Rockefeller: Coal must ‘boldly embrace’ the future

Rockefeller: Coal must ‘boldly embrace’ the future – Coal Tattoo:

Without good health it’s difficult to hold down a job or live the American dream. Chronic illness is debilitating and impacts a family’s income, prosperity and ultimately its happiness.

The annual health benefits of the rule are enormous. EPA has relied on thousands of studies that established the serious and long term impact of these pollutants on premature deaths, heart attacks, hospitalizations, pregnant women, babies and children.

Moreover, it significantly reduces the largest remaining human-caused emissions of mercury–a potent neurotoxin with fetal impacts.

Maybe some can shrug off the advice of the American Academy of Pediatrics and others but I cannot.

Amen and Amen.

Thank you, Sen. Rockefeller!

I am so happy to see this from the Senior United States Senator from West Virginia!

Maybe this will make a difference for West Virginians and also here in Hampton Roads, Virginia with the proposed 1500 MW Cypress Creek Power Station (ODEC’s proposed coal plant in Dendron, Surry County, VA).

Just one from the very interesting comment section:

Howard Swint says:
June 20, 2012 at 1:18 pm

I support Sen. Rockefeller for his bold leadership in this speech. It’s been a long time coming…

EDIT: Here is the link for the poll:

http://wvgazette.com/polls/201206230087

Apparently any readers of the paper can vote, no matter where you live as purported by FriendsOfCoal.org. So please go vote your mind.

Dendron hearings on proposed power plant will be repeated in 2012

Dendron hearings on proposed power plant will be repeated in 2012 – Although Old Dominion Electric Cooperative mulled options, site remains top choice

Old Dominion Electric Cooperative will hold a second round of public hearings on a rezoning and conditional use permit to build the state’s largest coal-fueled power plant in Dendron next year.

On Monday, the company’s executive board decided that Old Dominion will repeat the hearings rather than challenge Surry Circuit Court Judge Sam Campbell’s Nov. 18 ruling that residents were not properly notified of the Dendron Town Council’s intent to vote after the first hearing on Feb. 1, 2010, said company spokesman David Hudgins. The company wants to build Cypress Creek Power Station, a 1,500-megawatt coal-burning power plant, on 1,200 acres in town.

The date of the new public hearing – and a subsequent town council vote – for the proposed power station will not be set until 2012. Company and town attorneys will make sure the town’s intent to vote is clear in any advertisements, Hudgins said.

Glad they can’t pull one over on the public this time…

Sadly, when they can see those dollar signs, I can easily see the Town of Dendron and Surry County going for this all over again…yep. They won’t stop till they get what they want whether it’s good for the health of property owners and residents or not.

Yep, do something stupid and expect God to mitigate the damage to people, the earth and wildlife…whatever happened to taking care of what God gave us?! Coal mining and burning coal … oh, yeah, that’s gotta be a good thing for people (especially children, the elderly and those at risk healthwise like my Jim who is on an oxygen concentrator), the earth and wildlife…oh, yeah…that makes sense. NOT.

Happy 220th Bill of Rights Day!

I hope they listened when we sent word to our Senators …

I thought it was over, but I got this email from Campaign for Liberty today:

Today marks the 220th anniversary of the day the Bill of Rights were officially added to the Constitution.

Ironically, the U.S. Senate is set to kill the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th amendments of that Bill of Rights later today.

Last night, the U.S. House approved the Conference Report version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which includes provisions that would allow the President to throw American citizens in jail and keep them there indefinitely.

The Senate is set to vote on this bill around 4 pm eastern today, so I need your immediate help if we are to stop this dangerous legislation.

You can find your senators’ contact information here.

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Please, call them right away and demand they stand up for the Bill of Rights on its 220th anniversary by voting “No” on the NDAA Conference Report.

It’s not over till it’s over. I contacted my Senators. I hope they got inundated today!

I hope all of Congress and the sitting President of our country realize that there are a lot of us who are upset about our Bill of Rights being spit upon last night.

We will not forget what you have done come election time.

Calculating the cost of coal – editorial

Calculating the cost of coal – editorial (HamptonRoads.com)

In a new report, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation estimates that air pollution from the ODEC plant would cost $200 million each year in new health care costs. The report predicts 442 additional asthma attacks annually, 3,340 work days lost to sickness, 40 heart attacks and 26 premature deaths in the region.

Dispute, if you like, the precision of those estimates. But to pretend the actual number is 0 – or anywhere near it – is folly.

So true that…

And those of us who live in Hampton Roads will suffer the consequences … particularly those here in Dendron, VA with health issues already.

Course the needs of the many seem to outweigh the lives of the few, or the one…

Except to the loved ones of those this 1500MW coal plant will put in jeopardy…or worse.

Keep Focus on plans for Coal Plant

Keep Focus on plans for Coal Plant
Originally in The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star, Norfolk, VA, Oct 2, 2010. The article is by Bob Burnley

In response to ODEC supposedly putting this 1500 MW ‘twin towers’ 24/7 coal plant on ice for 12-18 months, but all the while still continuing their permit process with the USACE and EPA, Bob Burnley reminds us of the following and more in this article:

The plant would make existing environmental and economic problems in the region worse. According to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, Virginia Beach ranks 45th on a list of the “most challenging places to live with asthma.” Richmond is No. 1. Three thousand tons of ozone-producing nitrogen oxides and 2,000 tons per year of particulate matter from the plant, just upwind from Virginia Beach, would exacerbate this.

The plant would emit mercury, a neurotoxin. Babies exposed before birth can suffer reduced IQ levels and other neurological problems. Children exposed can suffer learning disabilities and other health issues. There has to be a healthier way to generate electricity.

Citizens across the Bay watershed are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to remove nitrogen from discharges to the Bay and its tributaries. This plant and the thousands of tons of nitrogen compounds emitted from its smokestacks could very well doom the Bay, the region’s watermen and a thriving tourist industry. There must be a less polluting way to generate power.

Much more in this must read article.

We can not forget what they want to do to Dendron, Surry County, Hampton Roads, Virginia, or how this coal is obtained from the ancient mountains in Appalachia through MTR and how Wise Engergy for Virginia and others are trying to help keep this from happening.

More information here on my blog.

A Tale of Two Cities and The Broken Promise of Coal

A Tale of Two Cities and The Broken Promise of Coal

The article and photos by Tom Pelton on the the Chesapeake Bay Foundation blog.

I recently drove down to the blackwater swamps of southern Virginia to witness a tale of two cities. Many residents of tiny, rural Dendron (population, 300) see their community’s economic salvation in the construction of a coal-fired power plant. But others are deeply worried about the health impacts of toxic mercury pollution and microscopic soot particles. Down the road from Dendron, the town of Clover, Virginia, tried a similar path to renaissance 17 years ago — and learned a sobering lesson.

There are several interviews from both Dendron/Surry County residents and Clover/Halifax County residents, as well as the following:

Harvard School of Public Health Associate Professor Dr. Jonathan Levy, an expert on power plant pollution, said that particulates from the Dendron plant’s smokestacks would likely increase the number of asthma and heart attacks in people living across a wide region. “We’ve done a series of studies over the years looking at power plants in specific geographic areas and across the country. And in general we’ve found that the public health burdens are quite large – on the order of tens of thousands of premature deaths per year. When placed in monetary terms, the damages can be quite large, in relation to the cost of electricity.”

ODEC has been trying to say all is safe for residents of Dendron. However, you have to wonder about that. They can’t place the power plant ‘too close’ to the wetlands, but they can place it closer to the Town of Dendron? Yes, they had to move it closer to the Town and it’s residents because of the dangers to the wetlands, believe it or not!

Oh, and do you see how well the Clover plant in the picture above from the CBF article is hidden from view? ODEC also says that the plant will not be an eyesore or all that visible to the Town that it backs up to?! Yeah right…I buy that.

And as discovered by Tom Pelton, the town of Clover didn’t get the economic benefits either. So are we in the Town of Dendron supposed to believe that that will happen here?

I talked to several residents of Clover. They told me that they, just like the people of Dendron, really hoped the construction of a coal plant would spark a rebirth of their long-shrinking town. But after the Clover Power Station opened in 1995, the community’s only restaurant closed, followed by its grocery store and school.

By 1998, Clover had so few residents and so little money, officials took the rare step of dissolving the town.

It no longer exists.

Is that what ODEC hopes will happen to our little town too?

And what if they build this on the smaller property in Sussex County instead of the Town of Dendron? Will Dendron be in the clear? Not likely. I recently heard that the Surry Board of Supervisors got a big surprise on that score too. Even if they build the power plant in Sussex County, they will still likely be shipping the Coal Ash to a new Fly Ash landfill with all it’s hazardous dangers … to DENDRON! And will they still do the railroad to ship it to Dendron? Or bring it by truck? Either way will be disasterous for the Town of Dendron.

We can’t win for losing!

AND they will still be needing water from the James River and still within the same area that they had originally noted if the plant were in Dendron. So the James River will still have environmentally detrimental affects from the ODEC plant.

Oh, and if they still do either or both of these things; eminent domain will still be a threat to property owners in both Surry and Sussex Counties.

As I say, we can’t win for losing…

And what of the state of attainment for Hampton Roads and Virginia because of this plant?

I think that some may now be thinking that as unwanted as the OLF was/is — that it would have been/would be better than this disaster!

January 2010 Snow Storm in Virginia

Well, had to cut the time with my family a day short due to the pending snow storm since they were calling for the once a decade or two snow storm here in Virginia. They are calling for a combined accumulation of a 12 inches or more here in our area between overnight last night and overnight Sunday.

Many in the north wouldn’t think twice about that kind of snow storm, but here in the ‘Sunny South’ you don’t get them very often and the State and local governments and the utilities are generally not particularly well prepared for these types of events in the South.

When I lived in up north at the Jersey Shore we had many, many snow storms and ice storms over the years that I lived there, and I can only remember a few in all those years as being particularly dangerous – one was an ice storm in early 70s (beautiful!!! but the black ice was very scary and solid and you had to go about 5mph or less inching along so you didn’t hit the other cars on your way to work), and another was a snow storm while I was pregnant with our second daughter in Feb/March ’77 – I remember that one because I fell on my hip in a parking lot of solid ice/snow when I was 8 months pregnant (no problems with the fall but I was afraid there might be).

As far as this storm goes for today and tomorrow — January 30 and January 31 2010 — so far, there was a dusting on the roof when we went to sleep late last night but this morning, the roof was heavy with snow, somewhere between 4-6 inches already on the ground when we got up, and the snow was coming down heavy.

Should be an interesting weekend. Picked up some things that can be eaten without much fuss just in case the electricity goes out like it did in the snow storm a decade ago.

We do tend to get some big winter type storms once every decade or so. Here are a couple notable snow/ice storms in Virginia since I moved to Virginia in the mid 80s.

February 1989: This was a month of big swings in the weather for Southeast Virginia. Twice, Norfolk saw record high temperatures in the mid 70°s followed by a significant snowfall. The two storms dumped a record 24.4 inches of snow in Norfolk. Over 14 inches occurred during one 24-hour period. It was the most snow to occur in one month in southeast Virginia in the last 100 years.

It was a shame the kids were sick with bronchitis at the time and couldn’t go outside during that storm. We made a snow man for them and they chose the eyes, nose, and other decorations for the snow man. Even our dog pitched in and added his own decoration, LOL!

After we moved to Southside Virginia (still Hampton Roads but South of the James River) — The Christmas Ice Storm 1998, where we lost power for many days and the after affects seemed to hang on and on into January 1999:

December 23, 1998, “The Christmas Ice Storm”: A major ice storm struck central and southeast Virginia beginning on Wednesday, December 23 and lasting into Friday, December 25, Christmas Day. Icy conditions caused injuries from slips and falls and numerous vehicle accidents. Ice accumulations of up to an inch brought down trees and power lines. Outages were so widespread (400,000 customers on Christmas Eve) that some people were without power for up to ten days.

Snow is generally easier to deal with than ice, but we shall see what happens here in our area this time. We used batteries to light the Christmas Tree in 1998 due to the massive power outage. We are survivors and we just treated it like camping out and played with our batteries, and had kerosene heaters to heat the house so we didn’t really worry about things as much as some. We made coffee on top of the big kerosene heater and broke out our camp stove to cook on as well.

BTW: They were calling for some mix of sleet with the snow for a time today, and it sounds like we may be getting some of that at the moment.

Maybe my Jim will feel up to taking some pictures of the storm later today.

I will try to do updates to this posting throughout the day or make a new posting.

Looks beautiful!

I don’t expect this to be scary on the scale of scary storms up north but I do expect to be really inconvenienced LOL!

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….

Air Pollution Increases Infants’ Risk Of Bronchiolitis

Air Pollution Increases Infants’ Risk Of Bronchiolitis (ScienceDaily.com)

Infants who are exposed to higher levels of air pollution are at increased risk for bronchiolitis, according to a new study.

The study appears in the November 15 issue of the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

“There has been very little study of the consequences of early life exposure to air pollution,” said Catherine Karr, M.D. PhD, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington and the paper’s lead author. “This study is unique in that we were able to look at multiple sources including wood smoke in a region with relatively low concentrations of ambient air pollution overall.”

Much more in the article!

American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine – part E. Environmental and Occupational Lung Disease of the current November 15, 2009 issue.

Registration is required to read the full article however, the abstract is available here which includes the conclusions below:

Conclusions: Air pollutants from several sources may increase infant bronchiolitis requiring clinical care. Traffic, local point source emissions, and wood smoke may contribute to this disease.

Under measurements and readings above the conclusions states:

An interquartile increase in lifetime exposure to NO2, NO, SO2, CO, wood-smoke exposure days, and point source emissions score was associated with increased risk of bronchiolitis…

What pollutants do coal plants introduce? At least a few of those listed, plus more: Power Plant Emissions Publications

County asks state to block fly ash dump

County asks state to block fly ash dump (Maryland Gazette):

County Executive John R. Leopold asked Gov. Martin O’Malley yesterday to halt plans for a fly ash dump along the Anne Arundel County-Baltimore city border.

“Although the landfill itself is located in Baltimore city, the site is less than 1,000 feet from its border with Anne Arundel County and in close proximity to the surface waters of Swan Creek,” Leopold wrote in the letter to O’Malley.

John R. Leopold along with “Del. Steve Schuh, R-Gibson Island, and Sen. Bryan Simonaire, R-Pasaden”, and some residents were at a meeting in Brooklyn on the ‘storm water discharge permit’ that would be needed for the landfill. (EEEK!)

Mr. Leopold rightly has asked that determination of this fly ash/coal ash dump be postponed until the EPA, which is ‘on track’ to make a determination by the end of the year in regard to whether “fly ash is a hazardous material and should be disposed as such.”

Constellation Energy is the company that is requesting the fly ash dump site and Mr. Leopold reminded “of the situation in Gambrills, where hazardous substances in private wells were found to be linked to a Constellation fly ash dump.” (OUCH! and well done Mr. Leopold!)

From the Washington Post article entiled “Energy Firm’s Dumping Sows Anxiety in Gambrills” in 2007 on this issue of Gambrills when fly ash was found in dust in homes and on dishes of residents:

Constellation, which has delivered bottled water to Greenleaf and neighbors for 11 months, acknowledges the contamination but disputes the severity of the problem. Last week, the company halted the dumping temporarily and is in talks with the state about how to clean it up.

Putting off the decision to build yet another power plant (and one of the largest in Virginia) — until the EPA makes its determination later this year on fly ash — would be the wise and prudent course of action that should be made by the Town Council of Dendron, VA and the Board of Supervisors of Surry County on behalf of the whole of Hampton Roads in Virginia regarding the ODEC proposed 1500MW Cypress Creek Power Plant (and it’s corresponding fly ash/coal ash dump/landfill) that they want to put right in our tiny town’s “backyard” particularly considering the closeness to the homes and water supply in Dendron, as well as the wetlands of the Blackwater River system and Cypress Swamp.