8:17:03 PM EST
Religion, Huckabee and Romney
In case there is anyone reading this stuff here is something that came in an email from a friend from back in our Peace Corps days(1961-63)
In 1961, I thought that all the nonsense with religion would be over by now. But CNN brings me the news that the preacher from the biggest organized hate group in the country is surging ahead of his rival from the wackiest sect in the race to represent the Republicans, most of whose candidates have said to have reaffirmed their belief that the earth is 5,000 years old. I hope that you heard Huckabee’s explanation of his jump in the polls --- surely the work of a higher power, said he. That took my breath away.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
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12:05:34 PM EST
Coal to Liquids Editorial Response
This is a response to a Charleston Gazette op-ed that I submitted yesterday.
In his December 16 Gazette commentary Roger Nicholson, a senior vice-president of International Coal Group (Sago was theirs) said he wants his children to settle in this beautiful state. He figures that coal to liquid plants will make that possible. What he fails to mention is that those plants will increase the already massive mountain top removal strip mining. With that increase there may be no beautiful West Virginia left for Nicholson’s children to find jobs. The beauty will be gone with the disappearance of even more mountains and the burial of even more streams.
Jeff Goodell says, in his book Big Coal, that about three and a half barrels of water are consumed for every barrel of fuel made from coal. Nicholson backs Governor Manchin’s goal of producing 1.3 billion gallons of fuel from coal every year. That will take about 5 billion gallons of water per year, 14 million gallons a day. Boy that ought to dry up a bunch of streams, underground aquifers and water wells. Goodell also says that the carbon dioxide produced in coal to liquid plants can be 50 to 100 percent higher than refining petroleum. Nicholson sloughs off concerns of reputable scientists about the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as a view held by global warming alarmists.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Nicholson tried to place negative labels on thousands of West Virginians who love the mountains just as they are. He called us extremists, alarmists, obstructive and a vocal minority. Nicholson becomes extreme, and alarmists himself in the act of trying to scapegoat people who love mountains more than they do coal and money. For the coal industry to call anyone else extreme is a knee slapper. It is hard to imagine what could be more extreme than the massive mountain top removal strip mining that will increase with coal to liquid plants.
Contrary to Nicholson’s mean spirited labels, the people I know who love the mountains just as they are more easily fit the labels of gentle, kind, aware and intelligent. They are folks who are indeed alarmed at the destruction of hundreds of thousands of acres of West Virginia mountains. They are extremely angered by the burying of over a thousand miles of West Virginia headwaters. And the only thing they want to obstruct is the wholesale destruction of the environment, a very worthy obstruction.
Thanks to the first amendment to our constitution we are all free to be vocal. We are not a minority as Nicholson claims, far from it. Even if we were a minority we would still have the right to be vocal, to express our opinions, to seek mercy from the courts. Vocal is good. Indeed for democracy to survive we must be vocal when we see crimes against man and nature..
Predictably Nicholson wraps himself in the flag. He uses the phrases “help our country”, “our nation’s energy needs”. We are called upon to be patriotic, to remain silent, to be a sacrifice zone for the rest of the country. Nicholson seems to be paraphrasing the infamous quote from the Vietnam war; we have to destroy the state to save it and the nation.
And jobs, they never leave out jobs, except at the mine site. When my dad was an underground miner there were over 100,000 miners in West Virginia. Now there are less than 20,000. As Larry Gibson says if that is job creation I hope they stop before they run clear out of jobs. Whenever it will save money coal miners will continue to be replaced with machines. No matter what smoke screens the coal companies put up it is money they care about.
At hearings on mountain top removal and other forms of strip mining permits it is always the same; Speakers for the permit stand to make money from the destruction of the mountains. Those who speak against the permit are not there for the money; they are there for the mountains. Those who want more mountains destroyed are in it for the money. Upton Sinclair said it best; "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
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10:35:03 AM EST
Where Does Your Electricity Come From
"The Sierra Club has created a New Coal Plant Tracker, http://www.sierraclub.org/coal/ Find out where your electricity comes from.
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10:10:03 AM EST
West Virginia Highlands Conservancy
Join today at www.wvhighlands.org
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12:39:25 PM EDT
Feeling Angry
Gas Well Drilling Slide Show
Check out this site for a slide show on gas well drilling. The destruction seen here is very similar to what has happened to Kanawha State Forest. Kanawha State Forest has mountain top removal on two sides and gas well destruction inside.
http://wvsoro.org/galleries/index.php?spgmGal=gas_well_drilling
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12:36:12 PM EDT
Where Does The Scrubber Waste Go?
When I was teaching at Duval High School in Lincoln County a student brought me a white substance that had been spread on the dirt road that went by his home. I had him analyze it and he found that it contained Calcium and Sulfate ions. Calcium Sulfate is a by-product from power plant scrubbers. It is commonly known as gypsum which is in sheetrock. I figure it came from the John Amos power plant scrubbers. The gypsum itself, although out of place on a country road draining into creeks, is not very toxic. However all kinds of toxic chemicals come from burning coal and I suspect mercury and others were also trapped in the gypsum.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
AEP settlement will eventually lead to cleaner air -- but where will the scrubber waste go?
Yesterday the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
announced a record $4.6 billion settlement with
American Electric Power in a lawsuit brought by eight northeastern states and a number of environmentaladvocacy groups. The Ohio-based company also agreed to install pollution controls in order to reduce air pollution coming from its facilities, including coal-burning plants in Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky.
"Less air pollution from power plants means fewer cases of asthma and other respiratory illnesses," said Granta Nakayama, assistant administrator for EPA’s enforcement and compliance assurance program.
It's true that the settlement reached with the company will allow millions of people to breathe cleaner air. But it also raises a question: What will the company do with the additional coal combustion waste collected after installing more effective emissions controls?
The EPA currently does not regulate coal combustion waste as hazardous waste, and this lack of regulation is creating serious environmental problems. Across the South and the nation, coal combustion waste landfills and surface impoundments have released to the environmental toxic chemicals and metals including arsenic, lead and cadmium at levels dangerous to human health. At least 23 states including Texas, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina have poisoned surface or groundwater supplies from the improper disposal of coal ash. As we
reported last month, the agency recently released a draft risk assessment on coal combustion waste disposal that found unlined coal ash waste ponds pose a cancer risk
900 times above what the government considers acceptable.
Environmental advocacy groups have been urging EPA to begin regulating coal combustion waste as hazardous waste, and the agency is now
accepting public comments on the matter. The AEP settlement and the additional waste the company's cleanup efforts will create highlight the importance of addressing this environmental hazard soon.
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12:21:34 PM EDT
Former Massey Worker Speaks
I had invited a friend to the Oct 20 prayer vigil on Kayford Mountain.He gave me permission to share his emails. I send it to give you an idea of what a young sensitive, responsible, union family man feels about Massey and mountain top removal.
Julian
Thanks for the invitation. I have been tied up in class every Saturday 830-530. I have 20 more weeks and I will be finished. I would love to come to this event. I have enjoyed your correspondence and yes, you make a difference. Our home land is under assault. In the name of business and prosperity our state and federal government continue to give these companies access to pillage our heritage. Our elected officials are so ignorant that they can't see that nothing comes from MTR. The mountains get destroyed and communities remain in poverty. They work their men 11-12 hours a day and try to bust unions with their scare tactics. I have spent countless hours thinking of ways in which to eliminate MTR.
Power is the root cause of this crisis. Our country is in need of electricity and there are many variables that contribute to this need. I read an article published about 5 years ago in the Herald Dispatch. This article stated that we have enough trade winds to power the entire United States on Wind-Energy (WOW). I think this is one possible solution to our need for electricity. You have probably read all of the recent articles about the cost of solar energy and geothermal energy. Because of the increasing cost of oil and coal, these alternatives provide cost effective alternatives for the US. We live in the 21st Century and we have the technology to provide alternatives to eliminate oil and coal. The US needs to be the leader in this revolution. I think of this as the alternative energy revolution. This is a battle that I am willing to fight. My children and the children of our world need us. Those ignorant bastards in our government...have neglected their duty. Our elected officials are selling us out!. They offer no tax incentives for alternative energy development and they continue to give permits out to these coal companies who violate every environmental law out there. Keep up the fight brother... Please keep me on your list and I would like to continue correspondence and lets spread the word, I want to make a difference.
Julian,
Feel free to share any e-mail that I send your way.
I worked for Massey Energy for about 2 years. I went to work for Massey when my youngest son got sick. I couldn't afford to pay the hospital bills and the mortgage, etc. You know how I was raised, you do everything you can to pay your debts. So I went to work for Massey to get the 90/10 insurance (no premium out of my check) insurance, and I could work unlimited hours. I had no idea what I was getting into, the work conditions were horrible. I spent 11 hours every night at the job. I was required to come in every Monday for a safety meeting that was a joke. The safety director for the company was a complete moron. He never went out on the job. Safety was not an issue for the company. They had a safety director to cover their ass. Massey was concerned with one thing and that was blowing up the mountains to get coal. The men were of no value other than to do their job. If you had a safety concern, you were scrutinized by your superiors. I contacted the UMWA to try and establish some organization because there was no representation for the men. I was even getting tuition reimbursement through the company to start my MBA. I could have just gone along and kept silent and eventually become a supervisor at a major operation but I couldn't do that and live with myself. The men were treated like dirt. If you couldn't come in on your days off and work to increase production then you were scrutinized. Here is an example of a typical day at the operation.
One night I was supposed to drill underneath a 300 ft+ high wall. When I trammed my machine to the destination it was raining and the wind was unbelievable, large rocks were falling off of the high wall all around me and my machine. I was almost hit in the head at one point. There was no lighting to see what was up there and you couldn't see were these rocks were coming from. I knew if I was going to be positioned underneath this wall, I would possibly die. My supervisor told me that he would watch the
un-illuminated wall. He told me that if any "big rocks" started to fall that he would radio me to get out of the cab of my stationary drill. I told my supervisor that objects fall with an acceleration and if he knew how absurd he sounded that he would shut up. Of course that didn't go over too well. I then told my supervisor that I was not comfortable working in those type of conditions and he told me, "If you don't want to work, go to the fucking house." I told him to take me to my vehicle. He tried to take me to my vehicle and send me home for refusing to work in unsafe conditions. He called his supervisor to tell him that I refused to work in those conditions. His supervisor then told him to stop and that he wanted to look at the unsafe wall. When the night shift supervisor met us they made me get out of the vehicle while they discussed whether they thought the wall was safe or not! They made some calls on their cell phones and then they told me that I was a pussy and that they would work under that wall anytime. So I told them to go park their new company trucks under the wall. I told them if they didn't get crushed by any rocks within 30 minutes then I would gladly go in and do my job. Of course they called me a wiseguy and a dickhead and everything else you could think of to try and degrade me. I knew at that point if they were doing this to me, then how many other people did they try to intimidate on a daily basis. This shit happened all the time.
Julian, the devastation is unreal. I feel horrible that I was even apart of anything like MTR. I knew how wrong it was before I went and worked there anyway. I am ashamed of myself.
The destruction of the operation at the Progress mine is unbelievable. I would like to take you there to show you the operation and exactly how bad it is. I tried to organize the men and we had about 80% of the job aboard until the company had their vote no meetings. They intimidated men and told them that they would lose their jobs. They scared the men away from the union. The union was my way of helping those guys. I know that operation and have seen an enormous amount of violations. There is no over-site by the EPA if there was then they wouldn't have been blowing shit all over un-permitted land adjacent to the operation. I want to stop this destruction of our land. I want to help. If there is anything that you need from me, I am more than willing to help, to get the word out.
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