More Water Pollution for Corporate Profit Dead Ahead

The Bush administration signed off on a controversial 11th hour repeal of the stream buffer-zone rule this week, an environmental law which since 1983 has prohibited surface coal-mining activities within 100 feet of flowing streams.

The repeal of this important protection clears the way for an even greater expansion of mountaintop-removal mining as well as pollution of streams in valleys near mining operations, critics say, and should be considered an unconstitutional violation of the Clean Water Act.

“The EPA’s decision is a slap in the face of Appalachian communities, which have already endured enough injustice from mountaintop removal,” said Vernon Haltom, co-director of the West Virginia-based Coal River Mountain Watch. “My home and thousands of others are now in greater jeopardy.”

EPA’s approval comes in spite of a recent wave of criticism directed generally at the outgoing administration’s ‘midnight regulations’ and specifically at the repeal of the stream buffer-zone rule.

“Once again, the Environmental Protection Agency has failed to live up to its name. With less than two months left in power, the Bush administration is determined to cement its legacy as having the worst environmental record in history,” said Joan Mulhern, senior legislative counsel at Earthjustice. “This is a sad day for all people who are thankful for the clear mountain streams and stately summits of the Appalachians.”

The change, which is being proposed by Department of the Interior’s Office of Surface Mining, had to receive written approval from EPA before it could be finalized. That last hurdle was cleared Tuesday.

Opponents of the repeal of the stream buffer-zone rule argued that EPA could not legally approve the rule change because doing so conflicts with EPA’s duties under the Clean Water Act.

“The EPA’s own scientists have concluded that dumping mining waste into streams devastates downstream water quality,” said Ed Hopkins, director of Sierra Club’s Environmental Quality Program. “By signing off on a rule to eliminate a critical safeguard for streams, the EPA has abdicated its responsibility and left the local communities that depend on these waters at risk.”

Last month, top decision makers in the coal-mining states of Kentucky and Tennessee urged EPA to block the rule change. Kentucky Gov. Steven Beshear, Attorney General Jack Conway, and Reps. Ben Chandler and John Yarmuth each wrote letters to EPA head Stephen Johnson asking him not to sign off on the repeal of the stream buffer-zone rule. And Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen also weighed in with EPA, voicing concerns on behalf of his state.

“The regions most affected by this rule, in the Appalachian Coal Belt, are some of the poorest in the nation,” said Lane Boldman with the Sierra Club Cumberland (Kentucky) Chapter. “And all they are asking for is some fundamental protection of their waterways so that they can continue to fish and swim downstream.”

In October, a landmark nationwide poll on mountaintop-removal mining found that two out of three voters opposed the rule change. Upon hearing that “more than 1,200 miles of streams in Appalachia already have been buried or destroyed by mountaintop-removal coal mining,” fully 85 percent of voters said they were concerned about the effects of this mining practice.

Mountaintop-removal mining has long been opposed by many residents of Appalachia. The poll, the first to test voters’ views of this practice nationwide, showed that voters in every region of the country are similarly against mountaintop-removal mining.

“We are surely thankful the Bush administration will soon be gone. We are hopeful that once Obama is president, he will ban mountaintop-removal mining entirely, and Bush’s last-minute sneaky moves won’t end up destroying even more of our streams, and by extension, our mountains, our communities, and our culture,” said Vivian Stockman project coordinator for the Huntington, W.Va.-based Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition.

Since coal companies began the practice of mountaintop-removal mining in earnest, the topography of Appalachia has been forever altered: More than 400 mountaintops have been stripped of trees and flattened, 1,200 miles of mountain streams buried under rubble. Already the lush forests which once cloaked 387,000 acres of the world’s most ancient mountain range have been replaced by apocalyptic lunar landscapes. If industry is allowed to proceed at the current rate, an area the size of Delaware will have been lost.

“With this rule change, the outgoing Bush is poised to eliminate forever more of our headwater streams — the very lifeblood of our mountains and the source of healthy water resources that future generations will depend upon,” said Cindy Rank, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy’s mining chair.

According to the Blackwarrior Riverkeeper, a non-profit watchdog group in Birmingham, the EPA apparently did not heed over 40,000 objections from throughout the country, because of overwhelming politicization of process in Washington, D.C.

“Unfortunately this administration has chosen to upend as many of our important environmental laws as possible while in power,” Riverkeeper Nelson Brooke said in a press release. “This is not only a loss for regions where mountaintop-removal coal mining is prevalent, but also it is detrimental to any community with coal mines.”

With nearly 100 active coal mines in the Black Warrior River watershed, the majority of which are strip mines that are allowed to come within 100 feet of the river and its tributaries, “this rule change could have devastating consequences,” he said.

“While our southern Appalachian coal mines are called strip mines, they are really mountaintop removal to a lesser extent (only because our mountains here are much smaller). Lack of proper enforcement of existing environmental regulations on coal mining is already taking its toll on the river. This is a step in the wrong direction.”

The group is urging interested members of the public to join them in rebuking the EPA’s decision under the Bush Administration by contacting the EPA, members of Congress, and writing letters to the editors of local newspapers and commenting on blogs.

You can bombard EPA administrator Stephen L. Johnson with e-mail as well at  johnson.stephen@epa.gov

Write letters to the D.C. office at:
US Environmental Protection Agency
Ariel Rios Building, 1101A
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N. W.
Washington, DC 20460
(202) 564-4700

For a memo detailing the survey findings, check out this PDF file from the Earth Justice site.

Glynn Wilson

Alabama Power’s Miller Steam Plant on the Locust Fork emits more mercury into the air than any other power plant in the country.

by Glynn Wilson

What do you know? Alabama is number one in something besides football: Mercury pollution.

And the source of that pollution just happens to be located along the river that inspired the creation of this independent online news outlet, the Locust Fork River.

While it’s not exactly a bragging matter, Alabama can now say it is among the “Dirty Dozen” states in the country for mercury pollution, along with Arkansas, Georgia, Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, North Dakota, Missouri, Kansas, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, according to a report out today by the Environmental Integrity Project.

Alabama Power’s coal-fired Miller Steam Plant in west Jefferson County on the Locust Fork of the Black Warrior River released more mercury into the air in 2007 than any other power plant in the country.

The plant dumped almost a ton of toxic mercury into the air last year, an increase of about 14 percent over reported emissions in 2006. And Alabama Power’s Gaston Steam Plant in Shelby County ranked eighth in the country for mercury pollution, pumping 1,175 pounds of the toxic heavy metal into the air last year, a 4.9 percent increase over 2006.

Alabama had four of the worst plants on the list, including two of the 10 worst.

Ilan Levin, the senior attorney for the environmental watchdog group, pointed out that when mercury is released into the air it ends up in rivers, lakes, and soil and then moves up the food chain into humans. And he said the amounts shown in this report, gathered through the federal government’s Toxic Release Inventory database, are “extraordinarily high,” indicating the very real possibility of a “direct human health effect” on the population of Alabama.

Coal burning for power generation releases mercury when it is burned, and is known to cause a host of human health problems, including neurological damage and developmental delays in fetuses, infants, and children.

Coal-fired power plants are the single largest source of mercury pollution into the nation’s air, accounting for about 40 percent of all mercury emissions, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Studies conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta show that about 6 percent of American women carry mercury concentrations at levels considered dangerous to fetuses. Learning problems and brain damage can be the result. Experts say mercury from power plants, a potent neurotoxin, causes brain damage in at least 630,000 babies born each year.

Reacting to the report, Alabama Power spokesman Michael Sznajderman told the conservative Birmingham News, which takes advertising money from Alabama Power and its parent corporation Southern Company, that the high numbers are the result of more power being generated at the plants last year, and due to the use of Wyoming coal, which contains less sulfur but more mercury.

Sznajderman defended the company’s pollution by saying it is working to install scrubbers at all of the company’s coal-fired plants that will “significantly” reduce those emissions in the coming years. He didn’t say why it has taken so long for the company to realize the problem was there, or why it is just now beginning to spend a tiny portion of its massive profits to address the issue.

In addition to the two plants in the top 10 nationally, Alabama Power owns and operates two more in the top 30 in mercury emissions. The Barry Steam Plant in Mobile was 25 on the list, pumping 711 pounds of mercury into the air, a 1.8 percent increase over last year. The Gorgas steam plant in Walker County was 28 on the list, pumping 642.6 pounds of mercury into the air last year.

Of course coal fueled almost half of the electricity generated in the United States in 2007 and provided 55 percent of the energy generated in Alabama, according the federal Energy Information Administration, an industry lobby group.

The Birmingham News reports that Alabama is a “power-hungry state,” with residential electric consumers ranking tops in the country in average consumption of electricity. But is that their fault? Or the power company’s?

Sznajderman said the scrubbers planned at the plants, designed to cut emissions of sulfur dioxide, are also projected to cut mercury emissions by 40 percent, although he offered no proof. The cost is estimated at $1 billion, he said, a tiny fraction of the profits of Southern Company.

In addition to its number one rank in mercury pollution, Alabama is also sixth in emissions of sulfur dioxide, 10th for nitrogen oxide, and ninth for carbon dioxide. Some legacy, eh?

The incoming administration of the new president, Barack Obama, will have to begin to deal with energy and environmental issues on day one, since the nation lost eight years under the lack of leadership by the administration of President George W. Bush. Corporations were allowed to pollute and profit at will, while virtually every federal agency was filled with industry- and GOP-loyalists who gutted attempts to regulate pollution and any push for the development of alternative energy sources.

Even now, the lame-duck Bush administration is trying to turn political-appointed jobs into civil-service jobs to try and circumvent Obama from having them fired.

“When the original Clean Air Act was passed in 1970, the electric utility industry persuaded Congress to not impose strict pollution controls on old power plants, because they would soon be replaced by newer state-of-the-art facilities,” Levin said. “Yet despite the industry’s promises, many of the nation’s oldest and dirtiest power plants continue to operate. Pollution controls that dramatically reduce emissions are widely available, and already being used at many plants.

“But until the public and policymakers hold the electric-utility industry to its promised cleanup of the nation’s oldest and dirtiest power plants, Americans will continue to bear unnecessary health and environmental costs,” he said. “Even though mercury removal is achievable, EPA has backed away from strict power-plant mercury regulation.”

In 2005, instead of requiring power plant mercury reductions, the Bush EPA opted for a weak cap-and-trade scheme which would have allowed power plants to either reduce their own mercury pollution or buy pollution credits from other plants.

And it’s no wonder Southern Company gets what it wants in Washington. According to Public Citizen and the Center for Responsive Politics, Southern Company is the most generous donor to the Republican Party, giving more than $1.6 million since 2000. And Dwight Evans, Executive Vice President at Southern Company, was a pioneer in President Bush’s reelection campaign in 2004 – meaning he pledged to raise at least $100,000 in hard-money donations.

The Money Behind the Madness: Campaign Contributions Grease the Skids for Utilities

The company makes an annual profit of more than $15 billion, according to trade sources on the Web.

You can see today’s full new report at this Web link.

The Environmental Integrity Project is a nonpartisan and nonprofit organization established in March 2002 to advocate for more effective enforcement of environmental laws. It was founded by Eric Schaeffer, who was director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Regulatory Enforcement until he resigned in 2002, after publicly expressing his frustration with efforts of the Bush Administration to weaken enforcement of the Clean Air Act and other laws.

The group won a lawsuit against the Bush EPA back in February, and we had the story about as fast as any news organization in the country.

The Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta has upheld the right of citizens and environmental groups to sue polluting companies under the Clean Water Act in the southeastern United States.

The court ruled on November 13 that a Clean Water Act citizen suit is not barred by a state administrative action, commenced after a citizen group gives notice of its intent to sue to abate water pollution.

“Citizen suits are a proven enforcement tool,” the court ruling says. “They operate as Congress intended — to both spur and supplement government enforcement actions.”

The ruling upholds the intent of Congress when it passed the Clean Water Act in 1972 and certifies that Black Warrior Riverkeeper, citizen groups, and citizens throughout the Southeast’s Eleventh Circuit have the right to exercise an active role in water-pollution reduction, according to a press release issued Tuesday by the group.

“This is especially important where state agencies are not adequately enforcing the Clean Water Act, such as in Alabama,” according to Mark E. Martin, the prosecuting attorney for the group. “We are extremely pleased, but not surprised, by the Court’s decision. This will allow citizens, such as Black Warrior Riverkeeper, to continue to supplement the EPA and the Alabama Department of Environmental Management’s enforcement of the provisions of the Clean Water Act to stop the illegal discharge of dangerous pollutants into our state’s waters.”

In Black Warrior Riverkeeper v. Cherokee Mining, the company argued that the group should be barred from taking enforcement action against their coal mines and that role was a misinterpretation of the intent of Congress.

The court disagreed, saying, “We find Cherokee’s interpretation of these provisions to be an extremely cramped and narrow reading of the ordinary and plain meaning of the relevant language.”

The decision upholds a decision by U.S. District Judge William M. Acker of the Northern District of Alabama. The company argued that enforcement action by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management precluded the need for citizen suits.

“Citizen suits are a key right afforded by the Clean Water Act, which we use often to hold polluters accountable,” said Nelson Brook, Executive Director and Riverkeeper for the group. “We do so because often pollution goes unabated for years without effective enforcement from ADEM.”

He indicated the conservative, pro-business, one-stop-permitting agency and the state attorney general’s office are often impediments to citizen actions to protect the environment in a state known as “Alabama the Beautiful.”

“They have often initiated enforcement actions only after we give them notification of our intent to sue, which is required by law,” he said. “Their enforcement actions levy slap-on-the-wrist fines which do little to deter pollution.”

To read the full court decision, pull up the pdf file from this Webpage: order.

Black Warrior Riverkeeper is a non-profit organization whose mission is to protect and restore the Black Warrior River and its tributaries. The Alabama Environmental Council’s 2007 Conservation Organization of the Year, and the American Canoe Association’s 2008 Green Paddle Award winner, Black Warrior Riverkeeper is a proud grassroots member of Waterkeeper Alliance.

To learn more, visit their website.

The Black Warrior Riverkeeper and the Friends of the Locust Fork environmental groups have settled their lawsuit against Metro Recycling for polluting the Locust Fork River with pollution from a used tire landfill in Blount County, Alabama.

U.S. District Judge L. Scott Coogler approved the settlement requiring Metro Recycling to cease illegal discharges of pollutants, obtain a pollution permit mandated by the Clean Water Act, and pay $7,500 for a Supplemental Environmental Project in the Locust Fork watershed.

The money will fund aquatic surveys in the Locust Fork watershed which will be used to determine future conservation goals within the watershed, according to a joint press release issued by the groups this week.

The parties chose the Freshwater Land Trust, an Alabama non-profit land conservation organization, to receive Metro Recycling’s payment and enable the aquatic surveys.

Metro Recycling owns and operates a used-tire landfill, which was found during Riverkeeper patrols to be discharging pollutants into an unnamed tributary of Whites Creek, a tributary of the Locust Fork of the Black Warrior River. Laboratory results from Riverkeeper’s water samples showed the pollutants illegally discharged by Metro Recycling included: Benzene (a known carcinogen), Chloromethane (possible carcinogen), 1,2-Dichloroethane (probable carcinogen), Ethylbenzene, Toluene, Vinyl Chloride (known carcinogen), and Xylenes, o,m,p.

Metro Recycling violated the Clean Water Act and Alabama law by discharging pollutants without a proper permit, according to Nelson Brooke, Riverkeeper and Executive Director of the Black Warrior Riverkeeper.

“As Riverkeeper of this large watershed, help from committed locals who serve as my eyes, nose, and ears is crucial,” Brooke said in an e-mail interview. “We would not have known about this problem without concerned locals reporting it to us. Working in concert with locals we are an important voice for citizens when our state and federal agencies fail to adequately enforce environmental laws. Under our watch, polluters will be held accountable.”

The settlement money will help the environmental groups better understand the river’s aquatic biodiversity and act as better stewards in future conservation efforts.

“The Friends of the Locust Fork River is glad to be part of an opportunity to update the aquatic survey of the mid-70s through the Supplemental Environmental Settlement portion of the suit with Metro Tire Landfill,” according to Sam Howell, president of the group. “The study will indicate the current health of the Locust Fork River and give FLFR and Black Warrior Riverkeeper information on how to be better stewards of this river’s watershed. I am pleased The Freshwater Land Trust accepted the request to be the facilitator of the $7500.00 to begin the renewed aquatic study. I know the results will make the river and the communities surrounding it a better place to live.”

The Locust Fork of the Black Warrior River is a remarkable free-flowing river. Flowing for 159 miles out of Etowah, Marshall, and Blount counties into Jefferson County, the river is an outstanding resource for locals and visitors alike.

Click here for the settlement agreement.

Click here for the original lawsuit.

Black Warrior Riverkeeper is a non-profit organization whose mission is to protect and restore the Black Warrior River and its tributaries.

Friends of the Locust Fork is a non-profit grassroots organization dedicated to preserving the integrity of the Locust Fork River in its natural free-flowing state, and to that end, the lifestyle of the community which surrounds it.

Freshwater Land Trust is a non-profit organization whose mission is the acquisition and stewardship of lands that enhance water quality and preserve open space.

The Locust Fork News-Journal is an independent online news organization inspired in part by the Locust Fork River. To understand why, read these signature stories about it.

Secret Vistas: A River Runs Through It

The Future of Democracy and the Web Press