First-Time Organizer Helps Beat Back Utah Coal Plant

Former San Rafael, California, firefighter Jim Kennon was injured in the line of duty and had to retire on disability. "That wasn't an easy thing, to leave the profession," he says. "I was a firefighter for 20 years and I loved that job."

Kennon went back to college and taught elementary school science for several years before retiring to a piece of land his family owned in Sevier County, Utah. There, in the town of Richfield, he completed the house he lives in today.

But Kennon's little piece of paradise was threatened by a proposed coal-fired power plant in Sevier County. The 270-megawatt facility, to be operated by Nevco Energy Co. and the Sevier Power Company, would have been located in the nearby farm community of Sigurd, below. Its 462-foot-high smokestack would be the tallest structure in Utah.

"My wife has asthma," Kennon says, "and there are people in town—myself included—who are on oxygen. Coal is dirty, it pollutes our air and adds to global warming, and when we have other alternatives, I just can't see people having to put up with dirtier air here."

In response, Kennon co-founded Sevier Citizens for Clean Air and Water to galvanize local opposition to the plant. And eight years later, on December 4, 2009, the Utah Supreme Court ruled against construction of the Sigurd plant, saying its emissions permit, issued by the Utah Division of Air Quality in 2004, was "woefully inadequate."

"The court's decision was a victory for the Utah Chapter of the Sierra Club and two Sevier County retirees, Jim Kennon and Dick Cuminsky, who led the local opposition," reported the Associated Press.

MD Chapter Rallies in Baltimore for Clean Energy

The Maryland Chapter of the Sierra Club rallied December 1st at a park in downtown Baltimore to call on the state to oppose proposed transmission lines to a Virginia coal plant and instead invest in clean energy.

Maryland Chapter Conservation Coordinator Alana Wase said power plant and grid operators want to build 450 miles of high voltage transmission lines across pristine habitat in West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.


"The lines, if built, would enable dirty coal fired power plants to ramp up production: burning more coal, increasing greenhouse gas emissions and mountain top removal mining, and further delaying the switch to renewable energy," said Wase in an email.

On top of that - the lines cost a whopping $3 billion, all to be paid for by consumers.


And despite the cold weather, more than 140 people showed up at the Dec. 1 rally to call for clean energy instead of more dirty coal power.

Wase said that according to expert testimony, the Potomac-Appalachian Transmission Highline (PATH) power lines alone, would increase greenhouse gas emissions by 7.79 million tons per year, that would be the equivalent of adding 25% more cars in Maryland. The coalition of groups that organized the Dec. 1 rally also oppose the planned Mid-Atlantic Power Pathway transmission lines.


Speakers at the rally cheered on clean energy and pointed out the many flaws in the transmission line plans.

"These transmission lines are nothing more than extension cords connecting Maryland to more dirty energy sources," said Brad Heavner, state director of Environment Maryland.  "At a time when Maryland needs to be investing aggressively in clean energy in order to meet the pollution reduction goals we've laid out, these power lines are a giant step in the wrong direction."

Other speakers included:

• Mike Tidwell, Director and founder, Chesapeake Climate Action Network
• Lewis Evans, CEO, Solar Resources International Inc.
• Peter Van Buren, President, TerraLogos Energy Group
• Patience Wait, Community Activist
• Zoe Keller, student leader, Maryland Institute College of Art
• Zainab Boone-Kukoyi, Student Leader, Coppin State University
• Ricky Young, Community Activists, Citizens Against Kemptown Substation
• Delegate Barbara Frush

After listening to the speakers, the rally-goers marched over to the Maryland Public Service Commission building to chant against coal.

Wase called the day a big success. Fellow clean energy organizer Byron Banghart even made an excellent video of the day's events - take a look.

America the Sustainable- Clean Energy Rally.

Photos courtesy of Alana Wase.

Michigan Chapter Says Don't Be a Turkey

Last week, our Michigan Chapter and allies Progress Michigan, Clean Water Action, Ecology Center and Michigan Citizen Action kicked off a corporate campaign to convince Consumers Energy to drop its coal plant proposal.

And just in time for the season, the theme at the launch was "Don't Be a Turkey." Our folks showed up at the company’s headquarters with the petition - and with one big turkey.

The petition text focuses on switching Michigan to clean energy:

We believe Consumers Energy should invest in clean alternative energy, not another unneeded coal plant!

As ratepayers and concerned citizens, we strongly urge you to stop your plans to build a new unneeded coal plant in Michigan that will cost us ratepayers billions of dollars and our state thousands of clean energy jobs.

Moving beyond coal is one of the most important steps in the fight against global warming. Coal plants are major contributors to climate change, mercury contamination of our waterways and food supply, and highly destructive coal mining practices like mountaintop removal.

To benefit your customers, shareholders, and the environment, we urge you to stop your plans to build new coal plants and instead dramatically increase investments in renewable energy and increased energy efficiency. Wind and solar power, combined with energy efficiency programs, can provide clean energy to meet our needs while reducing Consumers Energy's role in the destruction of people’s lives and livelihoods.

You have an opportunity to be a leader and to provide thousands of good-paying clean energy jobs for Michigan’s workers. Put an end to your proposed coal plant today.

Learn more about the campaign and sign the petition here.

Michigan Chapter staffer Anne Woiwode said the jaw-dropping quote in the MLive article linked above is this: "Coal plants are really the backbone of the Michigan economy," from Dan Bishop, PR person for Consumers Energy.

Said Woiwode: "One might respond, 'That explains the wracking pain in our economy, and suggests it is time to check for osteoporosis.'"

Click here if you'd like to see more photos from the event.

Alaska Activist Helps Turn the Tide Against Coal

Mike O'Meira says he's been a "posy sniffer" for as long as he can remember. Born in Los Angeles, he visited Alaska for the first time in 1968 with his former wife, Jan. "We saw Denali in sunlight and Homer in the rain," he remembers. "The land was mostly open and unspoiled—lots of clean air, good water, and wildlife."

The couple returned the following summer and decided to stay. "I was a Sierra Club member," O'Meara says, "so I looked around for the local chapter and they were just forming one in Anchorage." Three years later, he and Jan acquired 120 acres of undeveloped land overlooking the mouth of Kachemak Bay, below.

Photo by Hobig.

"We quickly got drawn into activities here," O'Meara says. "The state had illegally issued oil and gas leases in Kachemak Bay without proper public notice or public hearings. That was common in Alaska back then, but a lot of people here made their living by commercial fishing and they were very concerned."

As well, several native villages on the south side of the bay lead a subsistence lifestyle and rely on commercial fishing to earn cash. O'Meara got involved with a local coalition comprised of environmentalists, Alaska Natives, and commercial fishermen, opposing the oil and gas leases. After a difficulat campaign and a lot of luck, the state bought back the leases and designated Kachemak Bay the state's first critical habitat area.

In 1976, at the peak of the battle, he and Jan moved to the homestead near Homer, where O'Meara has lived ever since. For 29 years he worked as an educator—10 as a school teacher and 19 at the Pratt Museum in Homer, which focuses on the art, science, and culture of Kachemak Bay. He retired last in 2008

O'Meara's activist efforts have lately been directed toward energy issues—specifically, the successful effort to reform his local utility, Homer Electric Association (HEA), and get it to pull out of a deal to re-start the Healy #2 coal plant north of Anchorage. That's O'Meara, below, leading a rally outside HEA's offices in January 2009.

Photo by Scott Dickerson, courtesy of www.ScottDickerson.com

For the last four years, O'Meara has served as spokesman for the HEA Members Forum. "We don't have a formal organizational structure, so I attend HEA Board and committee meetings, serving as eyes & ears for co-op members. I send out email updates and action alerts, write letters-to-the-editor to newspapers around the state, and help organize events like the one we held in January to keep Healy #2 closed."

Texas Chapter Comments on Coal

Sierra Club Beyond Coal staffer Eva Hernandez shows off the box of Clean Air Act comments from Texans concerned about clean air and clean energy. Photo courtesy of KERA.

The Environmental Protection Agency's Region Six headquarters in Dallas was recently inundated with public comments thanks to our Texas Beyond Coal team.

Eva Hernandez of our Texas Chapter Beyond Coal staff reports that they delivered over 2,000 comments from Texans - as well as a letter from the Sierra Club chapters in Louisiana and Arkansas - asking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to step in and not allow the permitting of any new coal plants in Texas until the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) adheres to the Clean Air Act.  

"We highlighted that we are at an energy crossroads where we can allow the 12 coal plants proposed to go forward, or we continue to lead the country in clean energy," said Hernandez.

Many local news outlets covered the Friday event, with our organizers delivering a big decorated box of the comments to the EPA office. Hernandez said an EPA staffer took the box and even had a few words to say.

The comment delivery was preceeded by a press conference with several speakers, including Hernandez and local environmental, medical and interfaith representatives.

"We appreciate the recent EPA finding that the TCEQ is not adhering to the Clean Air Act," said Hernandez at the press conference. "We're supporting the EPA ruling with comments from over 2,000 Texans across the state saying 'We want clean air and clean energy.'"

You can read more in the press release and in this KERA article.

Colorado Chapter Testifies Against Denver Coal Plant

Photo and caption by Karl Gehring of the Denver Post: "Attendees at the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission hearing Thursday night weren't allowed to applaud, so they silently waved their hands in support of comments made against a permit for Xcel. The utility company seeks to continue operating a large coal-burning plant near Denver."

Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign staffer Roger Singer said last week's public hearing against a coal-fired power plant north of Denver went very well. Here's the story in his own words:

We were successful in using a Title V public hearing, which was held specifically at our coalition's request, to demonstrate growing and broad public support for retiring the Cherokee coal plant just north of Denver.

This coal plant, the second largest source of global warming pollution in Colorado, is located in an industrial, underrepresented community with several environmental problems to deal with. The state agency held the hearing at a site in southern Denver, quite far from the impacted community so as to minimize opposition input, but we and our coalition partners worked hard to make sure our diverse set of supporters attended the session and spoke out.
 
Approximately 80 people attended the hearing, of which over 50 citizens (including many Club volunteers) testified to oppose renewing the permit and running the plant on coal, while only four people supported renewing the permit. We dominated the scene!

We definitely got Governor Ritter's senior staff's attention, judging by the calls they placed to myself and others in past 24 hours after the hearing.
 
A significant amount of time was spent spreading the word to gin up turnout. We also successfully pushed the commissioners last night to keep the comment period open for another 30 days so that we can flood them with more written comments in the coming weeks.
 
The public hearing was a great vehicle for our successful demonstration of the fact that we are building up public support in Denver for moving the Cherokee and Valmont coal plants beyond coal and onto renewable energy.

The Fight for Resurrection Bay

Russ Maddox's activism has been gathering steam since 2001, when a neighboring property owner decided to incinerate a huge debris pile—including a Quonset hut, a trailer, a storage shed, a school bus, and several old cars—50 feet from their shared property line.

Maddox operates a business on his property, which was covered with lead-laden ash that rendered his well water unfit for consumption. He won a civil suit over the incident, but the experience prompted him to co-found the Resurrection Bay Conservation Alliance in 2003 and Communities for Democracy in Alaska in 2006. Above right, Maddox with members of the Conservation Alliance.

In 2006, Maddox spearheaded local opposition to a proposed coal-fired power plant in Seward, the gateway town to Kenai Fjords National Park. The proposal met with widespread local opposition, but the Seward City Council was for it. So Maddox got together with folks from the Sierra Club and the Conservation Alliance, formed a coalition to fight the plant, and got a petition going.

Photo by Dave LaForest

Seward sits at the head of Resurrection Bay, above, in a huge valley surrounded by mountains, and frequent inversions already trap smoke from wood stoves. "Coal emissions would have compounded with the smoke in a watershed and a region that's highly dependant on our fisheries," Maddox says. "It's the worst possible place for a new coal facility."

The coalition presented viable alternatives like hydro, tidal, and wind power, gathered more than 600 signatures in a town of 3,000 people, and generated over 100 public comments favoring alternatives to coal. They also found that the developer's "model" coal plant in Montana had closed after a long history of permit violations and broken promises to the community and the EPA.

In September 2006, the Seward City Council voted down the project, and the company withdrew its proposal.

As usual with conservation battles, no sooner is one threat vanquished than a new one arises. Also as usual, Maddox is on the front lines. This time the problem is coal dust.

Alaskan Grandmother Organizes to Stop Coal Plant

Folks who know Judy Heilman like to call her "Grammy Beluga." She's a grandma all right, and the "Beluga" part comes from the name of the tiny community on the west side of Alaska's Cook Inlet where she lives with her husband Larry in the log home he hand-built for their retirement. That's Judy and Larry, below, at Beluga's 4th of July celebration this year.

Beluga and the neighboring native village of Tyonek are less than 50 miles as the crow... er, bald eagle flies from Anchorage, but there is no road access. The area is home to moose, black and brown bears, and wolves, and the Chuitna River supports all five wild Pacific salmon species.

Photo courtesy of Cook Inletkeeper

But the community got its name from the Beluga whales, above, that calve, feed, and raise their young in the waters of Cook Inlet, below. Officially a "near-threatened" species, the beluga subpopulation in Cook Inlet is considered critically endangered and is protected under the Endangered Species Act. "There aren't many places left in the world like this," Heilman says.

 
Photo by Brendan McMurrer

But PacRim Coal, a Delaware-based company backed by Texas investors, is proposing one of the largest strip mines in the country on a tributary of the Chuitna River, below. If the Alaska Department of Natural Resources approves the project, it will be the first time the state has allowed a mining company to directly mine through a known salmon-bearing stream.

Heilman and others are spearheading local opposition to the mine. "We're trying to protect our homes, our lifestyles, and the fish and game that we depend on," Heilman says. "The vast majority of people in Beluga and Tyonek oppose the mine because it will destroy our way of life. If we don't recognize this unique and fragile area as unsuitable for coal strip mining, no place in Alaska will be safe." Below, the beach at Beluga.

 

Sierra Club Helps Launch Service Initiative

Photo by Kris Connor, Getty Images

On Veteran's Day, the Sierra Club joined First Lady Michelle Obama, Dr. Jill Biden, and hundreds of active-duty service members, military families, and more than 50 service organizations in launching Mission Serve, an initiative to bond service to country with community service.

That's Sierra Club President Allison Chin, above right, seated behind Obama and Biden at the November 11 event at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Below, First Lady Obama addresses the gathering.

Photo by Jackie Ostfield

"The Sierra Club is proud to serve veterans and military families who are making the greatest sacrifices for our country," says Chin. "We're working to connect a new generation of American veterans and military families with the mental and physical benefits of being outdoors."

Over the last two years the Club's Military Families Outdoors (MFO) program has connected more than 25,000 veterans and military family members with outdoor experiences. MFO has partnered with the Armed Services YMCA, the National Military Family Association, and Outward Bound to provide a free week of summer camp for children of deployed service members, weekend retreats for military families in the national parks, and wilderness adventure courses to help veterans readjust after returning from combat duty.

"We want to ensure that the people who are protecting our country get to enjoy the benefits of its natural wonders," says Chin, pictured below with Jim Garrett of Outward Bound, Joyce Raezer of the National Military Family Association, and Rhonda Geyer of the Armed Forces YMCA.

Photo by Jackie Ostfield

The event also honored Alma J. Powell, chair of America's Promise Alliance and wife of General Colin Powell, with the first annual ServiceNation Award for Excellence in Military Civilian Service.

Learn more about Military Families Outdoors.

Hundreds Rally to Roll Beyond Coal in Texas

On Halloween, hundreds of Texans rallied to Roll Beyond Coal in Austin, Dallas, Beaumont, Corpus Christi, and Alpine, to advocate for clean power and green jobs and ask the EPA to stop the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) from permitting 12 new proposed coal plants in the state.

"The Austin Sierra Club, the Sierra Student Coalition, and our environmental partners had an incredible Roll Beyond Coal rally," says Lone Star Chapter organizer Donna Hoffman. "We petitioned the EPA to do the right thing and help Austin quit coal by 2020."