Colbert on Mountaintop Removal

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/261997/january-18-2010/coal-comfort---margaret-palmer

Coal Country at SCC

Moore County Sustainable Film Series

Join us for great films in 2010

Our Next film is "Coal Country"
January 14th, 6:30
Sandhills Community College
Dempsey Student Center, Clement Dining Room

Sustainable Sandhills invites everyone to join us for the screening of "Coal Country," a film by Mari-Lynn Evans and Phylis Geller. The film is FREE so bring a friend and join in the discussion.

"Coal Country" tells the dramatic struggle around the use of coal, which provides over half the electricity in America. Passions are running high in the mountains of Appalachia. Families and communities are deeply split over what is being done to their land. At issue is the latest form of strip mining called ‘mountain top removal'. Coal companies blast the tops off mountains, and run the debris into valleys and streams. Then they mine the exposed seams of coal and transport it to processing plants. Coal is mined more cheaply than ever, and America needs coal. But the air and water are filled with chemicals, and an ancient mountain range is disappearing forever. Join us for a discussion of the social impact of cheap energy in America.

Bring the family! All ages are invited and it's FREE! We look forward to seeing you there!

Coal Country at Sandhills CC

http://www.sustainablesandhills.org/docs/CoalCountryScreeninginJanuary.pdf

Coal-Free in Kentucky

http://www.grist.org/article/copenhagen-at-home-coal-free-future-begins-in-kentucky

Blackout, on Coal Energy

http://www.postcarbon.org/book/40580-blackout

Raven's Wing Movie Tonight Is. . .

Award-winning film Kilowatt Ours: A Plan to Re-Energize America is a timely, solutions-oriented look at one of America’s most pressing environmental challenges: energy.
Filmmaker Jeff Barrie offers hope as he turns the camera on himself and asks, “How can I make a difference?” In his journey Barrie explores the source of our electricity and the problems caused by energy production including mountain top removal, childhood asthma and global warming. Along the way he encounters individuals, businesses, organizations, and communities who are leading the way, using energy conservation, efficiency and renewable, green power all while saving money and the environment.

This often amusing and always inspiring story shows, “You can easily make a difference and here’s how!”

In-depth Article on Peak Oil

http://www.truthout.org/092209W?n describes current energy sources and their continuing scarcity; meanwhile, alternative energies lag far behind. A recipe for more environmental degradation and global energy wars. Please insist that our local governments are discussing these issues and developing some sensible plans to get us thru the next very difficult decades.

Duke Energy Leaving the Dark Side

http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-02-duke-energy-quits-scandal-ridden-american-coalition-for-clean-co/

A Victory for Clean Energy

http://understory.ran.org/2009/08/11/judge-rules-dominions-wise-county-va-plant-air-permits-unlawful/

Conservation Insider Bulletin, Aug. 7

Conservation Insider Bulletin
Published weekly for the Conservation Council of North Carolina
Conservation News to Peruse & Use
Editor: Dan Besse, cib@conservationcouncilnc.org

August 7, 2009

More complete legislative updates will be provided in future editions, but here's where some major environmental items stand as of today's CIB press time.

Budget Approved: More than a month late and pleasing no one, the General Assembly finally approved a budget. The combination of major program cuts and significant tax increases, in response to plummeting revenues caused by the deep recession, left a sour mood in all camps. In the process, critical environmental programs took their share of hard knocks. Within the context of these very rough times, Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford), chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Natural and Economic Resources, reports what has to be taken as the good news. The Office of Environmental Education was not eliminated, despite a Senate recommendation to do so. The Clean Water Management Trust Fund received a $50 million appropriation—not enough to make up for what was raided by the governor to cover last year's shortfalls, but much better than nothing. Finally, the Farmland Preservation Trust Fund got $2 million. Overall, spending in the categories of "natural and economic resources" took $61.2 million in cuts compared to last year's budget.

An Ill Wind: The Senate this week approved a version of SB 106 "Permitting of Wind Energy Facilities", which would effectively ban commercial wind generation in the mountains. This unfortunate turn has pitted scenic preservationists against advocates of renewable energy development. Clean energy advocates point out that the two perspectives don't have to be taken as in fundamental conflict, and that a reasonable accommodation can both preserve scenic mountain vistas and make use of a clean, reliable energy source. The Senate-passed version of the bill fails to meet that test. Fortunately, the House referred the legislation to the House Energy and Energy Efficiency Committee, to be followed by review in the House Finance Committee. This seems to indicate that the measure will be reviewed with deliberation, and improvements will be sought. Final action will likely come in 2010.

Positive Energy: Not all the energy-related news was bad. Two important energy-related items have received late legislative approval. The state's renewable energy tax credit (HB 512) was extended until 2016; and local governments were authorized to establish revolving loan funds for energy improvements (HB 1389). HB 1389 will authorize municipalities and counties to use federal stimulus and other funds to finance loans for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects. These two bills will help to keep clean energy development moving in our state during a very tough economic period.

Judicial Watch: Roadless Rule Restored

There's good news for our national forests from the federal courts this week. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (out in California) has reinstated the 2001 "roadless rule" enacted by the Clinton administration just before he left office. The court's ruling tosses out a 2005 decision by the U.S. Forest Service under the Bush administration, which had reversed the Clinton rule.

The restored Roadless Rule blocks most commercial logging, mining, and other development from 58.5 million acres of roadless areas in the national forests. These roadless areas are de facto wilderness, often including areas of our remaining old growth forest, including areas in North Carolina.

The court's decision should provide regular rule underpinning to secure the Obama administration's temporary moratorium on further development in these important wilderness areas. U.S. Interior Secretary Tom Vilsack had taken personal review of all development proposals in these areas under a directive to the Forest Service on May 28 of this year.

The Other Side: Big Coal Pays for Fake Lobbying Letters

Sometimes the machinations of the forces opposing action on climate change impress even the hardened cynics. One such case was revealed this week with news that the "American Coalition for Clean Coal Energy" was bankrolling a PR firm which sent blatantly fabricated letters opposing climate change legislation to members of Congress.

The "Clean Coal Energy" group, of course, is just a front group for the coal industry itself. Nothing new there. The PR firm it hired, Bonner & Associates, was generating "astroturf" (artificial 'grassroots' lobbying) letters to swing voters in Congress. Ho-hum, old story.

But here's the kicker. These letters weren't just goosed up by Bonner; they were made up. The letterheads of real groups, like a Hispanic network group and a Virginia NAACP chapter, were used to fake letters purportedly coming from those groups, in opposition to climate change action.

According to news reports, the newspaper Charlottesville(Va.) Daily Progress "broke" news of the scandal in the case of the fake letters sent to first-term U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA5). Since then, other similar fakes have been found to representatives from Pennsylvania. The PR firm apparently sought to target recently elected Democrats from swing districts in states where the coal industry has political clout.

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow has had a field day reporting on the scandal this week, including an interview with Perriello. Among her points, she noted that the "shocked, shocked" reaction from the "Clean Coal Energy" group ignored a previous history of similar scams involving the Bonner firm. According to Maddow's research, the "Clean Coal" group even knew about the fake letters before the House voted on ACES (American Clean Energy and Security Act) in late June, but failed to reveal the scam.

Debate in Congress over recent weeks has focused primarily on health care reform efforts—but some scandals are just too juicy to be entirely suppressed. Lettergate may prove to be one of these.

Education & Resources: eRulemaking Site Upgrades Public Access

The EPA announced this week that its eRulemaking Program has launched a "significant upgrade" to www.regulations.gov, the site which provides "one-stop, public access to information related to current and forthcoming regulations issued by the federal government." The 8/3/09 EPA news release specifically touted "improved search capabilities, new navigation tools, and easier access to areas for the public to provide comments on proposed regulations." The EPA acts as managing agency partner for the inter-agency eRulemaking Program.

This is no doubt news eagerly awaited by the burgeoning Green Cybergeek Community, of which there may be more members than I might have thought a couple of years ago. It will probably even be useful for the rest of us who periodically need to check the content or status of a federal rulemaking proposal.

And the odds are, you heard it here first. Another scoop for CIB. Eat out your hearts, mainstream media.

Coal Country, the Movie; Too Bad It's So Dirty

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/07/03-9

Let's Dim the Lights for W.VA.

Published on Saturday, July 4, 2009 by The Charleston Gazette (West Viginia)
Mountaintop Removal: Fourth of July Festival Organizers Fear Violence
by Paul J. Nyden

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Larry Gibson, the well-known, 72-year-old activist against mountaintop-removal mining, will host his annual July 4 music festival at his Kayford Mountain home above Cabin Creek Saturday and Sunday.

"I've been having this event, which is open to the public, for 23 years. Everyone is welcome," Gibson said.

Maria Gunnoe, a Boone County native, who won this year's international Goldman Environmental Prize in April for her anti-mountaintop-removal activism, is among the many planning to attend.

"A lot of elders and a lot of children, show up," Gunnoe said. "Normally, it is very peaceful.

"People get together, socialize and listen to very diverse music," she said. "Some is traditional Appalachian music. Some is music for younger teenagers, including rock music. It is a good time with your family and friends."

But both Gibson and Gunnoe worry this year's festival could spark hostility and possibly violence, especially after last week's arrest of demonstrators protesting Massey Energy's mountaintop removal operations in Boone County.

Gibson, in particular, said he has received threats since the arrests.

No one could be reached at Massey Energy's offices in Boone County on Friday.

A spokesman for the Kanawha County Sheriff's Department said he had heard nothing about any rumors of violence at Gibson's planned July 4 celebration.

On June 23, 31 picketers were arrested, including: actress Daryl Hannah, National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientist James Hansen and former Democratic Congressman and West Virginia Secretary of State Ken Hechler.

Protesting near Sundial, the picketers were charged with obstructing police officers and impeding traffic after sitting in the middle of W.Va. 3 near a controversial Massey coal preparation plant next to Marsh Fork Elementary School.

A nearby Massey dam impounds about 3 billion gallons of coal sludge from company mining operations.

Gibson's festival started out as a family reunion, but quickly grew into an annual community event.

Last week, Gunnoe distanced herself from "out-of-state environmentalists," explaining, "We are connected to the environment around our home lands. We care about our culture. But that does not make us tree huggers."

Gibson hopes today's event is well attended.

"Everyone is welcome. Bring a covered dish. But this is not a place for any kind of violence. But bring a conversation to the table. I would be glad to talk to anyone," Gibson said.

Gibson, whose family has lived on or near Kayford Mountain since the late 1700s, travels around the country speaking about mountaintop removal at colleges, churches, public seminars and community groups

"The stand I am taking here is not so much for myself," Gibson said, "but for all of the people living in this part of the country."

Gunnoe said, "Some people have had windows broken out of their vehicles because they had 'We Love Mountains' stickers on their bumpers.

"For years, mountaintop removal blasting has covered our homes up with dust and polluted our water," she said. "People fight mountaintop removal because they have lost their water, their land and their quality of life."

March Against Coal Madness

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2009/06/23-2

We the People Give a Darn

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/03-2

Mountain-top Removal Ok-ed

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/06/02-4

Safe Climate Means NO Coal

'Safe' climate means 'no to coal' *Keeping global temperatures within "safe" limits means leaving most of the world's fossil fuel reserves unburned, scientists conclude.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/2/hi/science/nature/8023072.stm

Civil Disobedience in Climate Change Fight

In Climate Fight, a Time For Civil Disobedience?
By Patty Henetz, Salt Lake Tribune, January 23, 2009.

"Al Gore... in September called for moral lawbreaking.

'If you're a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration,' Gore told the Clinton Global Initiative gathering to loud applause, according to Reuters news service.

Since then, author and environmentalist Bill McKibben and poet Wendell Berry have chimed in. Last month, they wrote an open letter, which has circulated widely on the Web, urging mass civil disobedience against coal in March...

Heeding such calls, organizers are mobilizing for a mass act of nonviolent civil disobedience March 2 to protest coal-fired power plants and the damage industrial pollution has caused to the planet's climate.

'We're hoping and preparing for thousands,' said Matt Leonard, the Greenpeace coordinator for the event. 'It will certainly be the largest such action on climate change in U.S. history. We hope it will be the first of many.'

Protesters will gather at the [coal-fired] Capital Power Plant in Washington -- source of heat and refrigeration for the entire Capitol complex -- walk on to the property, sit down and thereby break the law." For more info go to CapitolClimateAction.com.
--
"Let’s all of us make sure that when we look back, in decades to come, we can say:
We saw the threat.
We responded to the challenge.
We did our bit."
Ed Milliband

Technology to the Rescue?

http://allalongtheedge.blogspot.com/2009/01/technology-to-rescue-probably-not.html

Dynegy Cancels Coal Deal

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/6192049.html

More On "Clean" Coal

Our own Chandra Taylor (Conservation Council of NC) in the news--
updated 8:26 a.m. EST, Wed December 24, 2008

Tennessee sludge spill runs over homes, water
By Samira J. Simone CNN

(CNN) -- A wall holding back 80 acres of sludge from a coal plant in central Tennessee broke this week, spilling more than 500 million gallons of waste into the surrounding area.

Environmental Protection Agency officials are on the scene and expect the cleanup to to take four to six weeks.

The sludge, a byproduct of ash from coal combustion, was contained at a retention site at the Tennessee Valley Authority's power plant in Kingston, about 40 miles east of Knoxville, agency officials said.

The retention wall breached early Monday, sending the sludge downhill and damaging 15 homes. All the residents were evacuated, and three homes were deemed uninhabitable, a TVA spokesman told CNN.

The plant sits on a tributary of the Tennessee River called the Clinch River.

"We deeply regret that a retention wall for ash containment at our Kingston Fossil Plant failed, resulting in an ash slide and damage to nearby homes," TVA said in a statement released Tuesday.

TVA spokesman Gil Francis told CNN that up to 400 acres of land had been coated by the sludge, a bigger area than the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Video footage showed sludge as high as 6 feet, burying porches and garage doors. The slide also downed nearby power lines, though the TVA said power had been restored to the area.

Francis said Environmental Protection Agency officials were on the scene and estimated the cleanup could take four to six weeks.

Some of the goop spilled into the tributary, but preliminary water quality tests show that the drinking water at a nearby treatment plant meets standards.

"I don't want to drink it. It doesn't look healthy to me," Jody Miles, who fishes in the Clinch River, told CNN affiliate WBIR. "Do you reckon they can bring all this life back that's going to die from all this mess?"

Still, there is the potential for more sludge to enter the water supply through waste runoff.

"We're taking steps to stabilize runoff from this incident," Francis said.

Although video from the scene shows dead fish on the banks of the tributary, he said that "in terms of toxicity, until an analysis comes in, you can't call it toxic."

One environmental attorney called that statement "irresponsible." The ash that gives sludge its thick, pudding-like consistency in this case is known as fly ash, which results from the combustion of coal.

Fly ash contains concentrated amounts of mercury, arsenic and benzine, said Chandra Taylor, staff attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center.

"These things are naturally occurring, but they concentrate in the burning process and the residual is more toxic than it starts," she told CNN.

Appalachian environmentalists compared the mess with another spill eight years ago in eastern Kentucky, where the bottom of a coal sludge impoundment owned by Massey Energy broke into an abandoned underground mine, oozing more than 300 million gallons of coal waste into tributaries.

The water supply for more than 25,000 residents was contaminated, and aquatic life in the area perished. It took months to clean up the spill.

"If the estimates are correct, this spill is one and a half times bigger," said Dave Cooper, an environmental advocate with the Mountaintop Removal Road Show, a traveling program that explains the effect of an extreme form of mining.

While the full scope of the TVA spill is being determined, coal critics are already concerned about its long-term effects.

Cleaning up the mess, which could fill nearly 800 Olympic-size swimming pools, could take months or years, Taylor said.

"We're very concerned about how long it's going to take" to clean the spill, she told CNN.

Cooper agreed, saying, "It's 4, 5 feet deep. How are you going to scoop it up? Where are you going to put it?"