I had the pleasure of providing testimony on a citizens conference call to the White House Office of Management Continue reading
Video: Kicking Coal's Ash in Maryland!
From cradle to grave, Maryland’s power is dirty. This dirty energy leads to adverse health and environmental impacts. Maryland has some of the most ambitious environmental laws in the country; now we need your help to make sure that the laws we worked so hard to pass are implemented and enforced!
National Day of Action Against Coal Ash
This is cross-posted from Sierra Club’s Blog
This is the weekly post from Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign.
Today, Jan 28th, Sierra Club and our allies at Earthjustice, Environmental Integrity Project, NRDC and grassroots groups across the country are participating in a national day of action to urge the Obama Administration to move forward with strong, federally enforceable rules to regulate coal ash disposal.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is working on proposed rules to ensure the safe disposal of coal ash
Coal's Dirty Little Secret: Toxic Coal Ash in Prince George's County.
Today, coal’s dirty little secret is revealed in a pretty rural portion of Prince George’s County, Maryland.
EPA Releases locations of 44 "high risk" coal ash impoundment sites.
Yesterday the EPA performed a turn-around on its protection of the locations of 44 “high risk” coal ash impoundment sites, signaling a desire to make the regulatory body more transparent.
Formerly protected under the auspices of national security, the ash impoundments, located in Ohio, Arizona, and throughout the southeast, have been determined to be particularly vulnerable to failure. In a time where the future of American energy remains stuck between antiquated fossil fuels and cleaner, renewable technology, concerns over proper disposal of coal ash has risen to the top of the debate, particularly after last December’s TVA sludge disaster in Roane County, Tennessee.
The reason behind this concern is, of course, fairly easy to identify. Coal slurry ponds, which may hold several billion gallons of the toxic sludge, are typically held in place by earthen dams made of rock and other fill material. While typically sturdy, history has shown us that these dams are definitely prone to failure, especially when not regulated properly. In fact, the dangers surrounding slurry dams have been well known and well documented for decades. West Virginia’s Buffalo Creek Flood of 1972 destroyed over 500 homes with a 30-foot high, 132 million gallon wave of the toxic stuff. When blasting occurs near these ponds (as it does near Marsh Fork Elmentary in Sunrise, WV), the risk becomes intensified as nearby shockwaves may threaten the structural integrity of the dam.
Fly ash, though dry and therefore less at risk to flooding, presents just as serious a hazard to the local ecosystem, including surrounding communities, wildlife, and groundwater reserves. Fly ash is stored in landfills, most of which are lined, but all of which are failure-prone. Particles in the air, blown from these ash impoundments, can cause serious health problems such as asthma and other respiratory diseases. Like wet slurry, fly ash contains a cocktail of harmful heavy metals and other contaminants that present a serious threat to the local and regional ecosystem
Kicking Congress' Ash
By Bill McKibben, crossposted from Gristmill
Snow doesn’t dampen turnout for anti-coal rally in D.C.
The day’s scorecard:
1) Largest anti-coal action yet in the United States: Thousands and thousands of people flooding the streets around the Capitol Hill power plant.
2) Largest demonstration in many years where everyone was wearing dress clothes: The point was to stress that there’s nothing radical about shutting down coal-fired power. In fact, there’s everything radical about continuing to pour carbon into the air just to see what happens.
3) Smallest counter-protest in world’s history: By my count, the Competitive Enterprise Institute managed to muster four demonstrators for its “celebration of coal” rally, which is about the right size. (But they were kind of sweet; they had signs that said: “Al Gore, Not Evil, Just Wrong.”)
4) Number of arrests: None, zip, zilch, nada. The police said so many demonstrators showed up that they had no hope of jailing them all. So we merrily violated the law all afternoon, blocking roads and incommoding sidewalks and other desperate stuff, all without a permit or a say so. We shut down the power plant for the day. And we’d pre-won our main victory anyhow, when Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid preemptively cried uncle last week and announced they weren’t going to burn coal in their plant any more.
5) Quantity of broad smiles afterwards: Almost unlimited. And in the air, there was the strong sense that we can do this. Really. What fun.
Bill McKibben, a Grist board member, is co-founder of 350.org, and author most recently of Deep Economy.