Earthbytes

Coalition Files Three Lawsuits to Demand National Coal LLC Treat Pollution from Coal Mines

Here's the joint press release filed today, November 8, 2011 by Sierra Club, Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment (SOCM) and the Tennessee Clean Water Network (TCWN):

Company’s Own Records Show Violations Of Legal Limits of Iron, Selenium, Other Heavy Metals in Local Waterways

Knoxville, TN – Earlier this week, the Sierra Club and its partners, the Tennessee Clean Water Network and Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment, filed three suits in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee to enforce pollution limits on two coal mines and one coal mine waste disposal area owned and operated by National Coal, LLC. According to the company’s own monitoring, National Coal continues to violate legal limits on its selenium discharge into local waterways. The coalition filed suit in order to protect the residents and wildlife of Tennessee that depend on the state’s waterways for clean water.

The Clean Water Act governs the legal limits of various forms of pollution allowed in mining and waste disposal. The Clean Water Act also requires mining companies to test and disclose the results of water sampling at mining and disposal sites. National Coal’s records show consistent violations for selenium, iron, and manganese at these sites. As a result of these egregious violations, the coalition has now filed suit in federal court under the citizen suit provisions of both the Clean Water Act to enforce the permit limits. 

“The kinds of pollutants National Coal is releasing into Tennessee’s waters can cause health problems as well as serious environmental damage,” said Axel Ringe, Vice Conservation Chair for the Tennessee Chapter Sierra Club. “Repeat violators like National Coal need to know that wanton polluting of Tennessee’s waterways has serious consequences for local residents and won’t be allowed to continue unchecked.” 

Today’s lawsuits follow several other recent Clean Water Act enforcement actions brought by the Sierra Club and other partner organizations that have resulted in significant protections for Appalachian streams and the communities that rely on them, including the installation and operation of treatment technology that will reduce selenium pollution from mines owned by Arch Coal and Patriot Coal.

“Citizens must continue to hold a zero-tolerance attitude toward companies that pollute our watersheds,” said Cathie Bird, chair of the E3 Committee of Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment.  “Without clean water, communities can’t thrive. That’s why we have laws to protect our water, and we’ll work hard to hold companies accountable when they pollute our streams.” 

Selenium, a toxic element that causes reproductive failure and deformities in fish and other forms of aquatic life, is discharged from many surface coal-mining operations across Appalachia.  At very high levels, selenium can pose a risk to human health, causing hair and fingernail loss, kidney and liver damage, and damage to the nervous and circulatory systems. Further, in clinically toxic doses, manganese can lead to motor imbalance and psychiatric disorders and over consumption of iron can lead to cirrhosis of the liver and heart conditions.

"Tennesseans rely on our rivers, lakes and streams for clean water," said Renée Victoria Hoyos, Executive Director, of the Tennessee Clean Water Network. "National Coal regularly and knowingly pollutes the waterways around these three locations. It is simply unacceptable and these suits are critical to ensuring that polluters like National Coal take our health and the impacts their actions have on the environment seriously."

The coalition is represented by Joe Lovett and Mike Becher with the Appalachian Mountain Advocates, and Gena Lewis and Michael Bernard. For more information on selenium visit http://www.sierraclub.org/coal/downloads/Seleniumfactsheet.pdf

###

Contact:

Sean Sarah, Sierra Club, 202 548-4589, [email protected]

Casey Self, Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment (SOCM), 865-249-7488 x105, [email protected]

Renée Victoria Hoyos, Tennessee Clean Water Network, 865-522-7007 x100, [email protected]

 

Murkowski: Interior’s mining overhaul needs Capitol Hill sign-off - E2-Wire

Interesting article yesterday at The Hill's E2-Wire:

Sen. Lisa Muirkowski (R-Alaska), the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, believes the Interior Department is barreling ahead with a major coal mining regulation overhaul without the needed congressional approval.

Interior announced plans Wednesday to merge its Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) into the larger Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Murkowski questioned the move Wednesday evening, noting that she’s “deeply concerned about this proposed unilateral action.”

Read more of the story at thehill.com

 

EcoWatch launches nationwide news service website today

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Joins EcoWatch to Announce Launch of Nationwide News Service Website

Live Webcast at www.ecowatch.org begins at 3 p.m. EST

WHAT: Launch of Nationwide News Service Website with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as Keynote

WHY: Celebrate EcoWatch and Waterkeeper Alliance’s Nationwide News Service

WHEN:   Thursday, Oct. 27 at 2:30 p.m. EST

WHERE: Rivergate Park, 1785 Merwin Ave., Cleveland, Ohio 44113

Cleveland, OH—EcoWatch, in partnership with Waterkeeper Alliance, is hosting a public event today along the Cuyahoga River to celebrate the launch of their nationwide news service website with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., founder and president of Waterkeeper Alliance, as keynote speaker.  The website—www.ecowatch.org—went live this morning and will work to unite the voice of the grassroots environmental movement and mobilize millions of Americans to engage in democracy to protect human health and the environment.  

The website expands EcoWatch’s coverage nationwide and becomes the first media source to focus exclusively on environmental news culled from more than 700 environmental organizations across the country.  The site showcases original content in its Insights column from leading national voices in the environmental movement, including EcoWatch’s advisory board members. 

The news service provides timely access to relevant information that seeks to motivate individuals to become engaged in their community, adopt sustainable practices and support strong environmental policy.  The site focuses on five critical issue areas—water, air, food, energy and biodiversity—and covers topics including, renewable energy, water and air quality, sustainable agriculture, fossil fuel depletion, solution-based sustainability projects, species protection, global warming, climate change and pending legislation.

“The current assault on America’s environmental laws, like the Clean Water Act, creates a pressing need to educate and engage people to protect our infrastructure, the air we breathe, the water we drink, to provide our children with the same opportunities for dignity and enrichment as our parents gave us,” said Kennedy. “This website encourages people to be part of the solution and engage in democracy.”

EcoWatch, publisher of EcoWatch Journal with a distribution of more than 80,000 copies across Ohio, will launch the nationwide news service out of Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood and become part of the growing online news media market.

“Northeast Ohio is a national leader in sustainability and EcoWatch is proud to call Cleveland its home,” said Stefanie Penn Spear, founder and executive director of EcoWatch. “This news service website follows the model we developed in Ohio over the last five years and expands on my more than 20 years of publishing environmental news.”

The public event will feature brief remarks from Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson; Cleveland City Councilman Joe Cimperman; the George Gund Foundation’s Senior Program Officer for the Environment, John Mitterholzer; the Cleveland Foundation’s Program Officer, Nelson Beckford; and Kennedy, a member of EcoWatch’s advisory board, who will serve as keynote speaker. 

Other advisory board members are Wendy Abrams, an eco-advocate and philanthropist; Ed Begley, Jr., an actor and environmentalist; Lester Brown, a  prize-winning author and critical thinker; Laurie David, a bestselling author and activist; Paul Hawken, an environmentalist, entrepreneur and author; Randy Hayes, founder of Rainforest Action Network; Phil Radford, executive director of Greenpeace, and Harvey Wasserman, an anti-nuclear activist.

In addition to commemorating the launch of the national website, EcoWatch and Waterkeeper Alliance will acknowledge the significance of the celebration’s location, near the historic site where the then oily Cuyahoga River caught on fire in June 1969.  This event played a major role in the growth of the modern-day environmental movement and passage of the Clean Water Act. The event will also highlight the need for water advocacy and stewardship, public access to our waterways, human-powered recreation on the water and collaboration on solution-based projects like Rivergate Park. Immediately following the event, participants are encouraged to enjoy Rivergate Park, home to the Cleveland Rowing Foundation, by touring the grounds and watching rowing, kayaking and paddleboarding on the river.

Kennedy will also keynote a fundraising event at Windows on the River at 2000 Sycamore St. at 6 p.m. that evening. The event includes a VIP reception, dinner and keynote speech.  Tickets can be purchased at www.ecowatchohio.org.

To view the website, visit http://www.ecowatch.org/.

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EcoWatch is a Cleveland-based nonprofit dedicated to uniting the voice of the grassroots environmental movement and mobilizing millions of Americans to engage in democracy to protect human health and the environment. EcoWatch, founded in 2006, publishes the bimonthly newspaper EcoWatch Journal, distributed for free throughout Ohio printing 80,000 copies per issue. For more information, visit www.ecowatchohio.org

Waterkeeper Alliance is a global environmental organization uniting more than 190 Waterkeeper organizations around

the world and focusing citizen advocacy on the issues that affect our waterways, from pollution to climate change.

Waterkeepers patrol more than 1.5 million square miles of rivers, streams and coastlines in the Americas, Europe,

Australia, Asia and Africa.  For more information, visit www.waterkeeper.org.

Salazar announces merger of mining agency, BLM

Don't you just love it when news like this pops and you have to have a subscription to read it? It's a lot like this whole process: since last night (on email lists) this news has been said to be a rumor making rounds through the mining industry. Now it looks like a done deal. So when do we, the people, ever get to weigh in on it? Is this yet another example of the extractive industries dictating policy to our bought and paid for Congress? We'll see, I guess...but I sure feel like somebody just flipped me the bird...

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar outlined plans today for moving the Office of Surface Mining to the Bureau of Land Management.

Salazar said he would sign a secretarial order today for the merger. And he promised to involve both employees and lawmakers in drawing up a reorganization plan by next year.

via www.eenews.net

EPA announces schedule to develop natural gas wastewater standards

Today the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its schedule to develop standards for wastewater discharges produced by natural gas extraction from underground coalbed and shale formations.

Right now we don't have national standards for disposal of wastewater discharged from natural gas extraction activities -- a fact that has been of concern to citizens and activists for many years.

As extraction technology has allowed development of shale gas resources, many parts of the United States are experiencing gas booms which many believe have led to significant threats to the health of people and nature. Shale gas now accounts for close to 15% of US gas production.

This sharp rise in domestic production has fans among political and industry supporters who say it has improved U.S. energy security and created jobs. Activists (and the Department of Defense!) argue that our ultimate security lies in energy efficiency and vigorous development of renewable and sustainable energy resources. And, though it's true many jobs have been created, US history has many stories of the "bust" side of fossil fuel extraction that can leave hundreds jobless, sometimes overnight.

The Obama administration has assured people that it is committed to safe and responsible leverage of all energy resources that includes protection of water:

"The president has made clear that natural gas has a central role to play in our energy economy. That is why we are taking steps -- in coordination with our federal partners and informed by the input of industry experts, states and public health organizations -- to make sure the needs of our energy future are met safely and responsibly,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. "We can protect the health of American families and communities at the same time we ensure access to all of the important resources that make up our energy economy. The American people expect and deserve nothing less."

Currently, shale gas wastewater can't be discharged directly to US waterways. Some of this wastewater can be reused, but significant amounts still must be disposed. In cases where shale gas wastewater has been transported to treatment plants, it's been found that many are not able to remove contaminants. The EPA says it will consider standards based on demonstrated, economically achievable technologies, for shale gas wastewater that must be met before going to a treatment facility.

The EPA will also develop standards for disposal wastewater from coal bed methane extraction based on economically achievable technologies.

The EPA expects it will be ready to open a proposed coal bed methane wastewater rule for public comment in 2013, and for a proposed shale gas wastewater rule in 2014.

More information is available at EPA's Effluent Guidelines page. The official notice of this action has not been published yet in the Federal Register, but EPA has released a prepublication notice of its schedule to develop natural gas wastewater standards.

Report from SEAB Natural Gas Subcommittee gives me some deja vu

Earlier this week I sat with a group of citizens, oil and gas industry people, and officials from the Department of Environment and Conservation to begin hammering out a proposal for regulation of hydro-fracturing in Tennessee.

This process essentially began with a bill to limit high volume hydro-fracking in the state. In a legislative compromise, Tennesseans got, instead, a resolution that encouraged specified citizen groups, the Tennessee Oil and Gas Association and TDEC to meet with the purpose of proposing regulations to provide necessary oversight for the use of hydrological fracturing as a method of modern natural gas extraction in Tennessee."

House Resolution 98 stated that the goals of these regulations would be

to protect Tennessee’s groundwater quality and drinking water supplies, to protect the collative rights of the land and mineral owners, and to allow for development, protection, and management of the resource of natural gas deposits.

The initial meeting for these purposes on Wednesday was interesting, to say the least. For me, it brought more into focus the ways different stakeholders fundamentally view humankind's relationship to nature, and how those views drive the behavior which -- if analyzed in terms of natural consequences -- tells us how future life on Earth will look.

Source:Energy Information Administration

The day after our meeting in Knoxville, the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB) Natural Gas Subcommittee released a 90-day report on hydrofracking that had been called for in the Obama Administration's Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future. The purpose for this 90-day report was to identify any immediate steps that could be taken to improve the safety and environmental performance of the practice of fracking.

For me, reading this report was a little like deja vu because the recommendations of the Subcommittee closely paralleled the issues that citizen groups had put on the table in our meeting with TDEC and TOGA.

Deja vu all over again was reading responses to the Natural Gas Subcommittee's report. If I hadn't heard them all at the Wednesday meeting, I'd heard it at other meetings and hearings on oil and gas regulations in Tennessee.

For example, Erik Milito of the American Petroleum Institute commented on an analysis of the report and response to it by Michael Levi:

While I have great respect for your coverage of energy issues I have to take issue with your interpretation of my comment on the DOE report. It was meant to underscore that opponents of natural gas who claim that shale gas development is unregulated and unsafe are incorrect and that any work toward improving both the development of energy from shale and perceptions of that development must start with recognizing the hard work that regulators and industry already perform to ensure that this important resource has been, and will continue to be, developed responsibly. Far from being a dismissal of further studies and improvement – best practices and regulations are continuously evolving and part of that evolution is identifying problems and solving them– the comment was a reminder that any DOE recommendations must be based on reality and not on the alarmist rhetoric of those opposed to resource development.

And from Jim at Marcellus Drilling News:

The report says in the Executive Summary:

This 90-day report presents recommendations that if implemented will reduce the environmental impacts from shale gas production. The Subcommittee stresses the importance of a process of continuous improvement in the various aspects of shale gas production that relies on best practices and is tied to measurement and disclosure. While many companies are following such a process, much-broader and more extensive adoption is warranted. The approach benefits all parties in shale gas production: regulators will have more complete and accurate information; industry will achieve more efficient operations; and the public will see continuous, measurable improvement in shale gas activities.

MDN’s interpretation of the above paragraph: Some companies are doing it right, but others are not, and we think a heavy-handed top-down approach that forces everyone to follow our rules is the best solution. Bottom line: Get ready for the federal government to start interfering in states’ business. The federal government is building a case, via this report and no doubt the second report due from the Subcommittee in another 90 days, for a federal takeover of regulations for oil and gas drilling, instead of letting states oversee what is their constitutional right to oversee.

On the other side of the fracking divide, here's an excerpt from an Earthworks press release:

An Energy Department advisory panel today called for swift action to protect air, drinking water and public health from the impacts of the shale gas boom. Earthworks applauded the recommendations, but said loopholes in key environmental laws must still be closed to shield communities in America's gas patch from the risks of drilling and fracking.

Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), who coauthored the FRAC Act, which would mandate public disclosure of fracking chemicals and allow the EPA to regulate fracking under the Safe Drinking Water Act, also released a statement on the report:

I continue to have significant concerns that six of the seven members on the Natural Gas Subcommittee of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board have financial ties to the natural gas industry, which inherently creates a conflict of interest. Nevertheless, the fact that this same subcommittee found a wide array of improvements that should be made by the natural gas industry and government agencies underscores the fact that we as a nation are not adequately prepared yet to protect the public and environment from an unprecedented level of drilling across the country.

You can see more responses via links in Michael Levy's article and in this one by Tara Lohan at Alternet.

 

 The geology of natural gas resources. Source: EIA

The meeting on Wednesday, the Subcommittee Report, and the response to their recommendations has been revealing, and adds much to some research I'm doing on humankind's ambivalent relationship to nature and to the Earth. A core question going forward has to do with how systems change, how they evolve. More to come on that subject....

One more note for people who are concerned about natural gas development and extraction:

Next Monday, August 15th, SEAB will hold an open teleconference at which Natural Gas Subcommittee members will present their report. Members of the public will be able to comment during the teleconference. Registration for this event closed on August 10th, but anyone can still submit comments in writing to Amy Bodette, U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington D.C. 20585, or email to [email protected].

 

Footprints for Peace cyclists join the zombies at rally to stop Bellefonte

Footprints for Peace cyclists Jim Toren, Jon Blickenstaff and Delza Smith stop by the No Zombie Nukes rally. [Photo credit: Cathie Bird]

Three cyclists on their way to the Names and Remembrance Ceremony at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Y-12 plant stopped by for the No Nukes, No Zombie Nukes, No Kidding rally in Knoxville last Friday to stand in solidarity with activists opposing new construction on TVA's Bellefonte Nuclear Generating Station in Alabama.

Jon Blickenstaff, Jim Toren and Delza Smith began their trip in Cincinnati, Ohio for a seven day ride to join the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance (OREPA) in a ceremony to remember people who were killed by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, August 6,1945.

OREPA's next event will be a Peace Lantern Ceremony tomorrow, August 9th at 8pm in Sequoyah Hills Park in Knoxville. That ceremony will mark the destruction of Nagasaki by a second nuclear bomb dropped by the United States on August 9, 1945.

Footprints for Peace is a grassroots group that organizes walks, runs and bike rides throughout the world. Their intent is to create events that bring people together in solidarity to deepen humanity's understanding of spiritual, cultural, and environmental issues.

Another Footprints for Peace event -- Walk Away from Uranium Mining -- will get underway later this month. The 10-week walk from Wiluna to Perth, in western Australia, will give people of all ages, backgrounds and cultures a chance to walk the land, live in a community sharing collective and to educate themselves and the public about the nuclear industry.

Walkers will start on August 22nd, stopping in communities along the route and talking with local people about the nuclear industry and their experiences.

At the moment there are no commercial uranium mines in Western Australia (WA), but there are at least five proposals for uranium mines that are in various stages of approval. Opposition to these proposed mines has been growing.

In June this year, the Western Australia Labor Party confirmed that they would continue to support a nuclear free policy and would remain opposed to uranium mining should their party eventually win government. Then in July a number of groups protested the Australian Uranium Conference.

As in other parts of the world (including the United States) it is often the Indigenous people who suffer the most from uranium mining. According to Richard Evans, Koara (Gwa-da) Traditional Owner of Yeelirrie in WA:

“All those who profit from uranium mining and the nuclear industry -- they should host the radioactive waste dumps, not Aboriginal communities.”

“If uranium from our country is mined it could end up in weapons, it will become radioactive waste or it could be the fallout from a nuclear disaster like Fukushima, we don't want that responsibility of something from our country destroying or hurting people.”

On Friday I had a brief chat with Jon and Jim about the fact that, in the US, connecting all the dots of nuclear energy's dirty cradle-to-grave legacy doesn't always happen. Groups may focus on one link in the chain or another. But no mistake about it: from extraction of uranium to disposal of wastes, from bombs to power generation, the nuclear industry is a dangerous and dirty business.

And if you have been involved to stop mountaintop removal mining, or to protect your community from gas drilling and fracking, or to hold power companies accountable for coal ash, or to keep toxic chemicals out of your neighborhood's air and water, the disregard for the well-being of people and the Earth by the nuclear industry probably sounds really familiar.

I'm really glad Jon, Jim and Delza dropped by the rally. The resistance to destruction of people and nature grows. Be sure to "like" Footprints for Peace on Facebook!

The Colbert Report on fracking

This is the best thing I've seen on fracking in awhile, and comes with the opportunity to lighten up and laugh for a few minutes before getting back to work...

 

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

 

 

"My Water's on Fire Tonight"

Just got a link to this awesome video via @greenforall on Twitter. Here's the video's description at YouTube:

"My Water's On Fire Tonight" is a product of Studio 20 NYU (http://bit.ly/hzGRYP) in collaboration with ProPublica.org (http://bit.ly/5tJN). The song is based on ProPublica's investigation on hydraulic fractured gas drilling (read the full investigation here: http://bit.ly/15sib6).

Music by David Holmes and Andrew Bean
Vocals and Lyrics by David Holmes and Niel Bekker
Animation by Adam Sakellarides and Lisa Rucker

Find us on Twitter:
@studio20_nyu
@propublica
@explainernet
@david_m_holmes
@nielbekker
@adamsounds
@lisaslashjudy

 

Coalfield Residents Deliver Letters to Alpha Energy: Cease Mountaintop Removal Operations | Act Against Extraction

Some Appalachian mountain citizens are paying a visit to Alpha Energy today. They'll give Alpha a piece of their minds about coal companies that blow their homelands to pieces.

Excerpts from press release:

At 1:30 p.m. today, Alpha representatives will be presented with a letter outlining their demands that can be read here. They will also be given a copy of a study that outlines the many economic, social, public health, and environmental benefits that would result from a Coal River Mountain wind farm, as an alternative to surface mining. The study can be found here (PDF).

Coalfield residents and their allies hope to meet soon with representatives of Alpha to discuss how the company can work with coalfield communities to build alternatives to surface mining that will respect the land and the people. If Alpha is unwilling to put a stop to the destruction, the residents state they will continue their struggle on a local, state, and national level to abolish mountaintop removal mining and reclaim communities that have been devastated by this practice. According to Junior Walk, “If [Alpha] continues to poison us, our friends, and our families, as Massey has, we have a lot of people in our corner willing to stand up and fight beside us.”

For more information, see:
http://rampscampaign.org
http://www.crmw.net/
http://mountainkeeper.blogspot.com/
http://www.samsva.org/

via www.extractionaction.net