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Mountain lovers, don’t get excited yet about EPA ruling

Karl Burkart — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 07:29:21 +0000

Trying to end the practice of mountaintop removal mining (MTR) by reducing the amount of debris that can be dumped into adjoining valleys is sort of like trying to end genocide by limiting the height of the mass graves in Darfur. Attacking the symptom will not make the root cause go away.

It is a start, one which will ultimately make it more difficult to blow apart mountains, but after a full year of extensive research by the EPA into the seemingly endless impacts of MTR on the communities of Appalachia, many of us were hoping for a more immediate end to the Appalachian Apocalypse.

On April 1, EPA head Lisa Jackson invited a bunch of journalists to join a call about the MTR ruling (PDF). I’m not going to say I wasn’t elated. According to Jackson, this move will theoretically block 95 percent of MTR proposals. The EPA has been trying and failing since the early ’70s to put ironclad regulations in place that would limit the most harmful strip-mining practices. As Jeff Biggers blogged on Huff Po:

Forty years later, with over 500 mountains and 1.2 million acres of hardwood forests decimated and blown to bits, with more than 2,000 miles of streams and waterways jammed with toxic coal waste, and untold thousands of Americans forcefully removed from their historic communities, the nightmare of mountaintop removal appears to be coming to the end of a long and tortuous road of regulations.

Case in point — the VERY SAME DAY, the Obama administration dealt a shocking blow to environmentalists by backing a Bush-era policy that allows nearly limitless access to treasured public lands for dumping of toxic mining debris.

So if you think we’ve won a victory, I have this to say the environmental community: your war is only just begun. Forty years of case law —largely ruling in favor of coal mining companies that claim the “burden of proof” should be shouldered by plaintiffs not defendants — will make any EPA regulation hotly contested in courts, especially as Tea Bagger anti-regulation hysteria escalates across the country.

So political pressure is still needed in Washington and at the state level (in the 20 states which allow strip mining). Two very important bills are gaining bipartisan steam — the Clean Water Protection Act (H.R. 1310) which has 167 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives, and the Appalachia Restoration Act (S. 696) in the Senate — and they will add buttresses to the foundation of the EPA ruling.

But let’s not forget who is keeping the lights on. JP Morgan Chase is one of the financial institutions that continues to fund MTR and the destruction of hundreds of pristine Appalachian mountains. And let’s not forget the customers who buy this ultra-dirty coal. Hundreds of municipalities (including the city of Los Angeles which is still making the ludicrous claim to be the “greenest city” in the U.S.) all purchase coal power from plants that buy MTR coal.

We need a citizen/consumer uprising to tell banks like CHASE and cities like Los Angeles that it is not OK to fund MTR, either directly or indirectly. Only with this triple threat — the EPA ruling, federal legislation and consumer watchdogs — will we finally topple the coal industry … an industry which, for now, remains the king of the mountain.

Mountain lovers, don’t get excited yet about the EPA ruling on MTR

Karl Burkart — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 07:07:32 +0000

The Top 9 Eco-Stories of 2009 (that have nothing to do with climate change)

EcoFriend Kim — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 02:49:00 +0000

by Ken Edelstein

Photos: BPA bottle by David McNew/Getty Images; Garbage patch courtesy NOAA; Bee courtesy Wikimedia Commons; Water drop by Emrank/Flickr; Michael Pollan by Zuma Press; Bat by Furryscaly/Flickr

Here, as the year draws to a close, is my list of the top 9 environmental stories in 2009 that had absolutely nothing to do with climate change.

1. The danger lurking inside your baby’s bottle: The Milwaukee Journal takes the cake this year for old-fashioned investigative reporting on an old-fashioned toxics story. Actually, the newspaper has been investigating bisphenol A (commonly referred to as BPA) — in food containers and other consumer plastic goods — for two years. But 2009 was the year that the investigation bore fruit: Other media began following the story about lax regulation and industry-funded studies, which skewed the science for years on a toxin that actually poses a risk for infants drinking out of baby bottles and people who microwave their food in containers. Finally, it appears the Food & Drug Administration may take action. At the very least, all that negative publicity has given consumer-product companies reason to switch to products that don’t contain BPA.

2. Carping about Asian carp: What is it about marine species from Asia that makes them such an exotic threat in North America waters? Zebra muscles. Walking snakehead. And, now, the Asian carp is about to take over the Great Lakes. Each invader deserves a science fiction movie. In the carp’s case, you’ve got the marine scientist/hero who discovered DNA from Asian carp in water samples taken from streams that flow into the Lake Michigan. You’ve got the government agency (Army Corps of Engineers) that reluctantly acknowledged the problem in November. And you’ve got posturing politicians raising the temperature for everyone by threatening lawsuits. “I am determined to take appropriate action to ensure that the integrity of Lake Michigan is not harmed by the introduction of these carp,” the attorney general of Wisconsin warned just the other day. Most of all, you’ve got the carp itself — a preferred food in East Asia that undermines the fish-eat-fish food chain from one end to the other. The story would only be better if Asian carp ate people; their main food source turns out to be plankton, which seems a lot less dramatic.

3. Awash in coal ash: Last December, a Tennessee Valley Authority coal-ash dump overflowed and sent 5.4 million cubic yards of the toxic substance into nearby rivers. The backwash from that disaster created a lasting story on into in 2009. The spill contained massive amounts of toxins, enough to make the Exxon Valdez oil spill sound like a little leak. Once it became clear that the Environmental Protection Agency had ignored an ecological and public health hazard that literally was mounting up in plain sight, a handful of activists and reporters jumped on the larger story: There are hundreds of such dumps all around the country, some of which could lead to similar spills under the right conditions. The EPA finally did announce its intention to regulate the dumps. But the problem is so large and has been neglected for so long that it’s doubtful that the agency will have the guts to produce a regulation far-reaching enough to get the problem under control. The long-range problem is that a lot of the coal ash is a byproduct of trying to reduce the pollution that coal sends into the atmosphere. And if the U.S. relies on so-called “clean coal” to keep carbon emissions down, the effort to combat climate change could create even more coal ash. Oops! There’s that darned climate change popping up again. I just can’t get away from it.

4. Fix my plumbing: When the New York Times takes on a big investigation, it tends to get noticed. That doesn’t mean that anything happens because it’s noticed, but at least public officials can’t say they didn’t know about it. For the last five months, reporter Charles Duhigg has been filing stories as part of a series called “Toxic Waters.” It’s about “the worsening pollution in American waters and regulators’ response.” In the shadow of climate change and economic calamity, I’m not sure that the stories have led to action. The bottom line is that regulators have seldom acted over the last two decades even when incidents and studies showed that pollution was violating the Clean Water Act. Duhigg identified a variety of problems that degrade natural systems and threaten drinking water. He also exposed a $400 billion infrastructure problem that we haven’t begun to deal with — not even with President Obama’s recent stimulus package.

5. The global water shortage: Nearly one billion people lack access to safe water, according to Water.org, a nonprofit group dedicated toward resolving the global water shortage. And the situation is only getting worse. In India, wells that were dug just a few short years ago to resolve water shortages are running dry. Multinational beverage companies argue that the key to ensuring supplies of the rapidly diminishing resource lies in unlocking the profit motive, so that prospecting for water and caring for water resources lies in the companies’ self-interest; environmentalists and non-profits counter that the large companies simply are trying to lock up water rights, which could exacerbate the shortage for people who can’t afford to buy water. What’s causing the problem? Unwise development. Overpopulation. A lack of infrastructure resources. And … um … wait a second … climate change? How’d that sneak in there? Rising temperatures are changing weather patterns, so that dependable supplies of water aren’t available where they once were, and are causing more evaporation so that less water is stored in natural or manmade reservoirs.

6. The mysterious deaths of bats: First it was frogs and other amphibians. Now, it’s bats. Soon we’re not going to have any animals to eat bugs for us. The cave-dwelling mammals live in huge colonies — nasty habitats that you’d think would make them immune to just about any disease. But those big colonies apparently make them vulnerable, too. Fewer and fewer habitats already has caused their numbers to shrink, before the mysterious “white-nose syndrome” was accompanied by massive die-offs. Bat populations are declining elsewhere, but so far the decline appears most dramatic in the Northeast, where wildlife officials are reporting only a one-in-10 survival rate.

7. The mysterious disappearance of bees: Honeybees are more important than most city folk realize. They pollinate an enormous variety of crops and wild plants. In 2006, beekeepers and then biologists started noticing an unexplained phenomenon — “colony collapse syndrome.” Previously healthy hives would suddenly lose almost their entire population; nobody was sure where the bees went. This is science fiction creepy, the kind of thing that happens before the aliens invade. But it’s no joke. The collapse of bee colonies could lead to global agricultural calamity. This year, at least, brought some good news: more understanding of what may be causing the colonies to collapse and of potential solutions.

8. The garbage vortex: This was the year that the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch, which I should mention is twice the size of Texas, got a ring of its own in the media circus. Two expeditions headed to the whirling monument to humankind, both to research the phenomenon and to draw attention to it. Now, an Australian man is on his way to the garbage patch via swimming. Of course, anything that’s twice the size of Texas ought to be able to draw attention to itself. It turns out that the Garbage Patch draws a lot more to itself than attention — most of its refuse actually comes from sources on land rather than from ships: trash swept away by rivers and tides is carried to the giant vortex. There’s even talk now about cleaning it up. By the way did I mention that the spot is now twice the size of Texas?

9. Food, the way nature intended: I know, I know. You’re going to try to count this one against me because vegetarians and locavores are all about reducing their carbon footprint. Fair enough. But I still say the rise of slow, local, organic food has a lot more to do with a reaction to industrial agriculture, for its own sake. The movement took off over the last couple of years with books like The Omnivore’s Dilemma and Fast Food Nation. But it really hit a high point in 2009, when the movie Food Inc. — starring the authors of those two books — hit theaters and surely got more than a handful of people to put down their Big Macs.

Written by Ken Edelstein; reprinted from Mother Nature Network

The Story of Cap And Trade

EcoFriend Kim — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 07:52:23 +0000

The Story of Cap & Trade

The Story of Cap & Trade from Story of Stuff Project

Coal has Contaminated Every Fish in America with Mercury

EcoFriend Kim — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 08:32:35 +0000

: Photo: Bugeaters/Flickr

You read that right. Mercury has been found in every fish tested from almost 300 streams over a 7-year period. Where is it coming from? Coal.

Here’s a pretty terrifying statistic: 100 percent of the fish tested by the U.S. Geological Survey in nearly 300 streams were found to be contaminated with mercury.

Every single one.

Between 1998 and 2005 scientists tested over 1,000 fish from 291 streams across the country and found mercury in all of them. A quarter of the fish had more than the EPA thinks is safe for people to eat.

We can thank coal for this one. Mercury is found in coal and is released from power plant smoke stacks into the air. It eventually comes back down to earth in rain and other precipitation and travels through the food chain to collect in the fatty tissues of, apparently, every fish living in the United States (and any person eating those fish).

How do you like them apples?

Coal is the enemy of mankind and looks to be no good friend of fish either. We need to stop burning it post-haste.

Live near coal ash? 1 in 50 chance of cancer.

The Bush Administration buried a report showing a highly elevated risk of cancer for those living near coal ash. Why do we burn coal again?

Putting aside the argument over whether CO2 causes climate change, coal is a terribly destructive way to create energy and we need to stop burning it.

First you have to dig coal up. We either sink tunnels thousands of feet into the ground, putting the lives of millions of men around the world in constant risk or we rip down entire mountain ranges get at it, burying valleys and streams with the rubble.

Then we haul it all around the country to power plants where it’s burned, releasing toxins like mercury, arsenic, and lead into the air.

And then, just when you think the damage party is over, we’re left with an inordinate amount of coal ash after the burn. We create enough coal ash to fill a million railroad cars a year. Coal ash isn’t regulated by the federal government so the country is a patchwork of different regulations, some weaker than others, many completely ineffectual. Often the coal ash is left in unlined open air slurry ponds, ponds which can and have leaked and burst.

In December Tennessee was the epicenter for one of the worst environmental disasters in our nations history when over a billion gallons of coal ash burst from a TVA storage pond in the small town of Harriman. Dozens of houses were destroyed, the land was covered in up to six feet of toxic sludge, and water sources have been contaminated by mercury, lead, and other toxic heavy metals.

Even when coal ponds behave and don’t burst through their levees, the people living near them are way more likely to get cancer. The Bush Administration buried a report by the EPA that came out in 2002 that found that people living near coal ash ponds had a 1 in 50 risk of developing cancer.

Throw another outrageous criminal act by the Bush Administration onto their pile of shame.

We need to stop burning coal as fast as humanly possible. We put a guy on the moon, we created the Internet, and invented the Wii. We can certainly stop burning coal within the next decade or two.

Written by Shea Gunther, Reprinted from mnn.com

Clean Coal Forgery Scandal Breaks

EcoFriend Kim — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 22:38:57 +0000

Coal Factory

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) admitted on Monday that they had, in fact, subcontracted with shady lobbying firm Bonner & Associates who forged at least 12 letters to House members shortly before the big vote on the ACES climate and energy bill last month.

The letters appeared to be from prominent nonprofit organizations that had been supportive of the bill.

ACCCE apologized officially for the fiasco, saying that they knew nothing about the forged letters. But today, it was found that they did … four weeks ago! Apparently it was the bright idea of one “temp” who used official letterheads from two different nonprofit organizations.

Since the letters were faxed, many progressive groups including the Sierra Club are calling for the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute for wire fraud.

Today’s factoid: ACCCE self-reported a whopping $11.3 million spent lobbying AGAINST the American Clean Energy & Security Act. I guess they are not feeling too “clean” today.

Written by Karl Burkart

Battleground West Virginia!

Karl Burkart — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 08:16:18 +0000

When Mike Brune, executive director of RAN (the Rainforest Action Network) says “I can’t remember a more charged atmosphere,” you know it must be bad.

Brune has been arrested dozens of times and has faced off with lumberjacks, oilmen and multinational corporate behemoths alike. But there is a general feeling from everyone I’ve spoken to about the protest this week against mountaintop removal mining in West Virginia that things are heating up in coal country.

On Wednesday, Daryl Hannah along with 30 others including NASA scientist James Hansen, Brune, and 94 year-old Congressman Ken Hechler were arrested while protesting the Massey Coal operation near the Marsh Fork Elementary School.

The school was just 300 feet away from a coal slurry impoundment containing 2.8 billion gallons of toxic sludge held back by unreinforced earthen walls. Sound familiar?

It should. Last year what was arguably the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history occurred when just such a wall failed in the coal ash spill in Tennessee.

This is the kind of thing that happens when the EPA is not allowed to enforce federal laws protecting both the environment and the welfare of the people.

As I posted earlier, the Bush administration allowed coal operations to apply for permits directly to the Army Corps of Engineers, circumventing the EPA and violating long-standing federal water protections laws.

Sadly, Obama has failed to overturn this loophole. For a blow-by-blow of coal lobbying efforts and the administration’s sudden pro-coal change of heart read the Obamboozled blog.

A crowd of over 800 protestors including both environmentalists and laid-off mine workers came together to attempt a blockade of the road leading to a Massey prep plant. Massey assembled a crowd of hostile taunters to greet the protesters. Though no blows were thrown, they did manage to drown out the speakers with refrains of Twisted Sisters “We’re not gonna take it” (which I think could almost be considered an act of violence).

The immense irony of this situation is that the nearby Coal River Valley happens to be one of the few places on earth where enough wind blows to fully power the region. The many peaks and valleys actually CREATE the wind, peaks and valleys which Massey Coal has been leveling.. permanently. And the wind industry creates farm more good long-term jobs than does the coal industry.

The choice seems clear – permanently destroy the natural resources and economic security of the most biodiverse temperate forest on earth, all for a few more years of coal. OR preserve the valleys of Appalachia and create an industry that will harness free energy for a lifetime and provide the region with a much-needed source of income.

The correct path is obvious, but with a now-weakened EPA and no end in sight for the illegal practice of mountaintop removal mining, it looks like civil disobedience may be the only way out.

To watch video footage of the protest check out the West Virginia Gazette.

Watch my video blog about the arrests on GreenDig. Don’t do RSS? Follow all Karl Burkart posts and tweets @greendig or on Facebook.

Battleground West Virginia, Eco-Goth goes Country, Waxman-Markey Mayhem

Karl Burkart — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 07:55:27 +0000

#3 CLIMATE BILL.. VICTORY OR DEFEAT?
While most environmental groups are hailing the passing of the ACES (aka Waxman-Markey) climate bill, some like Greenpeace gave up and called for a “no” vote. Here are the details.

#2 BATTLEGROUND WEST VIRGINIA
Daryl Hannah, NASA scientist James Hansen and RAN director Mike Brune were arrested while protesting a Massey Coal plant in West Virginia. Here’s the scoop.

#1 ECO-GOTH GIRL GOES COUNTRY

GreenDig’s eco-fashion correspondent has a sneak peak at Deborah Lindquist’s new line of goth apparel for the green at heart.
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Appalachian Apocalypse, Star (Factory) is Born, and Aid for the Coral Triangle: GreenDig

Karl Burkart — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:27:51 +0000

#3 The EPA just OK’d the ongoing devastation in Appalachia, approving 42 more permits for mountaintop coal mining. Mountain top removal puts miners out of work and permanently destroys the most important temperature forest on earth. Read the article:

http://www.mnn.com/technology/researc…

Sign the petition:
http://www.nrdconline.org/campaign/nr…

Find out if you are connected to mountain top coal:
http://www.mnn.com/technology/gadgets…

#2 A Star (Factory) is Born in California
NIF was just inaugurated at Lawrence Livermore Labs heralding a new age in nuclear fusion research. NIF is the first facility that will generate net positive energy with no nuclear waste (VIDEO):

http://www.mnn.com/technology/researc…

#1 Relief for the Coral Triangle
The largest coral reef network is in danger of collapsing but 6 Asian-Pacific nations just pledged to save it, and the U.S. kicked in $40 million:

http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0519-ha…

Freaky Nature Moment: check out Environmental Graffiti’s Top 15 most alien-looking caterpillars.
http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/most-alien-looking-caterpillars-on-earth/11812

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The ‘clean coal’ nightmare begins…

Karl Burkart — Wed, 27 May 2009 08:11:30 +0000

UPDATE 6/2: Read the full post on Alternet.. made it to the front page of Digg!

Maybe it’s because I’m still reeling over the news that Obama-appointed Lisa Jackson, new head of the EPA (that ‘P’ was supposed to stand for “protection” last time I checked) approved 42 permits to permanently obliterate several dozen mountain tops in Appalachia, burying miles of rivers and streams in the process.

But I am just not all that impressed by the news of Wisconsin’s recent “success” in capturing carbon at the coal-fired power plant in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin.

In fact, I fear that by legitimizing the most destructive fuel on earth, we may be stepping full on into a nightmare of “clean coal” — a twisted world order in which hundreds of thousands of unnecessary human deaths and unprecedented environmental catastophe are all justified in the pursuit of “cheap” coal.

We Greenies need to learn from our past mistakes.

Remember how stoked everyone was a few years ago about the biofuel revolution? Everyone from President Clinton to Willie Nelson was praising Brazil’s transition away from oil and into “clean” biofuels.

If you want to see what the biofuel revolution has done to Brazil’s once verdant rainforests read my recent post on termite power and Vice Magazine’s sobering portrayalof life in an ethanol “work camp.”

We need to start looking at least ONE step ahead. It seems we’ve been all too content looking straight down as we march forward on the path to “sustainability” (while patting ourselves on the back no less). Meanwhile we don’t see the proverbial brick wall that is merely a few feet away.

So let me proclaim it: Carbon capture is perhaps the worst possible economic investmentwe could make right now (maybe only second to liquifying coal to replace gasoline, the folly of which cannot even be put into words).

Why would we invest billions of dollars making a limited, dirty fuel barely tolerable when, within a decade, we could entirely replace coal power with wind and solar — an investment that would pay us dividends forever since there is no mining or drilling required? Renewable fuels are free!

I don’t want to berate WE Energies. In addition to funding the Pleasant Prairie carbon capture project, they have also heavily invested in wind energy. So they have their eye on the ball and their project is truly the closest anyone has come to successfully capturing carbon dioxide at the source. You can read the report here (PDF).

But let’s get some things straight about carbon capture technology:

1. It is hella expensive!

Based on the recent project done in partnership with Alstom, a European carbon capture company, the cost of sequestering a ton of CO2 is somewhere in the ballpark of $70 per tonne! A tree can do the same job for less than $10/tonnne.

2. At best it can only sequester 90% of the carbon emitted.

3. It takes a lot of energy to actually remove the carbon.

In other words you have to burn about 25% more coal just to remove the CO2 from the coal. Can anyone say ‘more mountains?’

4. Once it’s removed you have to do something with the tons of chilled ammonia containing the CO2.

Right now there are not very many uses for CO2, unless you count soda carbonation. Burying it deep underground is an option but one which seems to make the storage of nuclear waste rather simple by comparison.

5. At best, the technology won’t be ready for pime time until 2015 (optimistically).

So basically we would be sinking billions of dollars in capital, capital that could otherwise used to ramp up smart grid or renewable energy projects. And at best, it won’t be ready for another 6 years and would be operated at a HUGE expense to both taxpayers and the environment.

The logic only works if you’re walking up a hill backwards… on a blown up mountain.