The Front Porch Blog

A Great Day for Virginia Streams

Tuesday, July 23rd, 2013 | Posted by Eric Chance | No Comments

Two headed trout, a result of selenium pollution. Courtesy of USFWS.

Yesterday, advocates for clean water won a major court victory in Virginia. Under a court order, A&G Coal will be the first coal company in Virginia required to get a permit for their discharges of toxic selenium. U.S. District Judge James P. Jones ruled that because the company did not tell regulators that they might discharge selenium, their permit does not allow them to.

Selenium is a common pollutant at many Appalachian coal mines and is toxic to fish at very low levels, causing deformities, reproductive failure and death.

The case was brought by the Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards (SAMS), Sierra Club and Appalachian Voices, represented by Appalachian Mountain Advocates.

>> Read the press release to find out more
>> Read the judge’s ruling here

Tenn. Tuesday: Thanks to Senator Corker, Senator Alexander

Tuesday, July 23rd, 2013 | Posted by JW Randolph | No Comments

Tennessee Senators Vote to Confirm Clean Air Expert Gina McCarthy to Lead Environmental Protection Agency

Last week, the United States Senate came down with a strange case of self-loathing and took the rare — some would say extreme — step of actually doing something. Old political professionals, say that this is called “action.” Appalachian Voices members will be most enthused to learn that one of the actions taken by the Senate was to approve longtime clean air advocate Gina McCarthy as the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

After a historic five months of obstruction and delay, the EPA has a leader again, and Republicans, Democrats and Independents can now return to their regularly scheduled lobbing of criticisms at the agency charged with protecting human health and the environment.” You may consider that quaint, but I say we empower them!

Unfortunately, it seems that the House representatives, ever-quicker to exercise their dysfunction, have caught the do-something-itis, and in doing so have proposed cutting EPA funding by 34 percent in their newest budget proposal. I hope you aren’t using your health or environment more than once a week.

Gina McCarthy was confirmed by a bipartisan vote of 59-40. Appalachian Voices urged a “YES” vote on her confirmation, and senators Alexander and Corker both deserve a big round of applause for voting to confirm Administrator McCarthy. Her expertise and experience working on air quality issues will play a key role in protecting the health and well-being of Tennessee’s citizens, not to mention our $15 billion tourism industry that depends on decent air quality in our beautiful mountains. Senators Alexander and Corker, THANK YOU.
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Court Victory for Clean Water in Kentucky: The Battle Continues

Friday, July 19th, 2013 | Posted by Eric Chance | No Comments

Acidic mine water being discharged from one of Frasure Creek’s Kentucky coal mines

Last week, an attempt by the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet to toss concerned citizens out of court failed.

Judge Phillip Shepherd denied a motion to dismiss our challenge of a settlement between Frasure Creek Mining and the cabinet. Appalachian Voices and our partners KFTC, Kentucky Riverkeeper and Waterkeeper Alliance, will now be allowed to proceed with our argument that the settlement should be vacated.

In October of 2010, we filed a Notice of Intent to Sue Frasure Creek for submitting false water monitoring data. Frasure Creek and the cabinet reached a settlement for those violations, but it has not been approved by the court. Before that, the data Frasure Creek submitted to the state never showed any violations. After our legal action, they switched labs and began showing hundreds of water quality violations every month.

We attempted to sue Frasure Creek for these subsequent violations, but the cabinet filed a complaint in state administrative court for the same violations. We intervened and became full parties to that case, but then a slap on the wrist settlement was entered between Frasure Creek and the cabinet completely without our consent. Our current challenge to this settlement is based on the fact that we are full parties in the case yet we had no say in the settlement’s creation.

The cabinet attempted to get our challenge thrown out because they claimed that we did not follow proper procedures when we filed it, but the judge dismissed their arguments. Now, the cabinet must respond to the substance of our challenge.

>> Click here to read the ruling
>> Click here to read more about this challenge
>> Click here for more information on our Kentucky Litigation

Appalachian Voices Calls On New EPA Administrator To End Mountaintop Removal Mining

Thursday, July 18th, 2013 | Posted by Brian Sewell | 2 Comments

Appalachian Voices congratulates U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy on her confirmation.

After more than five months of delay and threats of filibuster, the U.S. Senate today confirmed Gina McCarthy by a vote of 59-40 to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It was the longest delay of a presidential nominee’s confirmation in the agency’s history.

Under President Obama, the EPA has been vilified by the fossil fuel industry and its allies on Capitol Hill who seek to thwart regulations that protect the environment and public health. Since McCarthy’s nomination, anti-environmental forces have blocked her confirmation and compelled her to respond to a record 1,100 questions from senators.

McCarthy, who prior to today’s confirmation held the position of assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, has worked in state and federal government for 25 years and has an established record of working across the aisle to protect the environment. As EPA administrator, she will have the task of implementing the Obama administration’s climate action plan, as well as finalizing several critical rule-makings to which the agency has committed.

Following is a statement from Appalachian Voices Executive Director Tom Cormons:

“We congratulate Ms. McCarthy on her hard-won confirmation, which demonstrates her mettle in facing tough issues with graciousness and fortitude, qualities she will surely need in the months and years ahead.

“We are encouraged by Ms. McCarthy’s understanding of the impact on American families and communities from the air and water pollution that come from extracting and burning fossil fuels, and urge her to bring an end to one of the most destructive industrial practices occurring today—mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia.

“We look forward to working with her as she undertakes the central issue of our lifetime as framed by the president—reducing the country’s greenhouse gas pollution while also addressing the escalating impacts occurring right here in the U.S. from climate change.”

As the Barn Burns, the House Stays Cold on Energy Efficiency

Thursday, July 18th, 2013 | Posted by Rory McIlmoil | 3 Comments

Learn more about Appalachian Voices work to expand energy efficiency programs among rural electric cooperatives in our region.

There has been much ado about energy efficiency in Congress recently, but so far there’s nothing to show for it.

On June 12, we wrote about the Rural Energy Savings Program (RESP), which could help millions of residential electricity customers across the United States access low-cost financing for improving the energy efficiency of their homes, leading to substantial savings on their electricity bills. This in turn would lower electricity costs for all residential customers while bolstering local economies and promoting the expansion of the energy services industry (read: jobs).

At the time, RESP had been passed through the U.S. Senate as part of the Senate Farm Bill, and we were awaiting the House to pass it’s own bill, which did not include RESP. The next step would be to ensure that RESP survived the conference committee where the two versions were brought together and a final Farm Bill was agreed upon between the two chambers. However, since our last post on this issue, the House failed to pass a Farm Bill at all and has now split the bill into two separate bills, complicating the whole process.
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$108 Million awarded for VA Coalfields Expressway?

Thursday, July 11th, 2013 | Posted by Nathan Jenkins | 1 Comment

Residents fear the Coalfields Expressway highway project will benefit coal companies more than the communities it will bypass. Photo by the Virginia Department of Transportation.

To help citizens raise their concerns around the coal industry-proposed route of the Coalfields Expressway in southwest Virginia, we’re inviting residents of the commonwealth to submit letters to the editor of their local newspapers. Sign-up to submit your own letter to the editor here.

Recent headlines announcing $108 million in funding for the Coalfields Expressway suggest the project is well on its way to completion. Unfortunately, $108 million is a tiny sum compared to the total amount officials hope the Virginia and federal taxpayer will spend on this project.

The next section, currently under review by the Virginia Department of Transportation, is more than 24 miles long, routed by the coal industry for maximum extraction, and is slated to cost $2.8 billion – before cost overruns, which seem inevitable.

VDOT would like taxpayers to focus on the 45 percent savings promised on these “coal-synergy” highway projects but, perhaps, the majority of southwest Virginians would rather see 2.8 billion spent on improving the narrow pot-holed roads that take them to work and back home, which would leave plenty of money to support high-speed internet – something that is much more likely to bring prosperity to the region than an isolated highway that bypasses communities rather than directing visitors to them.
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“Help My House” pilot program helps low-income residents save money and energy in South Carolina

Wednesday, July 10th, 2013 | Posted by Rory McIlmoil | 2 Comments

After a successful year, the Help My House pilot program proves that on-bill financing for energy efficiency benefits customers, electricity providers and the environment.

“On-bill financing” is a term typically used to describe loan programs for home energy efficiency improvements where the loan is paid back through an extra charge on a customer’s electricity bill. This is not a novel idea, as it has been implemented on various scales and in various forms by municipalities, electric cooperatives (“co-ops”) and even large for-profit utilities across America.

Additionally, loans for energy efficiency retrofits might not sound very exciting to the average American citizen who understands what a loan is, and more and more, what it is like to face debt for years on end. However, on-bill financing is not just another loan program.

The concept of on-bill financing has emerged as an effective and affordable way to help low- and middle-income residents overcome financial barriers to saving energy and money, improving the value of their home, and living a more comfortable life, while at the same time reducing the environmental impacts associated with burning fossil fuels to produce electricity and heat. The goal of such loans is to finance home energy improvements that result in a net savings for the resident, rather than a net cost.

For these reasons, Appalachian Voices, through our Energy Savings for Appalachia program has been hitting the road to promote on-bill financing as a way to help residents save energy and money while promoting economic development and environmental protection at the same time.
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Tenn Tuesday: Haslam Can’t Keep Hands off the Family Business. Alexander and Corker To Support Critical Energy-Efficiency Legislation? Squirrel!

Tuesday, July 9th, 2013 | Posted by JW Randolph | 2 Comments

Haslam Dragged Down by Coal Ties, TVA All Over the Place, Critical Energy Savings Votes in the U.S. Senate as early as this week.

Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam’s troubles continue to be front and center in the national media, with the Associated Press, Wall Street Journal and The Tennessean reporting on Governor Haslam failure to meet his recusal pledge to stay away from the family business, which understandably has serious trouble avoiding the coal industry advocates on its own board of directors.

In May, Tom Ingram told NewsChannel5 Investigates that his firm had not registered with the state that it lobbied for a coal [company] over a three year period because of an “inadvertent oversight.”

The coal company wants to mine on a state wildlife area.

Channel 5 has been doing fantastic work on Governor Haslam’s direct ties to the coal industry, and is finding more questions than answers.

Haslam’s connections to those who would surface mine on our public lands have angered Tennesseans from all walks of life.

Steve Gill, who is the head of Gill Media and a former conservative radio host, said the whole situation looks bad.

“The reason you have these reporting regulations in place is so that everybody will know what side of the game you’re playing on,” said Gill.

“If Republicans were looking at a Democrat governor doing the same sort of things we’ve seen with the private, under the table hiring of Tom Ingram, they’d be pitching a hissy fit,” Gill said.

Ingram declined our request for an interview or to even speak on the phone. His firm sent a letter in response to our questions.

Moving on, as soon as this week, but certainly sometime before Congress mercifully takes their August recess, we expect the Senate to vote on the Energy Savings Act of 2013, otherwise known as Shaheen-Portman (S. 761). This bipartisan legislation had broad support coming out of the Senate Energy Committee by a vote of 19-3.
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Tenn Tuesday: Happy Independence Day!

Tuesday, July 2nd, 2013 | Posted by JW Randolph | No Comments

I’m glad to live in a country where crazy stuff happens, but we are at least are able to stand up, criticize and even fire those in charge

Welcome to Tennessee Tuesday! We’ve got our grills, our flags, and our green tomatoes just waitin to be fried. We’ll be fairly succinct this week as we look to pack 5 days of work into an abbreviated work-week and planning for a trip back to our nation’s capitol next week to talk about some exciting energy efficiency developments happening in Congress.

TDEC brought on themselves another round of embarrassment after the (now former) Deputy Director of Water Resources called citizen water complaints “terroristic.” [audio]

Yes, yes, it’s a strange time in America when protecting Appalachia from being blown apart is a threat to national security and we have to poison our own water in secret to stop the terrorists.

Wow.

A state environmental official suggested at a public meeting that Mt. Pleasant residents who have filed formal complaints about city water quality are committing “an act of terrorism” if their concerns have no basis.

Sherwin Smith, deputy director of the Tennessee Department of Environment’s Division of Water Resources, made the comment and repeated it during a May 29 meeting between TDEC officials, State Rep. Sheila Butt and members of the grassroots activism group Statewide Organizing for Community Empowerment (SOCM).

Rep Sheila Butt and I have spoken on several occasions, and while we don’t agree on everything, I’ve found her to always have an open ear, and to be an avid enthusiast for the democratic process – at the very least. She was not impressed by Mr. Smith’s words.

However, Rep. Butt — whose district includes Mt. Pleasant — was present at the meeting for any clarification Smith may have provided and said his comments were out of place.

“I just have to say that meeting was set up with some citizens of Mt. Pleasant and we were simply talking about water quality and rates of service there, and that comment was really out of context for the meeting that we were having,” Butt said Thursday. “That was my take then and that’s my take now.

“I’m sure he’s sorry he even brought it up,” she continued. “Nobody was talking about terrorism in that meeting.”

It seems that these “terrorists” may have won, as the City of Mt. Pleasant was forced to test their water to make sure that it wasn’t poisonous. Encouraging!… (more…)

Coal Ash Update: Legislatin’, Litigatin’ and Fillin’

Monday, July 1st, 2013 | Posted by | No Comments

The N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources recently filed a lawsuit Riverbend plants to stop coal ash pollution of drinking water sources.

The N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources sued Duke Energy to stop coal ash pollution from contaminating Mountain Island Lake, the Charlotte Metro area’s primary drinking water source. Click the photo to watch a short video.

“Passing a bad piece of coal ash legislation prolongs our pollution problem and makes the possibility of an accident much more of a reality.”

These words, from a recent letter to the editor in the Asheville Citizen-Times, reflect the growing discomfort over coal ash storage and how legislators are tackling the problem.

Coal ash is the waste byproduct from burning coal, and is stored in large unlined, earthen ponds, usually near waterways. It contains toxic chemicals such as lead, arsenic and selenium, and can leak from the ponds into groundwater. When improperly constructed and inspected, coal ash ponds can burst — the most horrific example of this occurred in 2008, when a pond at TVA’s Kingston, Tenn., coal plant ruptured and more than 1 billion gallons of the toxic substance surged into local waters and communities. Cleanup efforts are ongoing.

In the wake of the Kingston coal ash disaster many called for federal regulations on coal ash storage. While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has repeatedly delayed releasing the rule, which could be released as early as 2014, many at the state and federal level have tried to stop the EPA from doing just that.
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Help Update Our Retro Wastewater Standards on July 9th

Monday, July 1st, 2013 | Posted by Thom Kay | No Comments

By Jessie Mehrhoff
Mountaintop Removal Campaign intern, Summer 2013

Join us on July 9 at a public hearing in Washington, D.C., to support the EPA and request that strict wastewater pollution limits replace the outdated rule.

The last power plant discharge standards were introduced more than 30 years ago. On Tuesday, July 9, join us at a public hearing in Washington, D.C., to support the EPA and request that strict wastewater pollution limits replace the outdated rule.

Each year, coal-fired power plants dump 80,000 pounds of arsenic, 65,000 pounds of lead, and 3,000 pounds of mercury into U.S. waterways. More than 23,000 miles of America’s rivers have been sullied due to the lack of pollution standards for wastewater discharged from power plants.

On Tuesday, July 9, you can help fix this.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will hold a hearing on the proposed Effluent Limitation Guidelines, a set of standards that would reduce the amount of power plant pollution dumped into U.S. waters by up to 5.6 billion pounds annually. Attendance at the July 9 hearing is critical because it is the only public hearing currently planned for the proposed pollution limits.

The Clean Water Act was passed in 1972 and the last power plant discharge standards were introduced ten years later in 1982. To put things into perspective: Michael Jackson’s song “Thriller” was also released in 1982. As a college student, I am glad that “Thriller” is a classic; it’s a catchy tune enjoyed by those of us born even decades after its release. I am not thrilled, however, by the fact that our current power plant wastewater discharge standards debuted the same year. Pollution standards should not become “classic.”
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Reflections on the President’s Climate Change Speech

Friday, June 28th, 2013 | Posted by Tom Cormons | 4 Comments

On June 25, I gathered with my co-workers to watch President Obama unveil his vision for addressing climate change. It was encouraging to hear the president frame the issue in terms of a “moral imperative,” and the fact that he’s ready to take on power plant emissions — the single largest source of greenhouse gases in the U.S. — shows that he’s serious.

But no energy plan can be built on a moral foundation without ensuring that areas like Appalachia, heavily impacted by the country’s continued over-reliance on fossil fuels, don’t get left behind. The devastating practice of mountaintop removal coal mining has no place in a 21st Century energy plan.

President Obama must stop industry from pushing the costs of doing business off on communities and our environment. More than 20 health studies have shown that residents of Appalachian coal counties, particularly those living near mountaintop removal sites, suffer higher cancer rates, more birth defects, and have shorter life spans than other citizens.

The administration needs to address these immediate issues while also doing more to invest in energy efficiency and renewable sources — particularly in Appalachia. Such investments will go far to create jobs, economic security and environmental health for our region.

I applaud the president’s determination to make the issue of climate change a top priority on the national agenda. Appalachian Voices stands ready to work with his administration to achieve a new energy future, for Appalachia and America.

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