Archive for June, 2009
Op-ed published June 13th, 2009
There has to be a better way.
Sure, it’s all legal. The state Supreme Court said so last week when it rejected an appeal that sought to bar Massey Energy subsidiary Goals Coal Co. from constructing another coal storage silo less than the length of a football field from Marsh Fork Elementary School.
But there has to be a better way.
Coal River Mountain Watch, which for years has argued that even one silo so close to the school was one too many, was, obviously, upset with the court’s decision, saying that “placing a second coal silo within 300 feet of the school is a clear violation of the intent of the law, which is to protect the public.”
But Justice Menis Ketchum, who wrote the unanimous opinion, made it clear the court was not going to become embroiled in policy questions that should be decided by lawmakers.
“It is the duty of the Legislature to consider facts, establish policy and embody that policy in legislation,” he wrote. “It is the duty of the court to enforce legislation unless it runs afoul of state or federal constitutions.”
So there, you have it.
Not quite.
Coal silos and preparation facilities are a fact of life in the southern West Virginia coalfields, but locating them in direct proximity of public schools isn’t the best policy.
In this debate between environmentalists and a coal industry giant, the ones with the most at stake are the young students at Marsh Fork Elementary.
They didn’t ask for this. They don’t have a seat at the table.
Collectively, they’re an innocent party with the most to lose.
Having a coal silo, having any kind of industrial complex, so close to a school, especially an elementary school, can’t be conducive to learning.
We suggested a long time ago that Massey pony up the money to build a new elementary school at a location not in the direct shadow of its Goals coal operations. But now, with the economic downturn that has affected every industry, including coal, that seems like a distant dream.
We would encourage Massey officials and local school leaders to sit down and try to work out a solution to this problem.
The Coal River Valley has long felt like a red-haired stepchild in Raleigh County, that it has lost while other areas of the county have gained.
It has also yielded the coal that, as they say, keeps the lights on and provides a steady stream of tax revenue.
Maybe it’s time that area receives something in return.
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Here is a link to the original article.
The administration deserves credit for some minimal restrictions on mountaintop mining, but the president’s hands-off approach to coal defeats his climate-change efforts.
Clear-cutting forests, then blowing the tops off of mountains and dumping the debris into stream beds is an environmentally catastrophic way of mining for coal. President Obama and the green activists he has appointed to run his interior-focused regulatory agencies surely know this. But their contortions over mountaintop mining would make a Cirque du Soleil performer wince.
The administration last week announced a number of new restrictions on mountaintop coal mining in the six Appalachian states where it occurs. They are minimal steps that, among other things, will make it harder for mining companies to escape environmental review when seeking permits to blow up mountains. For this, Obama merits polite applause.
That’s in contrast to the much-deserved boos he received last month from environmentalists after his administration quietly sent a letter to coal industry loyalist Rep. Nick Rahall II (D-W.Va.) saying the Environmental Protection Agency wouldn’t stand in the way of at least two dozen new mountaintop-removal projects. It was a dismaying move from an administration that in March had blocked several such projects on grounds that they needed further review — yet some of the ones it greenlighted in May were as big and damaging as the ones it blocked two months earlier. What gives?
Obama is clearly intimidated by coal’s powerful lobby. The industry is a major employer in West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and other Appalachian states, where miners tend to vote for whichever party is friendliest to Big Coal. Yet there’s also strong grass-roots opposition to strip mining in those states because of the effect it has on local communities; the technique poisons water supplies and pollutes the air with coal and rock dust. It also turns forests into moonscapes, ravages ecosystems and buries streams, which is good for neither wildlife nor the tourism industry.
The best approach to mountaintop mining would be to ban it completely. It’s cheaper and less labor-intensive than underground mining, but not worth the environmental cost. At a minimum, Obama should address some other highly destructive rule changes imposed by the Bush administration — a good place to start would be restoring a regulation that forbade mining within 100 feet of a stream, and disallowing the use of mine waste as “fill” material in waterways.
Obama can’t sidestep this issue forever, especially because his hands-off approach to coal defeats the purpose of his efforts to fight climate change. Coal is a key culprit in global warming, and it makes no sense to encourage cheap coal while seeking to boost renewable energy.
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An analysis of the value of statistical life lost showed that the costs associated with coal mining in Appalachia continue to exceed the economic benefits gained from mining. The authors found that “age-adjusted mortality rates were higher every year from 1979 – 2005 in Appalachian coal mining areas compared with other areas of Appalachia or the nation.” Illnesses seen in coal mining areas of Appalachia “are consistent with a hypothesis of exposure to water and air pollution from mining activities.”
Hendryx, M. (2009) “Mortality in Appalachian Coal Mining Regions: The Value of Statistical Life Lost.” Public Health Reports. 124: 541-50
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Another one from Mr. Biggers:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/clean-coal-knee-capping-s_b_214927.html
On the heels of a major Wall Street Journal report that we are reaching “peak coal,” and revelations that the Bush administration buried a 2002 report on the cancer risks associated with coal ash, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu made a $1.073 billion down payment today on the construction of FutureGen, “the first commercial scale, fully integrated, carbon capture and sequestration project in the country in Mattoon, Illinois.”
Chu’s buy-in into “clean coal,” a phrase that young liberal Democrat Francis Peabody first used back in the 1890s to peddle his brand of “smoke-free” clean coal in Chicago, places him in the company of FutureGen Alliance promoters like Peabody Energy, whose first quarter 2009 profits “only tripled” this spring–Peabody celebrated an 8-fold increase in profits in the last quarter of 2008.
… Read the entire article here.
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The following email was sent to the 36,000+ supporters of iLoveMountains.org. To sign up to receive free email alerts, click here.
Dear mountain lover,
Yesterday, the Obama administration took a small step in the right direction.
The administration announced an agreement between the EPA, Department of Interior, and the Army Corps of Engineers that will end the streamlined permitting process for mountaintop removal coal mining.
The agreement also commits the Administration to help diversify and strengthen the Appalachian economy by focusing on clean energy investments and create green jobs in Appalachia.
BUT, we need you to call Obama and ask him to do more. Residents and advocates of coal communities were encouraged by the news, but disappointed in the lack of urgency displayed by the agreement. The announcement falls on the heels of two major blows to coalfield communities — the West Virginia Supreme Court’s decision to approve a second coal silo next to Marsh Fork Elementary School, and severe flooding in May which affected hundreds of homes in West Virginia and Kentucky — more than ever we need to push the administration to take aggressive action.
We applaud the Obama administration’s commitment to recognize and address serious issues surrounding mountaintop removal coal mining — but the administration needs to take the next step to actually end mountaintop removal coal mining today.
That’s why we need you to take action today.
Call the White House today to tell the administration that enforcing regulations is a good start — but that President Obama should take the next step by reversing the Bush Administration’s 2002 changes to the Clean Water Act that allows coal companies to dump their mining waste into our nation’s streams?
Call the White House today at (202) 456-1111
Useful talking points:
- You are calling to thank the administration for the recent policy changes and commitment to addressing the devastating problem of mountaintop removal coal mining, but
- You urge President Obama to take the next step by reversing the the Bush Administration’s change to the Clean Water Act that allows coal companies to dump their mining waste into our nation’s streams.
That’s it! Just a few moments of your time can let President Obama know that we support his first steps to limit mountaintop removal coal mining — and that we encourage him go further by ending it.
Reversing the Bush administration rule change will prevent most new mountaintop removal coal mining in the United States — but to make this reversal permanent, we need Congress to pass the Clean Water Protection Act (HR 1310) and the Appalachia Restoration Act (S 696) to permanently end the worst abuses of Big Coal.
So after you’ve called the White House, please take a moment to email your Senators and Representatives.
Thank you for taking action today.
Matt Wasson
iLoveMountains.org
P.S.–Please help us spread the word on Facebook.
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As always, those intrepid and resolute reporters Ken Ward Jr. and Jeff Biggers alerted us to the Obama Administration’s new plan to “deal” with mountaintop removal coal mining.
From Ken Ward Jr.’s blog:
Administration officials announced that they are taking a series of short-, medium- and long-range steps that they say will allow mountaintop removal to continue, but reduce the impacts to communities and the environment.
We think Jeff Biggers summed it up best in his article on the Huffington Post:
In an extraordinary move to disregard a 38-year rap sheet of crimes of pollution, harassment and forced removal of some of our nation’s oldest and most historic communities, and the destruction of over 500 mountains and 1.2 million acres of deciduous hardwood forests in our nation’s carbon sink of Appalachia, the Obama administration will announce today that it has decided to “regulate” mountaintop removal mining operations, not abolish them.
Continue reading and find more links and info….
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CARDIN ANNOUNCES HEARING TO REVIEW MOUNTAINTOP MINING PRACTICES
SENATE HEARING
TIME & PLACE
The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife, will hold a hearing entitled, “The Impacts of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining on Water Quality in Appalachia.”
THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 2009
3:30 p.m.
Room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building
Cardin, Alexander call on EPA to provide more details on mining permits
Contact: Sue Walitsky: 202-224-4524
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Click here for a PDF Document
Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD), Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Water and Wildlife Subcommittee, announced that intends to hold a hearing to address “mountaintop mining” practices. Senator Cardin’s announcement comes on the same day that the Obama Administration revealed its plans to establish tougher environmental reviews for coal companies that mine the Appalachians by blasting off mountaintops and discarding the rubble in stream valleys, also known as “mountaintop mining.”
“Mountaintop mining is one of the most destructive practices that already has destroyed some of America’s most beautiful and ecologically significant regions,” said Senator Cardin. “Today’s decision by the Obama Administration to limit the practice through a stronger review of mountaintop mining permit applications is an important step in the right direction. However, it does not halt this incredibly destructive form of mining. We must put an end to this mining method that has buried more than a thousand miles of streams.”
Senator Cardin is the sponsor of S. 696, The Appalachian Restoration Act, a two-page bill that would outlaw the mining practice. “This legislation will put a stop to the smothering of our nation’s streams and water systems and will restore the Clean Water Act to its original intent,” Senator Cardin added.
Senator Cardin and Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), co-sponsor of the mountaintop mining ban legislation, have called upon Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson to provide additional information about the mining permits issued by three federal agencies, including EPA, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Office of Surface Mining. These are the permits that the Obama Administration said today that it will be reviewing with greater scrutiny.
Also today, Senators Cardin and Alexander sent a letter to all Senators urging their support for The Appalachian Restoration Act, saying “More than 1 million acres of Appalachia have already been affected by this process. An estimated 1,200 miles of headwater streams have been buried under tons of mining wastes. More than 500 mountains have been impacted. Homes have been ruined and drinking water supplies contaminated.”
The Cardin-Alexander Appalachian Restoration Act was introduced on March 25, 2009.
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The brave and relentless Ken Ward Jr. reported today on his blog:
Lawyers for the Obama administration this morning filed a notice that they plan to appeal the latest federal court ruling that — if not overturned — would require more stringent regulation of mountaintop removal coal mining.
Read the entire post on his Coal Tattoo blog.
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We just got an email from Molly Wilkins, a graduate student in Washington State in a Master’s of Education program. As an assignment for her Social Studies Methods course, she wrote a paper on the importance of Appalachian cultural and environmental history in the social studies curriculum in the elementary public school system to help foster stewardship. Molly asked us to share her paper with you, so here it is:
I was raised in the Tennessee Valley, along with many generations of my ancestors. I went to public school in the small town of Athens, TN, starting in kindergarten and ending with my senior year of high school. Once I graduated high school, I made my first grand move across the mountain to Asheville, NC. There, I completed my undergraduate career with a degree in Environmental Management and Policy.
The brief biography is given to state this: of the 18 years that I was raised in the Tennessee Valley and educated in the Tennessee public school system, I knew very little of Tennessee cultural and environmental history. This was not due to a lack of interest. I continued my education to earn a degree in Environmental Policy; a decision and path I chose as a sophomore in high school. I adventured in the Tennessee hills and mountains with family and friends my whole life. I loved the area, but I didn’t know why. I love the area, but I didn’t know the history behind it.
…….. keep reading
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From the Lexington Herald-Leader. You should also check out the HEATED COMMENT DISCUSSION GOING ON.
Thirty-three Breathitt County residents have sued a coal company, saying water and mining waste from holding ponds near Quicksand Creek exacerbated damage from flooding after heavy rains May 8 and 9.
Attorney Ned Pillersdorf said that in a suit filed Thursday in Breathitt Circuit Court residents claim Appalachian Fuels was “grossly negligent” in allowing coal, sand and water to “either breach, overtop or otherwise rupture” sediment holding ponds near Ky. 542.
………Read the entire article here.
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