Compass

Eleven Senators Call out Clinton on Keystone XL

Eleven influential senators led by Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) wrote a letter to Secretary Hillary Clinton urging her to answer some critical questions before granting approval to the massive Keystone XL pipeline, which would pump tar sands crude from Montana to Texas and through the largest aquifer in the US.

The senators highlighted ten concerns with the current proposal, including a failure to account for dramatic increases in greenhouse gas emissions, lack of proposed alternatives to the pipeline like efficiency measures and bio-fuels, and increased pollution in American communities already suffering from toxic refineries. The Senators also pointed to the possibility of the Keystone XL opening up an international market for tar sands in the Gulf, increasing our risk from more toxic spills without providing the energy security proponents tout.

This letter adds to the growing wave of resistance to the Keystone XL project. Thousands of citizens have written to Secretary Clinton opposing the pipeline, the EPA and the Department of Interior gave the State Department’s initial environmental impact analysis a failing grade, and the Department Of Energy has questioned the purported energy security benefits of this risky project.

“As you recently stated, tar sands oil is “dirty oil.” Approval of this pipeline will significantly increase our dependence on this oil for decades,” the senators wrote. “We believe the Department of State (DOS) should not pre-judge the outcome of what should be a thorough, transparent analysis of the need for this oil and its impacts on our climate and clean energy goals.”

The letter comes as a response to remarks Clinton made last week indicating her department was “inclined” to support the Keystone XL. In addressing the pointed concerns raised by this influential group of lawmakers, Secretary Clinton will find it difficult to simply rubber-stamp to another oil industry mega-project, especially in light of the Obama administration’s stated goals of reducing oil consumption and carbon emissions.

In determining if the Keystone XL is truly in the “national interest”, Secretary Clinton must realize that the interests of major oil companies do not align with the nation-wide effort to reduce our costly and deadly addiction to dirty fossil fuels. The concerns raised by these Senators make it increasingly clear that locking in dependence on more of the world's dirtiest oil is the wrong decision for America's clean energy future, and Secretary Clinton must deny the Keystone XL pipeline.

-- Gabriel DeRita

Texas' Fight Against Coal and Coal Ash

This is the latest in our series of community coal ash profiles. This piece was written by Sierra Club Apprentice Sari Ancel.

Here's lovely daydream if you're from southeast Texas: It's a warm fall afternoon and you're out fishing on the banks of the Colorado River, listening to the sounds of birds migrating south.

Unfortunately, a proposed coal-fired power plant will soon ruin that daydream. There will be no fish to catch because their habitat has long been polluted. Those birds overhead will be flying through smoke plumes from the nearby coal-fired power plant. And forget a quiet afternoon, you'll be hearing the hum of that nearby power plant.

This is exactly what threatens Bay City, Texas - the proposed White Stallion coal-fired power plant.

On September 29th, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) granted an air quality permit to the White Stallion coal plant, which is proposed for Bay City, putting the polluting project one step closer to completion.

Yet despite this latest permit, residents of Bay City are not convinced that their air will stay clean or that their community will remain safe in the coming years - and for good reason. According to research, over its entire lifecycle, the plant will cause 600 premature deaths and cost over $5 billion in external costs to the community.

Allison Sliva of the Matagorda County No Coal Coalition is helping lead the fight against White Stallion coal plant. The 1320-megawatt plant will burn petroleum coke and coal but it is not required to produce an Environmental Impact Statement.

"The more you learn about this stuff, the more it makes you sick to your stomach," said Sliva, "It is so incredibly wrong the way things work."

She is worried about the environmental and health impacts this new coal plant will have on Bay City, a small city close to the Gulf Coast known for farming, shrimping, and world-class bird watching.

In addition to health impacts, the plant will require seven billion gallons of fresh Colorado River water every year. This fresh water is already a limited resource, with area farmers experiencing a severe drought in 2009.

"Water is the most finite commodity we have that the state is already fighting over," said Sliva. "And we're giving water to the dirty coal plant but not to our local food growers."

The White Stallion power plant design has also proposed coal ash dump sites just miles away from the Colorado River. Coal ash, which is the toxic waste left behind after coal is burned, contains arsenic, selenium, lead, and mercury. The dump site proposals are open coal ash pits, a design that is exceedingly dangerous when considering how prone this coastal area is to hurricanes. Bay City residents were asked to evacuate for hurricanes Ike and Rita.

The area also gets an average of 42 inches of rainfall yearly, and Sliva and her fellow residents have yet to see an adequate coal ash flood plan from White Stallion

"I'm very concerned about the coal ash because it is virtually unregulated," she said. "We're going to have mountains of it. We have a shallow water table and we're worried about it leeching into the groundwater...I'm hoping that the (Environmental Protection Agency) comes through to regulate the coal ash."

Sliva is referring to the new coal ash safeguards proposed by EPA. She joined hundreds of others who went to an EPA public hearing in Dallas, Texas, to testify about the dangers of coal ash.

If EPA enacts stricter safeguards, then Sliva and the residents of Bay City will have one less problem to worry about with the White Stallion plant.

Unfortunately, that would still not be enough to fully protect Bay City. While the White Stallion plant promises job creation, this does not account for the Bay City jobs lost because farmers won't have enough water for irrigation and the impacts on the fishing industry due to polluted waters.

"We have a small rural community with little political clout," said Sliva. "We were targeted because they didn’t think anyone would fight it."

But Sliva and other members of Bay City have proven that wrong by fighting and gaining momentum against White Stallion coal plant.

"Bay City's motto isn't Beaches, Bay, Birding, and Coal Plant'" says Sliva. But, to stop this from happening, "people need to be calling, emailing, faxing, and writing letters to keep this issue in front of the faces of the agencies and elected officials. Keep waving the red flag and raise it up."

Tell EPA to enact strong federal safeguards for coal ash.

More Ducks Die in Tar Sands; Health Threat Expanding

At least 230 ducks died yesterday after landing on toxic tailings ponds at several tar sands mines in Alberta. This event is as ironic as it is depressing, as just last week major tar sands producer Syncrude was fined $3.2 million for the death of over 1,600 ducks that landed on its tailings lakes in April 2008.

The recently settled court case with Syncrude led to the installation of better deterrents, including air cannons and scarecrows, at tailings ponds designed to scare birds away. That doesn’t seem to matter, as company officials claim their deterrents were fully operational yesterday as hundreds of migrating waterfowl perished in the poison lakes.

Alberta Environment Minister Rob Renner called the newest incident "discouraging in the extreme". Though Minister Renner’s comments refer to the public relations disaster this event will surely create for tar sands producers and their complicit government regulators, what is truly discouraging is continued lax regulation of these massive health threats despite repeated events illustrating just how dangerous they are. New tailings ponds continue to be proposed and permitted, companies continue to self-regulate, and the public and environmental health of Alberta continues to suffer.

Tailings lakes currently cover 170 square kilometers of Alberta’s landscape, posing an ongoing threat not just to wildlife but human health as well. Acutely fatal to animals that wander into these vast toxic ponds, the long-term effects of millions of gallons of toxic seepages on Alberta’s groundwater also pose a serious health threat to those living nearby. Studies by leading Canadian scientists have revealed elevated concentrations of toxic heavy metals near and downstream from tar sands operations, and nearby indigenous communities report abnormally high rates of rare cancers.

These toxic lakes and the tar sands that create them are a public health threat, and continue to wreak havoc on the wildlife of Alberta despite the industry’s efforts to make them ‘safe’. There is no such thing as a safe tailings pond, and there never will be. The only way to truly safeguard the health of Alberta’s people and environment is to eliminate tailings ponds entirely, or, better yet- kick our oil addiction and power our economy on clean renewable sources instead of increasing production of the dirtiest fuel on Earth.

The health threats of tar sands are not limited to Alberta’s failed struggle to manage the environmental and health crisis created by poison tailings ponds.

A new pipeline, called the Keystone XL, is being planned to pump tar sands crude through six states, crossing America’s largest aquifer that supplies water to one fifth of cattle, corn and wheat grown in the United States. Opposition from citizens and national leaders has been strong, but some officials seem willing to allow Alberta’s toxic tar sands to threaten our water and health. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently indicated she is “inclined to approve” the Keystone XL pipeline, which would expose US citizens to more toxic spills and lock us into dependence on the world’s dirtiest oil for decades.

Contact Secretary Clinton today and tell her the Keystone XL is not worth the health risks, and tar sands have no place in America’s clean energy future.

 

-- Gabriel DeRita

Energy News of Note

There's a ton of news out there about various clean energy and dirty energy issues, so here's another round-up of what you may have missed in the past week.

First up, today is the final Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) public hearing on its proposed safeguards for handling coal ash (the toxic by-product of burning coal for electricity). Today's hearing is in Knoxville - not too far from the site of the devastating 2008 coal ash spill at the Tennessee Valley Authority Kingston coal plant.

The Sierra Club has plenty of concerned community members at the hearing, all calling for strong safeguards from EPA for this toxic waste. Some folks are tweeting during the hearing, so watch the #coalash hashtag for their updates.

Continuing on the coal news front, the NY Times had two good articles up this week about the Navajo Nation in Arizona wanting to move away from coal power and toward clean energy like solar and wind power. Be sure to read "Navajos Come to Grips with Coal Mining" and "Navajos Hope to Shift from Coal to Wind and Sun." Both pieces also include quotes from Sierra Club organizers working hard on these issues.

In other coal news, the fight over this dirty energy source in Texas now includes available wawter resources. From a Houston Chronicle article:

Coal-fired power plants are commonly identified as the nation's biggest emissions villain. But that notoriety hasn't slowed the rush to build them in Texas, where there are nearly 30 coal plants either operating, permitted or proposed.

What has given many folks pause is the amount of water consumed by the plants.

Thermoelectric power plants - those that use heat to generate power, such as nuclear, coal and natural gas - are the single largest user of water in the United States. In Texas alone, they consume 157 billion gallons annually - enough water for more than 3 million people, each using 140 gallons per day, a recent University of Texas at Austin analysis found.

Moving on to natural gas news, yesterday Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell announced a moratorium on any future natural gas drilling on public lands in the state.

"The Sierra Club applauds this stopgap measure, but it is not enough," said Pennsylvania Sierra Club Director Jeff Schmidt. "We are appalled that the Pennsylvania Senate failed to pass a natural gas severance tax, a state forest protection bill, or other Marcellus gas-related legislation before adjourning. Senate leadership has chosen to put political campaigning ahead of the needs of the people of Pennsylvania."

The Keystone State is a natural gas battleground right now, with residents uniting to express their concerns about "fracking." On Nov. 3rd, the Pennsylania Sierra Club is joining a massive coalition protesting a natural gas conference in Pittsburgh. The Sierra Club nationally and in Pennsylvania are working hard to call for safe natural gas as a transition fuel.

On the dirty energy front, did you watch PBS' Frontline last night all about BP's history of safety infractions? The special covered not just those infractions that led up to the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, but the company's many other deadly safety issues at a Texas refinery and along Alaska's north slope. You can now watch the full show online.

More depressing dirty energy news - tar sands continue to be terrible. The latest news is that 125 ducks had to be euthanized after landing in a massive tar sands waste pond in Canada. Let's not bring this dirty fuel into the U.S.

And now for some good news. Our good clean energy news comes from Houston, Texas, where settlement with Shell oil company enabled the installation of solar panels on two city high schools.

"We are delighted with this solar power project in the two south Houston schools -- It not only demonstrates the best direction for Texas clean energy future, it also provides real benefits to the schools and the young people," said Sierra Club's Jennifer Powis. "The school district is expected to save over $10,000 annually in reduced electricity bills and the students will study and learn how solar power works."

More good energy news, this time on the efficiency front. Yesterday EPA announced the winners of its First National Building Competition to Save Energy.

A residence hall at the University of North Carolina took first place - reducing "its energy use by 35.7 percent in one year, saving more than $250,000 on their energy bills and reducing more than 730 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions, equivalent to the carbon dioxide emissions from the electricity use of nearly 90 homes for a year."

The full results are inspiring.

Although apparently it isn't that sort of inspiration that will get people to go green. According to this fascinating Wall Street Journal article, peer pressure and guilt are what gets action.

Clinton's Decision on Keystone Pipeline Needs Further Consideration

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton indicated she may approve the Keystone XL pipeline in remarks made earlier this week to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, despite the fact that her agency has not completed a full review of the pipeline’s potential environmental impacts.

Secretary Clinton has final authority over whether or not the 1,600 mile pipeline, carrying the world’s dirtiest oil through six states, will be granted approval for construction. A decision is not expected to be made officially until sometime next year, yet Clinton’s remarks suggest she is leaning toward a premature approval of this massive polluting project, which would threaten water resources throughout the Midwest, and dramatically increase refining pollution in the Gulf.

Senators Ben Nelson (D) and Mike Johanns (R) of Nebraska, whose state’s most valuable water resource -- the Ogallala aquifer -- is directly threatened by the Keystone XL, wrote letters expressing their dismay with Clinton’s comments. Senator Jeff Merkley (D) of Oregon joined the bipartisan Nebraska pair in criticism of Clinton’s remarks.

These senators add their concerns to a growing list of elected officials, agencies and American citizens, including 50 members of Congress, tens of thousands of citizens, and Nebraska’s governor, who have all expressed disapproval of the Keystone XL project. The EPA weighed in as well, calling the current review of the pipeline’s environmental impacts “inadequate”.

With full consideration of the risks this project poses to American water, air, and health, Secretary Clinton will certainly conclude the costs of the Keystone XL are too high.

Instead of jumping to premature decisions, Secretary Clinton needs to heed the concerns of the Senators, Congressmen and citizens who have called for a more thorough consideration of the risks and alternatives before rushing to approve a project that will lock us into dependence on the world's dirtiest fuel for decades.

We do not have to choose between dirty oil from the Gulf or dirty oil from Canada. Instead, we should be investing in domestic sources of clean energy, like wind and solar and efficiency measures that will keep dollars and jobs here at home.

This toxic project has no place in America’s clean energy future, and we have no need for the risks it poses today. The pipeline would not be able to meet full delivery capacity for nearly a decade, providing little relief from our reliance on hostile regimes to feed our oil addiction. If we increased the average fuel economy for American-made vehicles by just 2.5 miles per gallon, we would eliminate demand for all the oil the Keystone XL can ever provide. A cleaner, healthier and more efficient America has no need for the Keystone XL, and no place for the world’s dirtiest oil.

-- Gabriel DeRita

One More Thing to Worry About in Middle School - Energy Regulations?

Mary Anne Hitt, the director of the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign, is a new mom and has some words for those trying to greenwash schoolkids and college students:

As a new mom, I'm paying more attention these days to how big companies are trying to influence our kids. I just learned that one of the biggest blockers of climate action in the U.S. is now bringing its obstructionism to your kid's middle school classroom. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for 21st Century Energy just released an energy education guide for teachers of 5th - 8th grade.

The guide explains to kids where our nation currently gets its energy, and then asks this question:

"What do you think could happen if one of our energy sources was suddenly unavailable (e.g., power plant maintenance, government curb on production, etc.)?"

Outside the classroom, the Chamber is working overtime to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from doing anything about global warming pollution. Of course, EPA would never put this nation in a position where "one of our energy sources was suddenly unavailable." But that doesn't stop the Chamber from suggesting that scary scenario to our nation’s kids and their teachers.

The Chamber has long opposed any action on curbing global warming pollution and other dangerous emissions from dirty power plants, whether it comes via action from the EPA or Congress.

Now they're focusing on instilling their wrong beliefs into our kids. Just look at the focus of their Institute for 21st Century Energy:

"The mission of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for 21st Century Energy is to unify policymakers, regulators, business leaders, and the American public behind a common sense energy strategy to help keep America secure, prosperous, and clean. Through policy development, education, and advocacy, the Institute is building support for meaningful action at the local, state, national, and international levels."

Sounds innocent enough, but after watching the Chamber spend millions against any action on cleaning up the dirty power plants that poison our air and water and cause global warming, it seems that we all know their real "common sense energy strategy" - make sure polluters can keep on polluting at current levels, regardless of the impact on today's kids and future generations.

Right now EPA is proposing several safeguards to protect Americans from the pollution caused by coal-fired power plants - including rules that would treat coal ash (the by-product of burning coal for electricity) as the toxic waste that it is. EPA officials have already said that living near a toxic coal ash site can be worse for kids' health than smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.

The Chamber doesn't like these proposals, or any others that would require utilities to clean up coal pollution, and they are working overtime to stop them.

And this isn't the first time that the Chamber or the coal industry has directly targeted kids or young people with a misleading pro-coal message.

• In early 2009, the Coal Education Development and Resource of Southern West Virginia, Inc., taught students to appreciate the destructive practice of mountaintop removal coal mining. (If you're not familiar with mountaintop removal coal mining and its threats, read more here).

• In mid-2009, coal industry front-group Families Organized to Represent the Coal Economy released coloring books for kids.

• The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (who we remember for hiring a firm that forged letters from interest groups to Congressional representatives about global warming legislation) is currently running a bus tour to our nation's college campuses to teach them about so-called "clean" coal. They just hit up West Virginia University.

• The coal industry gave so much money to the University of Kentucky that the administration renamed a dorm as Wildcat Coal Lodge last year.

The list goes on and on. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the coal industry want you to believe that coal will not affect your or your children's health, and that any action by EPA will destroy the economy. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

So for my new baby and the rest of America's kids, I’d like to add my own discussion question to the Chamber's energy education guide:

"What do you think could happen if we don't shift from coal and oil to clean energy sources, and families find that pollution makes the basic essentials of life suddenly unavailable (e.g., clean air, clean water, etc.)?"

The Aftermath of the TVA Coal Ash Disaster

This is the latest in our series of community coal ash profiles. This was written by Sierra Club Apprentice Philip Hawes.

Tennessee's Emory River has long been treasured for its natural beauty.

In 1867, when a young man by the name of John Muir decided to walk from his home in Indiana, all the way to Florida, he crossed the Emory River. Its beauty struck him, and he wrote the following in his journal (which became his famed book "A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf"):

"There is nothing more eloquent in Nature than a mountain stream, and this is the first I ever saw. Its banks are luxuriantly peopled with rare and lovely flowers and overarching trees, making one of Nature's coolest and most hospitable places. Every tree, every flower, every ripple and eddy of this lovely stream seemed solemnly to feel the presence of the great Creator. Lingered in this sanctuary a long time thanking the Lord with all my heart for his goodness in allowing me to enter and enjoy it."

Unfortunately, 141 years later, the Emory River would inspire sorrow.

On December 22, 2008, a little before 1 a.m., an earthen dam holding back an 84-acre coal ash disposal pond, collapsed. A flood of 1.1 billion gallons (around six times the amount of BP's oil disaster) of coal ash slurry poured into the Emory River and onto the surrounding land. Coal ash is the by-product of burning coal for electricity and contains toxic materials such as arsenic, lead, mercury, and selenium. The spill covered more than 400 acres and destroyed houses, roads, and trees in its path.

"It was unreal. There's no way to imagine what it was like," said Steve Scarborough, a resident of Roane County, where the disaster took place. "They keep saying it's an ash spill. That's like saying an avalanche is a snow spill."

The earthen dam that failed had problems for years, including multiple leaks. And Scarborough, a civil engineer himself, said that the fixes they made were inadequate, based on bad engineering, and chosen just to cut costs. According to Scarborough, it was "just sheer incompetence. And the community suffered because of it."

Scarborough owns two properties on a lake adjacent to the spill site. He had purchased them ten years earlier as an investment. Before the disaster he had both properties on the market, deciding to sell them in order to put his kids through college. But now, he said, "They're worth pennies on the dollar."

Despite the national real estate market being down in late 2008, the real estate values in the area were relatively strong - until they crumbled following the coal ash disaster.

Scarborough said, "Even in the worst of times there are still people retiring, and we are that market. This is where they retire to. The value of waterfront properties had not yet declined." But afterwards, no one wanted to buy property, even miles away.

He spoke of one couple that decided against waterfront property in Roane County after hearing about the coal ash disaster: "The wife saw the newspaper and they stormed out. They bought waterfront property; they just bought it the next county."

Time to Put America Back to Work & Move Beyond Oil

This is a guest post by Rachel Butler, National Conservation Organizer for the Sierra Club Green Transportation Team.

Today is the six month anniversary of the explosion of BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig, a tragedy that claimed 11 lives and marked the beginning of the ongoing BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Though the well has been capped, the saga is far from over for the Gulf Coast communities and the Gulf ecosystem.

America's dependence on oil has pushed oil companies to drill in more and more dangerous places for bigger and bigger profits, resulting in disasters like the explosion of BP's Deepwater rig. This disaster and its aftermath highlight the need for America to get serious about breaking our addiction to oil.

Seventy percent of the 557 million gallons of oil used daily in the U.S. are for transportation, and the vast majority of that oil is used in our passenger cars and trucks. To move beyond oil, it's clear that we have to reform our outdated, oil-soaked transportation system.

We cannot end our dependence on oil until we emphasize convenient transportation choices that reduce our need to drive, like passenger and freight rail and public transit.

Instead, we must develop our towns and cities into livable communities where people can walk, bike, or take transit to their destinations rather than waste time, money, and gas sitting in stop-and-go traffic. We must develop 21st century transportation system that includes high speed rail that connects city centers and to transit – all without oil!

The good news is that investing in transportation reform that provides 21st century transportation choices is not only the right thing to do in the wake of the BP disaster, but it's also the right thing to do to jump-start our economy.

A recent report released by the White House Council of Economic Advisors and the Department of the Treasury (PDF) shows that investment in public transit infrastructure is in high public demand and will create jobs for the middle class. Analysis of the 2009 economic stimulus also showed that funding for public transportation created twice as many jobs per dollar as funding for roads.

Another report released today by the Apollo Alliance, entitled "Make it in America: The Apollo Clean Transportation Manufacturing Action Plan," (PDF) shows that investment in transportation infrastructure that creates a globally competitive transit and clean vehicle manufacturing sector in the United States can create 3.7 million jobs in the U.S., including 600,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector.

In the shadow of the BP disaster and under the weight of a sagging economy, there's no time to lose. America must invest in a 21st century transportation system that puts America back to work, provides transportation choices, and moves us beyond oil.

To join in the Sierra Club's work for a 21st century transportation system that moves us beyond oil, become a Sierra Club Transportation Activist.

First photo by Jordan Macha.

EPA Recommends Protecting Clean Water by Rejecting Giant WV Coal Mine

This is a guest post from Bruce Nilles, Deputy Conservation Director of the Sierra Club.

Hot off the presses: EPA just announced it is recommending rejecting the massive Spruce Mine in Logan County, West Virginia, for the simple reason that it can't comply with long-standing clean water protections. EPA Region 3 and Administrator Shawn Garvin recommended that the permit for Spruce be withdrawn (read the recommendation in our press release).

In short, this proposed mountaintop removal coal mine would release huge amounts of toxic pollution into the state's waterways. That has been illegal across the country and today Lisa Jackson is proposing the same protections for Appalachia.

Today's recommendation flows from President Obama's and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's commitment to restore science and uphold our bedrock Clean Water Act. EPA is proposing to take the radical step to ensure that the residents of Appalachia have the same clean water protections afforded other residents around the country.

For far too long Appalachia's residents have been subjected to pollution from coal mining practices that would be prohibited elsewhere in the United States. There are so many local grassroots heroes who have spent more than a decade fighting this massive mountaintop removal coal mine.

As we have worked with our members and allies in Appalachia to tell the story nationwide about the incredible destruction associated with mountaintop removal mining, the overwhelming response we hear outside of Appalachia is "How can that be allowed to happen in the United States?"

This decision is long overdue. During the Bush Administration hundreds of mines were approved, dozens of mountains were razed and pollution killed stream after stream after stream. Sierra Club and our allies are working to stop this pollution, and recently a federal court ordered a $45 million clean up of an existing mine, but it is far better to not approve these mines in the first instance.

The next step is for EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to put the final nail in this destructive project and finalize her decision. This decision should then guide the agency to do what the science and public health demands - end the practice of mountaintop removal mining once and for all. We need a uniform rule that says no more mountaintop removal mining, period.

Let's put this devastating practice behind us. Let's put residents to work restoring the land and waters damaged by coal mining over the past decades. And, let's overcome the naysayers who oppose Appalachia sharing in the jobs and economic development that comes with building a clean, renewable energy future underway across the country.

Coping with Coal Ash's Health Effects

This is the latest in our series of community coal ash profiles. This piece was written by Sierra Club Apprentice Lydia Avila.

The community of Joliet, Illinois, identifies as many things - Midwestern, humble, and hard-working. Yet they also identify with something much less positive: being collateral damage. According to Joliet residents, they don't even merit a second thought to Midwest Generation, a coal-fired power plant that has been dumping toxic coal ash near Joliet for over 40 years.

Coal ash is the byproduct of burning coal for electricity, and it's having a major impact on Joliet. Residents say if you were to spend a week in Joliet you would find yourself driving through coal ash fog; a stroll in your yard would cause you to come back covered in "black stuff" and/or yellow particulates; you wouldn't be able to drink or bathe in the water; and your clothes would come out of the washer tinted orange and black from the chemicals in the water. 

If you spent time in Joliet, residents say, you would see this "black stuff" covering your car, yard and house on a daily basis, and you certainly could not fish in any of the lakes, rivers or streams in the area.

But, they added, even worse are the health effects that you and your loved ones would experience: nose bleeds, blisters, skin infections, migraines, coughing, gagging, mercury poisoning, neurological disorders, to name a few. And, these would culminate in the form of asthma, kidney transplants, heart transplants, lymphoma, neurological disorders, seizures, rare forms of leukemia, emergency hysterectomies, and lupus (again, just to name a few).

Tammy Thompson knows the health effects first-hand - calling herself and her family part of that collateral damage. Her six-year-old daughter Faith has suffered the effects of living near a coal plant since she was born. Faith’s doctor diagnosed her with Grave's Disease and recommended that she, and all the children in Joliet, be routinely tested for lead and mercury poisoning.

Thompson recalls times when she often had to struggle to gain composure in her car, while her daughter in the backseat would ask, "What's that smell, mommy?" and then complain of headaches. She saw her daughter suffer from blisters and sores every time they bathed her in a storage tub filled with bottled water following recommendations from her doctor, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) and others. Yet, for a long time, their health problems remained a mystery.

Thompson and her neighbors have taken matters into their own hands, filing report after report and making phone call after phone call to local, state and federal agencies. When Thompson discusses the actions taken by the people of Joliet, she underscores the fact that this is a human issue: "I'm not an environmentalist, I'm a mom. I'm not an activist, I'm an American," she said.

Unfortunately, Joliet residents say their concerns have consistently been ignored by every public agency and department that, in theory, is supposed to help them.

The IEPA and local officials play a game of ping pong with their cries for help, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claims not to have jurisdiction over the area. The IEPA likes to claim that these diseases occur naturally, but there is nothing natural about the levels at which they occur in Joliet.

On the rare occasions when the IEPA has returned a few a call, agency officials have tried to justify the horrendous living conditions by saying the jobs at the coal plant and its coal ash disposal site are needed.

Thompson says that supposed "gain" certainly pales in comparison to watching her family and friends suffer the health effects. "'Get use to it and get over it' is what they try to tell us," Thompson said.

Not surprisingly, when the Environmental Integrity Project and Sierra Club's recently released coal ash report, "In Harm's Way," Joliet was listed as one of the most contaminated sites in the country. The town of Joliet has received national attention from such figures as Erin Brockovich and, at the time, Senator Obama.

Thompson and her community continue to ask why they aren't receiving any help. "Why doesn't the EPA prove something is safe? Why must we wait for a body count to show it’s not?" asked Thompson.

"It's not an environmental issue; it's an ethical, social and civil rights issue."

Tell EPA we need strong federal safeguards for toxic coal ash.