the southwest corner of the state.

The Wise Energy for Virginia Coalition has raised a host of concerns about the Wise County coal plant over the last several years, including air pollution and the health of the local community, water quality, mountaintop removal coal mining, and the impacts of the plant’s carbon emissions on global warming. Some 42,500 Virginians from across the state signed petitions and sent letters and comments to state and company officials opposing the project.

CALE JAFFE, Southern Environmental Law Center Senior Attorney:
“This is an important victory for the health and welfare of Virginians. Once a coal plant is completed, it may prove very difficult to retrofit after the fact to remedy violations of the Clean Air Act. So this decision is essential for assuring that the Clean Air Act’s most stringent health-based standards will be met before a coal plant is constructed. We hope Dominion will take this ruling as a sign that it needs to leave expensive coal-fired power plants in the past, and move quickly toward developing sustainable, clean energy sources for a 21st century green economy.”

Great job! If power companies will not do what is right by the residents, the courts are there to redress resident grievances.

Coal ash can harm environment

Coal ash can harm environment

Coal ash is also known as fly ash, the result of burning coal in coal powered power plants and is increasingly known and being spoken out by those in the know as dangerous to humans and the environment:

“Coal ash contains heavy metals such as mercury and other toxic materials including arsenic, particulate matter, dioxin and furan,” said Dr. Romeo Quijano, Pesticide Action Network Asia Pacific Philippine coordinator in a forum in Cebu City on Wednesday.

I looked up furan and found several links to furan and coal plants – and even the government looked into the process used to help mitigate some of the mercury from the resultant process of burning coal – the best the government could say about, it in this case, was that it didn’t add to the toxicity of fly ash. Huh? So they acknowledge fly ash is toxic? So, why has it not been regulated in the past? Follow the money trail.

Doesn’t that tell you something about fly ash? Doesn’t that tell you that the powers that be are not looking at fly ash as a harmful substance that can actually harm humans and the environment in the vicinity of coal plants (and downstream/down wind) and dumping grounds of fly ash (read: poorer communities that no one seems to care about, like the poor/depressed county where Dendron, VA is located, or the the poor/depressed areas of Appalachia, or the poor/depressed areas in Alabama, etc.) at least when huge amounts of money can be made — because they want electricity for the power hungry in the country who wish not to curb their power hungry habits?

People in these financially depressed/poorer areas where new coal powered plants are wished to be built (or have already been built), or where they wish to dump the coal ash/fly ash — with promises of tax coffers that will help the poor counties, but not the poor people whose medical bills (they can ill afford) will go up due to toxicity related illnesses, allergies, breathing difficulties, cancers, etc., will go up and infant mortality rate will go up, as well as miscarriage rates, and potentially birth defects as well, all while giving the county more money to build better schools, libraries, county government centers, recreation centers, etc. A true paradox, no?!

Well, look at it another way. What has the county done with all the money that it already gets annually from the nuclear power plant already in the county of Surry? Has it really helped the county which over the last 20-30 yrs still does not look like a county that gets millions of dollars from any direction. And the county from it’s own minutes appears to be in debt up to it’s ears to do what it has already done in the county — to the tune of millions of dollars. Which may be why they are themselves pushing for this coal fired power plant in Dendron, VA?

So, I guess it is to sacrifice any individuals (infants, children, elderly, the ill) who can’t adjust to the additional toxins that will be thrown into the environment — in the entire of Hampton Roads — so that the remaining people in the county of Surry and their administrators (that can hopefully survive the additional toxins (at least for a while) will benefit from these things!? And to h*ll with those who will be the sad recipients of future illnesses, cancers, allergies, and other diseases that will come from this toxicity — that people will succumb to as time goes on. Yeah, let’s just burn that bridge when they come to it, eh?

Oh, wait, that’s not entirely true … they will have the money to provide health care and welfare for those who can no longer take care of themselves, and make themselves feel better about being the benevolent caregivers while reaping the profits?!?

More from the article:

“The routes of exposure are through inhalation, ingestion, skin contact and skin absorption,” said Quijano who is also a professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology UP Manila College of Medicine.

On human health, Quijanoc said was a risk of having cancer, immune system dysfunction, neurobehavioral impairment and blood diseases, as well as diabetes and thyroid dysfunction.

I guess there isn’t enough cancer, lung ailments, allergies, miscarriages, birth defects, etc. in Hampton Roads eh? Let’s tempt providence further….

After the unbelievable Dendron Town Council Meeting for August 2009, I no longer believe in the intelligence of those in charge; I no longer trust that right will prevail. I no longer believe that people who claim to be religious will stand up for the down trodden against financial gain. I have no reason to believe in it any longer.

NOTE: Don’t get me wrong here. I still trust in God to either vindicate us, or help us leave this forsaken place. It’s people with dollar signs in their sights that I no longer trust.

First of its Kind Onion Juice-Methane-Fuel Cell Project Underway

First of its Kind Onion Juice-Methane-Fuel Cell Project Underway:

Gills Onions has come up with a clever way to dispose of its daily 300,000-pound load of onion waste – turn it into methane, and use the gas to power fuel cells that can cover the plant’s baseload electrical needs.

That’s the gist of the $9.5 million project unveiled Friday at the Oxnard, Calif.-based onion processing plant.

The savings of $400,000 a year from deferred waste hauling, plus about $700,000 a year in deferred electricity costs – not to mention a $2.7 million self-generation incentive check from Southern California Gas Co. – should pay back the investment in less than five years, said Steve Gill, co-owner of the business.

This type of wonderful ‘thinking out of the box’ project is why I am so frustrated with the supposed ‘headway’ in pulling away from coal when it really means continuing to grow coal plants.

There should be no reason why smaller plants, maybe even community power plants made with waste or renewable energy can’t be done.

If we continue to think only in terms of ‘easy’ or ‘cheap today’ but ‘dirty’ solutions that damage our environment and the health of our sick, our young and our elderly, we will never get out of this mess we have created for ourselves. We need to get away from continuing to expand dirty coal and in the process prevent funds from moving into a more smart and/or renewable ways to create the electrical power needed.

I think that if all states, the governments, and countries did what SC (SCsaysNO) is doing, the companies that want to provide the power would have to think out of the box or they wouldn’t expand and others would take their place and build the more renewable/waste product plants that were safer, if they were foolish enough not to do what was needed.

But Mountain Top Removal and building more clean coal plants is not the answer. Clean Coal is an oxy moron:

Clean coal: Never was there an oxymoron more insidious, or more dangerous to our public health. Invoked as often by the Democratic presidential candidates as by the Republicans and by liberals and conservatives alike, this slogan has blindsided any meaningful progress toward a sustainable energy policy.

Chart showing Coal plants in the US, the states they are in as the data shows at Gapminder.org. We need to see where our state fits in the picture and see if we can stop progressing the move to more coal powered plants. We need to not allow more to be built. And we certainly don’t need Virginia to move further into the right side of this graph. We need to be doing what we can to move to the left on this graph.

Children At Risk PDF — must read.

USACE solicits public comments on Nationwide Permit 21 in Appalachia

Army Corps of Engineers Solicits Public Comment on Two Proposals Related to Nationwide Permit 21 in the Appalachian Region (Earthtimes.org)

Posted by the USACE:

WASHINGTON, July 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced today it is soliciting public comments on two proposals related to the use of Nationwide Permit (NWP) 21 in the nation’s Appalachian region. NWP 21 authorizes discharges of dredged or fill material into waters of the United States for surface coal mining activities.

The proposals would affect only the Appalachian region of the following states: Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. The use of NWP 21 for surface coal mining activities in other regions of the country would not be affected.

The first proposal is to modify NWP 21 to prohibit its use in the Appalachian region. In the absence of NWP 21, an applicant would be required to obtain an individual permit for surface coal mining projects. An individual permit includes increased public and agency involvement in the permit review process, including an opportunity for public comment on individual projects.

The second proposal is to suspend NWP 21 while the Corps evaluates the comments received during the 30-day comment period, and while the Corps completes the process to modify NWP 21. If NWP 21 is suspended during this interim period, an applicant would be required to obtain an individual permit for surface coal mining projects.

The Corps’ decision to issue these proposals is a result of the interagency action plan agreed to on June 11, 2009, as part of a Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Corps, the U.S. Department of the Interior, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The agencies agreed to work together to reduce the adverse environmental impacts of surface coal mining activities in the Appalachian region. A copy of the MOU is available at: http://www.usace.army.mil/CECW/Pages/moumoas.aspx.

A public notice on the proposals was published in the July 15, 2009 Federal Register, http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-16803.pdf . Written comments should be submitted at the federal eRulemaking portal at http://www.regulations.gov under docket number COE-2009-0032; or mailed to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Attn: CECW-CO (Attn: Ms. Desiree Hann), 441 G. Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 20314. Comments must be submitted on or before August 14, 2009. Email or faxed comments will not be accepted.

SOURCE U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

It would appear to me that the USACE does try to do what they can to protect the communities and nature when they have the support of the government, and the public. But, I would think it would be difficult to do so if their hands are tied by either weak laws, greed, or when those in places of power bend like reeds in the wind.

I am sorry to say that this is too little, too late. The existing laws it seems have not been fully enforced as they should be for a very long time — for 500 mountains are already blown up! And hundreds more are in the pike.

What ever happened to “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” — is that too much to ask? Those who think these practices are good, or at least a necessary evil, could they, or more importantly would they, walk in the moccasins, drink the water, live in the homes of those who have suffered due to these destructive or at best polluting practices? Would they want this done to their home? The same holds true for coal plants.

Honestly, it seems to me that even the current laws would be difficult to adhere to when confronted with such a destructive process as Mountain Top Removal. The process itself is the problem.

IMHO, either those who are mining coal should figure out how to get the coal out without impacting the surrounding natural area (the forests, streams, animals, etc.) and the human communities that have put their entire lives and fortunes into their mountain homes, or find a new safer business model that doesn’t hurt people, places or things.

Certainly, renewable energy sources would be much safer for everyone and everything and not be the one shot that Mountain Top Removal is (once you blow up the mountain and take the coal, it’s gone). Not to mention the joke of supposedly trying to put the mountains back to rights after they’ve already been destroyed.

The effects of MTR (Mountain Top Removal) on communities and nature, and the other end of the spectrum, the effects of Coal Fired Power Plants on communities and nature, can be seen through many places including my postings, iLoveMountains.org, Environmental Justice or through searches in search engines. It truly is appalling.

Even if other methods are, or seem like they are more expensive right now, they won’t be for long as they become more ubiquitous. Just as in other areas, once the R&D has been paid for, the prices do come down.

NO ONE SHOULD SUFFER TO PROVIDE ELECTRICITY TO ANYONE.
EVER.