The Kingston, Tennessee area did not have the merriest of Christmas last week. As you may have heard, a breach in the wall of a giant retention pond holding back 80 acres of Coal ash and slurry from a nearby coal plant sent 500 million gallons of toxic waste spilling into the surrounding area.
So far, 15 homes in Harriman, Tennessee have been reported damaged and one man injured when his house was knocked off its foundation. Power lines were toppled and the waste also spilled into the Clinch River, a tributary to the Tennessee River which is the water supply for Chattanooga and millions of people living downstream in Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky.
Clean up could take years, according to Greenpeace, and the damage to wildlife, ecosystems and the surrounding residents could be massive. Greenpeace is calling for a criminal investigation into the failure of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to prevent the spill.
TVA spokesman Gil Francis told CNN that up to 400 acres of land had been coated by the sludge, a bigger area than the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. Video footage showed sludge as high as 6 feet, burying porches and garage doors. The slide also downed nearby power lines, though the TVA said power had been restored to the area.
Neighbors had noticed earlier, smaller breaches at the 1960's area ash pond at the coal plant, according to The Tennessean, but nothing of this magnitude.
"This spill shows that coal can never be 'clean,'" said Kate Smolski, Senior Legislative Coordinator for Greenpeace. "If the Exxon Valdez was a symbol of pollution 20 years ago, the Tennessee Coal Spill of 2008 is the symbol of it today."
The NRDC reports that long term effects of the spill will be bad, including contamination of ground water because coal ash "is loaded with toxic metals and other hazardous substances," including arsenic, mercury, chromium and cadmium, all of which can damage organs and the nervous system. These contaminants are particularly dangerous for children, even without a disaster like the recent one. Yet fly ash is not currently regulated by the EPA as a hazardous waste, though they have been considering changing that.
"The really sad thing about this spill is that it’s only a small example of the damage coal causes," Smolski added. "Add in global warming, tens of thousands of annual premature deaths from power plant pollution, and hundreds of mountains leveled across Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky and West Virginia, and that's the real picture of coal."
We didn't see it coming either, but the Labor Department may have just become a whole lot more relevant to enviros everywhere as of today. Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.), a longtime proponent of green-collar jobs who has amassed an encouraging record on most environmental issues, is Barack Obama's choice for Labor Secretary, according to several reports this afternoon.
The daughter of Mexican and Nicaraguan immigrants and the only member of Congress of Central American descent, Solis won a fifth term last month. She previously served in the California state assembly, becoming in 1994 the first Latina to win a seat in the state Senate. In 1996 she led the battle to increase the state's minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.75 an hour.
In Congress, Solis was a guiding force behind the 2007 Green Jobs Act, which authorized $125 million to establish national and state job training programs to address job shortages impairing growth in green industries. The legislation focused on sectors working on energy efficient building construction, renewable electric power, energy efficient vehicles and biofuels development.
"Through targeted job training efforts, we can support both our nation’s innovation and technological leadership and lift people out of poverty," Solis said at the time.
The green jobs bill was signed into law as part of the broader 2007 energy act. As the Wall Street Journalreported "Rep. Solis figures green-job training could create as many as 3 million new jobs in the next decade." If confirmed, the pick of Solis "will bring the Labor Department within the orbit of the administration’s energy and environment team."
Architecture 2030 has done it again. The folks who brought us a couple of much needed doses of reality on offshore drilling and nuclear energy have developed an economic stimulus plan (pdf) which, according to word on the street, is on the radar of the Obama transition team. The main thrust of the plan is a focus on investment in energy efficiency, the lowest hanging fruit when it comes to reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.
Architecture 2030 recommends an investment of $171.72 billion ($85.86 billion each year for two years) in a plan that integrates a housing mortgage buy-down and an accelerated-depreciation program for commercial buildings with energy efficiency in buildings, specifically with the widely adopted energy reduction plan called the 2030 Challenge. This investment will create 3.75 million direct jobs in the Building Sector, as well as 4.34 million indirect and induced jobs and over 350,000 jobs from consumer spending.
Of special note, tying the mortgage buy-down and accelerated depreciation to achieving specific energy reductions immediately creates the opportunity for a $1.6 trillion renovation market that does not currently exist. The immediacy and magnitude of this opportunity can turn the tide for the construction industry, as well as the nation.
Writing about the plan for Grist, Architecture 2030 founder Edward Mazria outlines some of the key components of the stimulus plan:
With a federal investment of $85.56 billion each year for two years, the Plan will, in just two years:
Create over 8 million new jobs andcreate a new $1.6 trillion renovation market.
In just five years, it will:
Save consumers $142.33 to 200.88 billion.
Reduce CO2 emissions by 481.13 million metric tons.
Reduce energy consumption by 6.17 quadrillion btu.
Save 1.83 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Save 83.35 million barrels of oil.
The beauty of a focus on efficiency is that, although there is an initial investment, there is a net gain in individual disposable income through reduced energy costs and lower mortgage rates. Essentially, borrowing money for efficiency improvements can result in an overall lower monthly mortgage payment which has the added benefit of addressing the foreclosure crisis and helping to keep people in their homes. The estimated $142.33 billion to $200.88 billion savings over 5 years is not exactly chump change.
First term Colorado Senator Ken Salazar is Obama's choice for secretary of the embattled Interior Department, a right-down-the-middle pick that is being hailed by some environmentalists and more than a few oil and mining groups. There are a few too many warning signs for our liking, and we're not even talking about his goofy propensity to dress like our Montana governor.
The pick of Salazar comes at a critical juncture for the agency, which among other things oversees national parks, the Bureau of Reclamation and the Bureau of Land Management. Just two days ago, the agency's Inspector General released a report that found a former high-ranking official exerted political influence to meddle with endangered species rulings proposed by agency scientists.
Salazar, a fifth generation Coloradan who has worked as a lawyer and farmer, will have a number of major issue to tackle next month, from offshore drilling exploration to mining leases on BLM land. Interior manages an astounding 500 million acres of surface land as well as 1.76 billion acres of the Outer Continental Shelf. That includes 8,300 active oil and gas leases on 44 million offshore acres.
It's quotes like these, which seem to be surfacing all over the place today, that make us wonder if Salazar may be too centrist for his own good: "Nothing in his record suggests he’s an ideologue," said Luke Popovich of the National Mining Association. "Here’s a man who understands the issues, is open-minded and can see at least two sides of an issue."
While some environmental groups (like Environment Colorado) endorsed the choices, others are far more wary. "The most important task facing the next interior secretary is reforming the Department of Interior from the bottom up, and I'm not seeing anything to suggest that he's a visionary or a reformer," said Kieran Suckling of the Center for Biological Diversity told the Washington Post. "He's better than what's come before, but it looks like it's going to limp along as a semi-broken agency."
Australian officials said yesterday they would aim to cut GHG emissions 15 percent by 2020 ... but only if other nations make similar cuts. Now that's leadership. Government leaders said they would only pursue the 15 percent target if other major emitters like China and India sign on to a post-Kyoto climate agreement. If not, Australia says it will lower its target to 5 percent by 2020.
This hasn't gone over too well with environmentalists down under, who had urged leaders to adopt a target reduction of 25 percent for Australia, which happens to be the world's biggest coal exporter. Green groups throughout the country staged protests today that included placing sandbags around minister's offices in Sydney to highlight rising sea levels and carrying white flags of surrender in Melbourne. Other activists threw shoes (that caught on fast!) at a puppet of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
Rudd called the country's new strategy of aiming low "a responsible course of action ... The Australian government, given the global financial crisis, makes no apologies whatsoever for introducing responsible medium term targets to bring down our greenhouse gas emissions, capable of being built on in the future more ambitiously.
Enviros too issue with Rudd's definition of responsible targets: "Today's protest is to tell Kevin Rudd that the Australian people didn't vote for five percent," New South Wales Greens lawmaker John Kaye said. "What they wanted was targets that put Australia as world leaders on climate change and not as losers."
The EPA has finally figured out its policy on regulating factory farm emissions: We're not going to do it.
The agency issued a new regulation on Friday that exempts factory farms from reporting hazardous air pollution to the federal government, calling such reporting "unnecessary" because "Federal, State or local response officials are unlikely to respond to notifications of air releases of hazardous substances from animal waste at farms" anyway.
That statement is a little...um...disheartening.
OK, well maybe EPA doesn't think it needs the data but communities and farm workers seeking recourse for health problems resulting from factory farm pollution need this record to hold the culprits accountable.
A quick review: gases released from animal waste include hydrogen sulfide and ammonia. Livestock operations generate about two-thirds of the ammonia emissions reported each year, and the concentration of these and other toxic gases leads to respiratory problems in farm workers and nearby residents, as cited in a recent lawsuit we told you about.
Two hopeful pieces remain, however:
1. Local authorities demanded they know about the sources of emissions that might cause respiratory problems or deaths. "Their views prevailed," reports the Washington Post. Judging by the rule, it looks like there is still some degree of local and state reporting of farm emissions.
2. This rule will almost certainly be revisited by the new administration and Congress. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who chairs the Agriculture Committee previously said that EPA "needed to formulate a common-sense answer" that recognizes difference between animal production and chemical factories. He now criticizes the Bush administration's new rule for being finalized before the completion of a two-year, $14 million study launched last year. The study is focusing on air pollution from farms.
The California Air Resources Board was busy last week. A day after approving a controversial plan that seeks to cut GHG emissions by 15 percent over the next 12 years, CARB officials on Friday made California the first state to make big diesel trucks clean up their exhaust, adopting a measure that will cost truckers more than $5 billion.
Under the measure, aimed at reducing soot pollution by 85 percent over the next 15 years, almost all diesel engines must be upgraded by 2014 with new exhaust filters. But that's just the beginning. According to the new rule, which needs no further approval, all engines older than 2010 models will have to be replaced between 2012 and 2022.
This necessary measure is the definition of stringent: In 2023, no truck or bus in California will be allowed to be older than 13 years unless it has equipment to cut nitrogen oxide emissions. Nearly 1 million big rigs will be affected, since the rule will apply to trucks registered in California as well as 500,000 out-of-state vehicles that do business in the state.
As important as the new rule is, California officials will need to step up and offer more than the $1 billion that's already on the table to help subsidize truckers during the transition. One Tulare-based trucking company president said it would cost him $7 million to replace 26 of his 35 aging trucks by 2014, a tough goal for a company with a $50,000 annual profit.
CARB officials have said the rule will save more than 9,400 lives between 2011 and 2025, while saving Californians $68 billion in healthcare costs. "This regulation is not something that you could do or should do -- it's something you must do," said Bonnie Holmes-Gen of the American Lung Association of California.
More than 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from livestock, a fact that is not getting the attention it deserves according to the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
"In terms of immediacy of action and the feasibility of bringing about reductions in a short period of time, it clearly is the most attractive opportunity. Give up meat for one day [a week] initially, and decrease it from there," Dr. Rajendra Pachauri said recently.
While power plants and energy intensive industries are under pressure to reduce their emissions, the large agricultural sectors are just now beginning to come under scrutiny. The irony, according to Pachauri, is that changing diet is much easier than altering transportation systems.
The concerns of meat consumption are far reaching, from the methane and nitrous oxide gasses emitted by the animals to the clear-cutting of the rainforest on behalf of livestock production to the energy needed to process and transport the food. Producing a pound of beef creates 100 times more emissions than a pound of carrots, according to Lantmannen, a Swedish organization.
Well that was fun while it lasted. Less than a week after putting their, uh, unique spin on Christmas caroling by dressing up crudely animated pieces of coal and having them sing bastardized versions of beloved holiday songs, the folks at the American Coalition For Clean Coal Electricity have pulled the plug, so to speak.
A note posted at www.americaspower.org/Carolers alerts readers of the change: "We had fun this week with the Clean Coal Carolers and hope you enjoyed them. Now it's time for them to head home for the holidays. Season's greetings from America’s Power!"
Yeah, OK, we can be the change that we want to see in the world. But unless powerful people in powerful positions want to be that change as well, nothing's going to change.
So now, finally, there's a place where you can go for news and analysis of politics from an environmental perspective.
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