Archive for April, 2013
Kentucky native Teri Blanton was recognized as a leader in the environmental movement at the second annual White House Women and the Environment Summit.
Teri Blanton, native of Harlan, Ky., was recently honored by the White House as one of 100 female leaders in the environmental movement during their second annual White House Women and the Environment Summit.
If you know Teri, it’s no surprise that she would be given such an honor. She has worked tirelessly to educate Kentuckians and mountain people across Appalachia about the adverse effects of living in communities impacted by coal mining.
As a Fellow for Kentuckians for the Commonwealth and a representative of The Alliance For Appalachia, she concentrates her efforts on campaigns to protect the health of the people, the water and the air by putting an end to mountaintop removal mining in eastern Kentucky, programs to educate communities about contamination of local waterways with deadly heavy metals, and initiatives that will create a sustainable energy future for Appalachia.
Teri Blanton speaking at a rally led by Kentuckians for the Commonwealth.
She has spent countless hours in Washington, D.C., and Frankfort, Ky., educating lawmakers on the impacts of mountaintop removal and has traveled across the country raising awareness to new audiences. But one can only lobby the same office so many times before growing frustrated by the lack of progress.
In 2009, Teri traveled to D.C. and participated in the Capitol Climate Action alongside 5,000 others who were outraged at our countries continued reliance on coal and other fossil fuels. The next year she was arrested in front of the White House during Appalachia Rising, alongside 121 others to demand an end to mountaintop removal. She even moved into the Governor’s Mansion for a four-day occupation in 2011 with 13 other Kentuckians after being denied a meeting with Governor Beshear on the issue.
But for Teri, the injustices don’t stop within the hills and hollers of Appalachia, she is a vocal proponent of collaboration across all communities impacted by the extraction, transport, burning and disposal of dirty, polluting fossil fuels.
At the summit, Teri and other female leaders met with with senior White House and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials. The discussion focused on the importance of women and their role in protecting public health and the environment.
Teri will be returning to D.C. next week, along with people from across the country, for the 8th Annual End Mountaintop Removal Week in Washington, and will be requesting meetings with many of the same top White House and EPA officials, we will see if they have taken her message to heart by then.
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A draft report prepared by the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement found that many of the massive slurry impoundments in Appalachia do not pass muster. Focused on the compaction of coal waste embankments, the report’s findings speak volumes — “of 73 field density tests performed at seven sites, only 16 yielded passing results.” In the past, some have been quick to call slurry spills and impoundment breakthroughs “Acts of God.” In light of this report and past research, the effect of that tactic should be entirely eroded.
Thanks Sludge Safety Project and Coal River Mountain Watch , who shared the draft report, the clear and present danger of slurry impoundments in Appalachia is being reported on widely in major regional and national papers.
From The Washington Post this morning:
Many of the man-made ponds for storing toxic sludge from coal mining operations have dangerously weak walls because of poor construction methods, according to the synopsis of a study for the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement obtained by The Washington Post.
Tests of the density of these impoundment walls showed flaws at all seven sites surveyed in West Virginia, with only 16 field tests meeting the standards out of 73 conducted, the 2011 report says.
Slurry, also known as coarse coal refuse, is what is left over once companies wash coal to enable it to burn more efficiently. Coal firms have disposed of this combination of solids and water in a few different ways: damming it in large ponds, depositing it in abandoned mines and using a dry filter-press process to compact it.
The Interior Department’s mining agency ordered the survey — which is in draft form and has not been publicly released — after its engineers noticed that companies were using coarse refuse that will not stay compacted except “within a narrow range” of moisture conditions, according to the synopsis. The conditions were not monitored and bulldozers were used to compact the soil, a task for which they are poorly suited, it added.
Chris Holmes, a spokesman for the agency, said it was examining a “potential issue” with compaction of dams but that it “has not found any indication that any coal slurry impoundment is in imminent danger of failure. Had it done so, OSM would have taken action immediately.”
There are 596 coal slurry impoundments in 21 states, according to the Mine Safety and Health Administration, of which the largest number, 114, are in West Virginia.
From time to time, one of these slurry ponds breaks, posing a threat to both worker safety and the environment. A worker operating a bulldozer was killed in November when an embankment collapsed at Consol Energy’s Robinson Run mine in West Virginia.
In a much bigger spill back in 2000, slurry gushed out of holding pond owned by Massey Energy in Martin County, Ky., into an abandoned mine. That accident contaminated the water supply of more than a dozen communities and killed aquatic life in local waterways.
Jack Spadaro, an engineering consultant and former director of the National Mine Health and Safety Academy, said the analysis underscores the inherent problem in how mining companies store the waste from their operations.
“It’s a very weak material and when it’s wet, it’s even weaker,” Spadaro said in an interview, adding that while there are regulations aimed at preventing accidents, “the problem is the agencies in charge of enforcing them are not enforcing them.”
National Mining Association spokesman Luke Popovich wrote in an e-mail that the Office of Surface Mining had done a more recent report on impoundments concluding that those near underground mines posed “a minimal risk,” but the agency “nevertheless urged state agencies and mines to ensure their maps of [underground] mines in the vicinity of impoundments are accurate.”
“We were not riled up by nor objected to anything in this report,” he wrote, referring to the 2011 survey of West Virginia impoundments.
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We’re only two days into Earth Week — if we must limit it to one week out of the year — but it sure is getting off to a great start. Two major court rulings over the past two days underscore the need for increased scrutiny from the federal agency responsible for evaluating environmental impacts of mountaintop removal coal mining according to the National Environmental Policy Act and issuing permits under the Clean Water Act.
Yesterday, the 6th U.S. Court of Appeals revoked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers use of Nationwide Permit 21 (NWP 21), a streamlined and inadequate process that has contributed to the expansion of mountaintop removal in Appalachia since 1992.
In its ruling, the three-judge panel called the Corps’ actions “arbitrary and capricious” and found that the agency did not follow the applicable Clean Water Act (CWA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations, which require it to document its assessment of environmental impacts and examine past impacts before issuing new permits. From the ruling:
Though we generally give greatest deference to an agency’s “complex scientific determination[s] within its area of special expertise,” we may not excuse an agency’s failure to follow the procedures required by duly promulgated regulations.
After opting for streamlined nationwide permitting, the Corps took the easier path of preparing an environmental assessment instead of an environmental impact statement. Having done so, it needed to follow the applicable CWA and NEPA regulations by documenting its assessment of environmental impacts and examining past impacts, respectively. Failing these regulatory prerequisites, the Corps leaves us with nothing more than its say-so that it meets CWA and NEPA standards.
According to the Corps, approximately 70 surface mining permits authorized under NWP 21 qualify for a five-year accommodation to “provide and equitable and less burdensome transition” for coal operators. Whatever its impact on existing mountaintop removal permits, the ruling acknowledges that when it comes to protecting Appalachia, the Corps “say-so” is insufficient.
This morning, as word of yesterday’s win for the mountains continued to spread, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed a ruling that overturned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s veto of the Spruce Mine surface mine permit — one of the largest mountaintop removal mines in history.
Earthjustice, which along with Appalachian Mountain Advocates, represented West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Coal River Mountain Watch, Sierra Club, and Natural Resources Defense Council as friends of the court, called the ruling a major blow to the coal industry’s attempt to prevent EPA from protecting communities from the harm caused by mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia.
While an earlier ruling called EPA’s interpretation of Section 404 of the Clean Water Act “magical thinking,” today’s announcement reaffirms the EPA’s role in the permitting process. In her ruling, Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, concluded that:
… The Congress made plain its intent to grant the Administrator authority to prohibit/deny/restrict/withdraw a specification at any time … Thus, the unambiguous language of subsection 404(c) manifests the Congress’s intent to confer on EPA a broad veto power extending beyond the permit issuance.
These rulings come as research supporting the irreversible damage done by valley fills which have been found to irreversibly damage water quality and the once-abundant aquatic life of many Appalachian streams.
“Today’s decision upholds essential protection for all Americans granted by the Clean Water Act,” said Emma Cheuse, an attorney for Earthjustice. “Communities in Appalachia can finally breathe a sigh of relief knowing that EPA always has the final say to stop devastating permits for mountaintop removal mining. Now, we just need EPA to take action to protect more communities and mountain streams before they are gone for good.”
It has been a good few days for mountains, and the communities of Appalachia. We congratulate and thank our allies — especially Earthjustice, Appalachian Mountain Advocates, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, the Sierra Club, Coal River Mountain Watch, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, and Natural Resources Defense Council — for their dedication and hard work through years of litigation. Our Earth Week, and the weeks ahead, are brighter for it.
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This week, Sally Jewell became the Obama Administration’s Secretary of the Department of the Interior. Jewell is now in a key position to halt the damaging environmental and health effects of mountaintop removal coal mining. But in order to make sure that it is a top priority issue, she needs to hear from you right away.
Take action now and tell Secretary Jewell know that we need her leadership.
During President Obama’s first term, the administration promised to restore longstanding stream protections to Appalachia. Despite this assurance, progress has been slow and Appalachian streams remain threatened.
Secretary Jewell has the ability to take immediate action and direct the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement to issue a long-overdue rule to prevent the dumping of coal mining waste into streams. We need Jewell to ensure that a strong standard is created and that it is fully implemented in Appalachia.
Contact Secretary Jewell today.
The day before her confirmation, President Obama said that Jewell had an “appreciation for our nation’s tradition of protecting our public lands and heritage, and a keen understanding of what it means to be good stewards of our natural resources.” We are encouraged by this and expect that she will stand up for the heritage and well being of the Appalachian region.
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Two months ago we worked together to generate thousands of comments to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency demanding that they use sound science to create a water quality standard that will protect the health and water of Appalachians.
Today, Appalachians are joining with national allies to take this message straight to regional EPA offices in Philadelphia and Atlanta. You can join them by lending your voice.
Call your EPA office today. Let them know that Appalachia is locked to dirty water and that EPA holds the key to a healthy and brighter future for our region.
Before the blasting begins, and long after the blasting stops, mountaintop removal poisons water in Appalachian communities. We need EPA to act on its own science and issue a legally binding water quality standard on conductivity to protect streams and communities in Appalachia from mountaintop removal mining pollution.
Will you join these Appalachians gathered in Philadelphia and Atlanta today? Can you lend your voice?
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