Climate Recovery Partnership News and Events

Foundation Goes Four for Four

 

For the fourth year in a row, the Sierra Club Foundation (TSCF) has earned the highest possible rating—four stars—from Charity Navigator. Not only that, TSCF now ranks fifth among the 226 environmental groups focused on conservation and protection.

This year, the watchdog group revamped its rating system to also assess the accountability and transparency of organizations. As a result, TSCF’s ranking improved even more!

Founded in 2001, Charity Navigator, assesses the financial health of over 5,000 of America’s best charities. To read more about the new rating system on The Chronicle of Philanthropy website, click here.

 

More Big Wins in Virginia

Just days after the city of Alexandria and GenOn announced the retirement of the Potomac River coal plant, Virginia's largest utility, Dominion Resources, said yesterday that it will shutter its Chesapeake Energy Center by 2016, shut down one coal-fired boiler at Yorktown Power Station by 2015, and convert a second coal-fired unit to gas. The Chesapeake Energy Center and the Yorktown Power Station emit tens of thousands of tons of soot annually, triggering asthma attacks and aggravating respiratory ailments among the hundreds of thousands of local residents.

"Today's announcement of the retirement of the Chesapeake and Yorktown plants in another critical win for the residents of Virginia," said Sierra Club's Executive Director Michael Brune. "These two plants are a major source of pollution in coastal Virginia, and the decision by Dominion to responsibly phase them out means kids will have the opportunity to breathe cleaner air. Local activists and everyday Virginians have been working for years to ensure that plants like these get cleaned up or phased out; today they all celebrate this victory."

Coverage of this important news spanned local outlets such as The Daily Press and PilotOnline, and earned national attention in the Houston Chronicle and the energy industry magazine Power Engineering.

Taking the Longview Against Coal

Nearly 300 people (many wearing "No Coal" buttons!) attended a public forum in Longview, WA, to air concerns about the West Longview coal export terminal proposed by Millennium Bulk Terminals.

The forum addressed public worry over whether toxic dust from thousands of tons of coal at the station would contaminate Longview’s air and water, causing serious health problems in the community. Coal processor Millennium has attempted to allay such concerns, but its credibility remains doubtful, due to the recent revelation of the company's plans to process up to 12 times more coal at the terminal than the amount listed in its permit application.

Sierra Club Beyond Coal activists are busy starting the fight against this dirty coal terminal by organizing communities in rural areas along rail lines, where coal trains bound for export would spew coal dust and diesel pollution and produce hours of noise and traffic congestion daily.

The Longview public forum received great local press coverage, even from a paper that's been historically unsympathetic to environmental concerns.

Fighting Smog in the Sunshine State

In August, Sierra Club members held a hugely successful rally in downtown Tampa, increasing public attention to the problem of smog pollution and calling for clean air protections from the EPA.

Smog pollution remains especially problematic in sunny Florida, where toxic gases emitted from coal-fired power plants and cars is a threat to residents. A danger to respiratory health, smog aggravates asthma, inflames and irritates airways, and increases hospitalization rates. Despite the severe health consequences, EPA regulations to limit smog are lacking.

Alongside the Sierra Club’s 18-foot inflatable inhaler, dozens of concerned residents at the rally listened to speakers from partner organizations like Physicians for Social Responsibility Tampa Bay and the Suncoast Pediatric Asthma Coalition. Rally participants also signed onto the Clean Air Promise, pledging to protect the health of children and families from dangerous air pollution.

Our efforts garnered attention from local media, including CBS Channel 10, ABC Action News, WMNF (the NPR affiliate for Tampa), and Creative Loafing.

Breaking the Lease

The Sierra Club has made news with its recent joint lawsuit, filed with WildEarth Guardians and the Defenders of Wildlife, against the Bureau of Land Management over the leasing of two tracts of coal in Wyoming's Powder River Basin.

The lawsuit contends that the BLM failed to properly assess the environmental threats from mining, transporting, and burning of the 350 million tons of coal contained in the tracts, including the release of 643 million tons of carbon dioxide pollution into the atmosphere. Local media coverage of the lawsuit remains important to raising public awareness; the story appeared in the Wyoming news service WyoFile, the Wyoming Business Report, and the Casper Star-Tribune.

Even “Coal Country” Opposes MTR

The results of a poll indicate that voters in Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, and Tennessee oppose mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining by wide margins.

The poll, commissioned by the Sierra Club, Appalachian Mountain Advocates, and Earthjustice, found that 57 percent of voters oppose MTR. Only 20 percent support the destructive practice of mining coal through topographical alteration, which causes biodiversity loss and human health impacts.

The survey also revealed that attitudes towards MTR crosses typical political boundaries. More than 50 percent of respondents from each political affiliation—Democratic, Independent, and Republican—opposed MTR.

These surprising findings grabbed the attention of several outlets, such as the Associated Press, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Charleston Gazette, Grist, Register Herald, and Greenwire/EE News.

Check out the polling document here and the polling memo here. Read Sierra Club’s press release about the poll here.

Sierra Club Announces “Clean Air Week”

The Sierra Club declared the second week in August "Clean Air Week," as activists and spokespeople intensified calls for clean air protections from the EPA. In particular, Beyond Coal supporters demand that the EPA introduce its long-awaited air quality standards to reduce smog, one of the most dangerous forms of air pollution. Smog, which originates from coal-fired power plants and from vehicles powered by dirty fuels, threatens the health of all Americans.

Our support for immediate protections from smog resonated with media outlets throughout the country. Fox21 in Duluth, Minnesota, covered our cry for clean air while Daily Kos published a post written by Sierra Club Conservation Director Sarah Hodgdon and Beyond Coal Campaign Director Mary Anne Hitt. Another blog post by Hitt was featured on the front page of Grist, which was re-posted by dozens of other national blogs. And Sierra Club writer Javier Sierra’s column about moving beyond coal with the help of Bloomberg Philanthropies was featured in New York's El Diario, Miami's El Nuevo Herald, the Huffington Post, My Latino Voice, La Opinión (America's largest Spanish-language daily newspaper), and more!

Attack of the Giant Fish Blenders!

The Sierra Club released a comprehensive report in August detailing the impacts of outdated cooling systems used by power plants. According to the the report, and as demonstrated in this popular animation by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Mark Fiore, once-through cooling processes kill billions of fish and other aquatic organisms each year in the Gulf of Mexico, Mississippi River, Hudson River, New York Harbor and Long Island Sound, California Coast, Great Lakes, and Chesapeake Bay.

The EPA has proposed new standards for power plant cooling water systems, under the Clean Water Act. Unfortunately, these fall far short of protecting fisheries and waterways and the Sierra Club is pushing for the EPA to enact stronger standards that curtail giant fish blenders.

Our report received coverage by mdeia outlets nationwide, including in Minnesota, Wisconsin, New Jersey (here and here), and Ohio. The story even appeared in the Italian Green Report!

Victory in the Land of Enchantment

After working for years to protect public health from the threats posed by the dirty and dangerous San Juan Generating Station near Farmington, the Sierra Club in New Mexico celebrates the EPA announcement requiring the installation of industry-standard pollution controls.

The new pollution controls will substantially reduce hazardous air pollution from the aging coal-fired power plant, protecting public health, air quality, and tourism revenue at nearby national parks such as the Grand Canyon and Mesa Verde.

This great news, and the Sierra Clubs involvement, received loads of local media attention. The Summit County Citizens Voice, Indian Country Today Media Network, Associated Press, and Public News Service were among the outlets that covered the significant victory.

800,000+ Demands for Clean Air

In August, Sierra Club members and our allies from groups such as the Union of Concerned Scientists and Environment Illinois gathered outside the EPA office in Chicago to deliver the final 1,000 public comment cards in support of the EPA’s proposed mercury and air toxics rule.

The gathering, where local activists held signs to support clean air, also drew attention to the importance of regulating toxic emissions from coal-fired power plants—including mercury, lead, and arsenic—to reduce respiratory illnesses, birth defects, and developmental problems.

This last batch of public comments brings the total number to more than 800,000 in support of the rule! As a bonus to generating so many comments, the Associated Press covered our gathering and helped spread the word about the importance of moving beyond coal.