On the Road With the Water Sentinels: Part 3

Back at the dining hall, a hundred rambunctious 5th-graders and a half-dozen parents who've joined them for the 3-day workshop are just sitting down for lunch. The instructors introduce themselves theatrically and tell everyone what's on tap for the afternoon. Outside it's pouring down rain, and it drums on the roof as we scarf down grilled cheese sandwiches, salad, and home-baked cookies.

After lunch the campers split up into groups (Black Bears, Armadillos, Bobcats, and so forth). We sit in with the Whitetail Deer as they learn about the earth's continuous water cycle of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation—how no new water is being created, and the glass of water you pour from your tap has been around pretty much as long as the earth itself.

Maggie joins us as we tromp down through the forest with the group to a spot on Clear Creek called Tiller's Beach. It's raining hard, but the kids are undaunted. They wade into the creek with nets and sieves, timidly at first, then running and splashing, anxious to discover for themselves the universe of bizarre and beautiful creatures living there.

Coal Miners, Environmentalists Find Common Ground at IL Event

The Sangamon Valley group of the Illiois Sierra Club held an event earlier this month that brought together two groups most normally wouldn't think to find in the same place.

Jeff Biggers, author, reporter, and recipient of the Sierra Club's 2010 David Brower Award for Environmental Reporting (PDF) spoke to the crowd about his latest book, "Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland."

In the crowd were many Sierra Club members and supporters - along with a good number of coal miners.

"The front row was all miners, three in uniform, along with the head of the Illinois Coal Association," said Will Reynolds, chair of the Sangamon Valley group and vice-chair of the Illinois Sierra Club.

Reynolds said it was Biggers' message that had the environmentalists and the coal miners agreeing.

"He made the focus of his talk on miners and mining - saying no one's looking out for the coal miners, especially not the companies. There are a lot of areas of agreement. By the end, everyone wanted to develop clean energy. I think even the miners saw the need for it - they want the jobs."

After the talk, the crowd stayed around to chat, with Biggers signing some autographs and getting his picture taken with the miners, who enjoyed what he had to say.

For Biggers, that speech in central Illinois further proved to him that a transition to clean energy is possible. Here's his response to me when I asked what he thought of the gathering:

....My show in Springfield turned into an extraordinary discussion. Coal miners in uniforms lined the front rows. Coal reps and executives sat side by side with farmers affected by longwall mining, residents in the FutureGen-targeted community of Meredosia, students, and members of the Sierra Club.
 
By stressing our historical movements to defend coal mining communities--always against outside companies more interested in profits and commerce than workplace safety, clean water or air, or justice, including the incoming coal baron Chris Cline, who intended to triple coal production in Illinois--and by asking the audience to envision a sustainable future through a just transition that did not abandoned coal miners but included them, we were able to have an intense but extremely informative and civil discussion.

One coal miner, who had come ready to confront the Sierra Club, gave me a hug after the event, and said, "This was fun. I can't wait for the next Sierra Club meeting."

On the Road With the Water Sentinels: Part 2

Reverend Mark Johnston, aka Captain Planet, is the director of Camp McDowell, an 1,100-acre slice of paradise in northwestern Alabama. His wife Maggie (below at center), a former teacher at the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind, heads up the camp's Environmental Center.

Photo courtesy of Camp McDowell

Every year some 6,000 Alabama youth attend environmental workshops at Camp McDowell, learning about the area's natural and human history and gaining a hands-on understanding of how their own everyday choices and actions affect the environment. Nearly 100,000 Alabama school kids have passed through the Environmental Center since its founding in the 1990s. Mark and Maggie feel they are changing Alabama one child at a time.

"We want to send kids home with knowledge to help them make wise decisions in their lives," Mark says. "For example, we teach them that when they turn on their light switch at home, it affects the coal strip mines here in Winston County. We can all make a difference in the little things we do, even just turning off the water while you're brushing your teeth."

Photo courtesy of Camp McDowell

When Mark came on board as camp director 20 years ago, Clear Creek, which runs through the property, was polluted with heavy metals from an adjacent strip mine. Mark undertook a David vs. Goliath fight against offending the coal company and won. Clear Creek and its tributaries now serve as an integral part of Camp McDowell's outdoor classroom.

This morning roughly a hundred 5th-graders from the Birmingham area are arriving for a 3-day workshop. We sit in on an early morning meeting with Maggie and camp instructors as they go over the schedule of workshops—Pond & Stream, Native Americans & the Earth, Authors and Explorers—then stroll down past the fork in the road to meet Mark for a jaunt through the Camp McDowell backcountry.

On the Road With the Water Sentinels: Part 1

It's coming on dusk in Birmingham, Alabama, when I rendezvous with Scott Dye, director of the Sierra Club's Water Sentinels program.

Raised on a family farm in northern Missouri, Scott learned about water pollution the hard way when a factory farm operation moved in next door. Clean water has been his consuming passion ever since, and the Water Sentinels program, created in 2001, has grown to be a model of grassroots activism.

We're spending a week on the road in Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri, hanging out with some of those grassroots activists on their home turf and shooting video as they do their thing.

This evening we're hooking up with John Vande Wege, a videographer from Los Angeles who spent 13 years with the L.A. Times, frequently on the environmental beat.

John, who's never been to Alabama before, flew into Nashville earlier this afternoon, and he's now barreling south on I-65 as Scott & I roll out of Birmingham heading northwest.

The plan is to meet up deep in the Alabama countryside at the home of Mark & Maggie Johnston, a husband-and-wife team who are spreading the green gospel in the Heart of Dixie. Mark is a priest and the director of Camp McDowell, an Episcopal camp and conference center. Maggie, a teacher by training, heads up the camp's Environmental Center.

As we approach the town of Jasper, I glance at the directions Scott has jotted down: "…head north out of town for 17 miles... look for the third set of reflectors after the water tower…" It's pitch dark outside and I wonder how easy it's going to be for John to find the place.

Rolling Beyond Coal In the Lone Star State

The weekend before Thanksgiving, the Sierra Club's Texas Beyond Coal campaign held events in nine Texas cities: Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Lubbock, College Station, Edinburg, Abilene, and Corpus Christi.

All but the Houston and Austin events were volunteer-led, and Lone Star Chapter volunteers played a major role in those cities as well. Activities included Roll Beyond Coal bike rallies, Stroll Beyond Coal walks—even a Surf Beyond Coal event.

Petition signatures were gathered at each event, and media coverage was extensive. Read samples here and here.

Austin-based Sierra Club apprentice Flavia de la Fuente, above, gives kudos to Club organizers Eva Hernandez, Oliver Bernstein, and Donna Hoffman, online organizers Mike Grenetz and Stacey Kawakami, and administrative coordinators Shelly Campbell and Adrienne Frazier "for cutting through the red tape."

Learn more about the Club's Beyond Coal campaign.

Families, Kids Rally for Strong Coal Ash Protections

On November 17, Sierra Club families rallied in front of the Environmental Protection Agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C., urging the agency to adopt tough protections against toxic coal ash.
 
Volunteers at the Rally for Children's Health were joined by organizers from the Sierra Club and other groups in calling attention to the Nov. 19 public comment deadline on the EPA's proposed safeguards. That's Virginia Sierra Club organizer Phil Ellis at left below with his kids.

Carrying signs reading Protect our Families and Clean Up Your Mess, ralliers circled a children's sandbox planted with a "Coal Ash is not Dirt" sign and chanted, "Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Weak rules on coal ash have to go!" Below, Maryland Chapter Director Laurel Imlay with her son.

Sierra Club organizer Kate Pollard led activists in a rendition of Ring Around the Rosie to playfully but firmly underscore the fact that coal ash is known to contain toxics that cause cancer and other serious illnesses. A report in Scientific American found coal ash to be more radioactive than nuclear waste.

"As the mother of two young children, I'm calling on the EPA to regulate coal ash as toxic waste," said Mary Kadera, chair of the Club's Mount Vernon Group in northern Virginia. "Far too many children are being exposed to this dangerous substance, with devastating consequences to their health, education, and well-being."

Borderlands Activist Works to Protect Habitat, Change Trade Policies

Sean Sullivan, co-chair of the Sierra Club's Borderlands Team, recently organized a photography exhibit, "Continental Divide," in Jackson, Mississippi, showcasing the environmental havoc and habitat disruption wrought by the newly-constructed 600-mile-long US-Mexico border wall.

The Jackson Free Press honored the Jackson resident on November 1 as its Person of the Day. "We are opposed to the construction of the border wall," Sullivan told the Free Press. "It disrupts habitats, it disrupts the watershed, and it blocks wildlife from moving back and forth." He also noted the human toll exacted by the border wall.

Continental Divide features 30 photographs taken by a team of International League of Conservation Photographers. The traveling exhibit debuted on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., and has since traveled to seven states. Anyone wishing to host the exhibit can learn more here.

Photo by Jeff Foott

Sullivan's hope is that Continental Divide will move citizens to demand changes to federal border and trade policies. Of particular concern is Section 102 of the Real ID Act of 2005, which gives the Secretary of Homeland Security the authority to waive all local, state, and federal laws that interfere with the construction of border barriers.

 
Photo by Krista Schlyer

"With the change of power in the House of Representatives, it's extremely important to urge our environmental allies in the Senate to be on the lookout for mandates to construct additional miles of wall," Sullivan says. "The Borderlands Team is asking people to contact Congress with a simple message: No more border walls! They're bad for wildlife, the landscape, people, and we cannot afford anymore billion-dollar boondogles."

A Just Transition To a Clean Energy Future

[Editor's note: Sierra Club environmental justice organizer Andy Bessler made his debut as a blogger for High Country News on October 8. Here is that piece.]

A Just Transition to a Clean Energy Future Off Coal Can Happen

In my first opportunity to join the blogosphere of High Country News, I wish to extend a big thanks to all those who have come before and are currently working towards achieving environmental justice (EJ) in the west. Many EJ struggles are a real challenge, rooted in a complex history with timelines and landscapes that cross vast distances both cultural and natural. As someone who has remained on the front lines of some of the EJ struggles in the Southwest for the past several decades and lived to tell the ongoing tales, I welcome the opportunity to share my perspective.

Through my position with Sierra Club, and the Club's commitment to achieving a clean and just energy future for all, I've been able to work in partnership with many great organizations and individuals. Most folks who are crazy enough to do community-based work know that grassroots organizing is tough work. The hours are long, and complex legal and hydrological details are hidden in thick documents and often get lost in translation.

The unique rural communities across the Colorado Plateau operate in their own timeframe and in their own pace, which you must respect. Most folks I work with will likely be out working in a corn field or looking for sheep in some remote canyon rather than of sitting in an office charting the progress of a mining permit application.

When I get lucky enough to reach a scratchy voice on the phone, the calls often get cut short as they descend into a canyon on some remote stretch of highway without cell service. In these tough economic times, funding is scarce for all EJ advocates and looking over the looming stacks of the Navajo Generation Station (the fiery horns on my headshot), we are reminded that coal remains a key contributor to regional haze and global warming as Lake Powell's bath rings creep lower and lower.

 
Navajo Generating Station. Photo courtesy of The Resilient Earth.

Yet it is not all gloom and doom. One of the most inspiring events I get to help organize is the Hopi Water is Life (Paatuwaqatsi) Run with my good friend and run founder Bucky Preston [below]. This year's run was amazing and the traditional Hopi feast that followed the 30-mile ultra-prayer run for water was off the charts.

Missouri Activists' Long Battle for Clean Water Pays Off

Talk about staying power! Twenty-seven years after Sierra Club activists Angel & Tom Kruzen started fighting the expansion of lead mining into the Scenic River watersheds of the Missouri Ozarks—specifically the Jacks Fork, Current, and Eleven Point Rivers—the EPA announced on October 8 that Doe Run, the country's largest lead producer, will pay $65 million to correct environmental violations at ten of its lead mining, milling, and smelting facilities in Missouri.

The company has also decided to close its lead smelter in Herculaneum, Mo., by the end of 2013 rather than try to bring the facility into compliance with environmental regulations. Below, dead fish and maggots float in Joachim Creek, which runs by the Herculaneum smelter.

"It's great news that the Herculaneum smelter will close, and gratifying to see this kind of settlement," Tom says. "But ten times that much money would still be inadequate, considering people have died or suffered irreversible health consequences due to Doe Run's carelessness. This isn't about the money; it's about the company's sloppiness catching up to them."

"They're finally being exposed," says Angel, leader of Missouri's Water Sentinels Program. Below, silver bubbles indicate heavy metal in mine tailings at Doe Run's Fletcher mine in Bunker, Mo.

Missouri produces nearly three-quarters of the country's lead, most of it from the so-called Lead Belt in the southeastern part of the state. "For more than a century, families in Missouri's lead districts have endured one of the most harmful forms of air and water pollution," says EPA Regional Administrator Karl Brooks. "Lead's toll on their lives and health has been great, which is why the outcome of this enforcement action is so important."

Air and water pollution from the Herculaneum smelter has been poisoning residents for over a century. In recent years, Doe Run has regularly had to dig up and replace peoples' entire yards to get rid of particulate matter from the smelter that regularly blankets the town. Dust on Herculaneum streets, below, has been found to contain 300,000 parts per million of lead.

Hundreds Turn Out for Clean Air Rally & Hearing in Denver

More than 200 people rallied recently in downtown Denver before packing a Public Utilities Commission hearing. The PUC called the hearing to solicit feedback on implementing Colorado's Clean Air-Clean Jobs Act and the plan by Xcel energy to retire 903 megawatts of existing coal plant operations in the state.

The rally was organized by a coalition of conservation groups including the Sierra Club, along with health organizations, renewable energy businesses, and natural gas companies.

"Coal industry activists held a smaller rally of their own just across the street and tried unsuccessfully to crash our rally," says Sierra Club Beyond Coal campaign organizer Roger Singer. "But we had the mike and we kept them at bay."

At the PUC hearing, commissioners alternated between pro and con speakers. "Forty-plus coalition members spoke in support of Xcel's plan," Singer says, "and we urged the PUC to retire the 903 MW of coal even sooner, build one less gas plant than proposed, and put more emphasis on renewable energy and energy efficiency."

Media coverage of the rally and hearing included the Denver Post, Associated Press, KUNC radio, and local TV coverage. The Post ran a ¼ page photo featuring Sierra Club volunteer Donna Bonetti, the Club's Beyond Coal t-shirts, and activists wearing air masks that Singer brought to the rally.