Huge Victory in Oregon Builds Momentum Against Coal

Energycompany Kinder Morgan announced last week that it is ditching plans to export30 million tons of coal through the Port of St. Helens, Oregon -- a move thatfurther galvanizes the grassroots movement in the Pacific Northwest that iskeeping Big Coal out.

"Three down,three to go!" exclaimed Sierra Club Organizer Laura Stevens. "This proposalwould have meant a dozen mile-and-a-half-long, dirty, coal-dust spewing trainsthrough the Columbia River Gorge and dozens of other communities every day."

The three remainingsites coal companies have their eye on to build coal-export terminals are inBoardman, Oregon, and Longview and Cherry Point in Washington.

"The announcementcame just two days after we packed two hearing rooms in St. Helens to oppose are-zone that would facilitate coal exports, and the nearby city of Scappoose,where the council voted unanimously to pass a resolution expressing theirconcerns about the project," Stevens said.

Communities through Washingtonand Oregon continue to face the prospect of dealing with miles-long trains carryingtens of millions of tons of coal each year -- and bringing its harmful coal dustpollution with them. The coal would then be burned in energy-hungry East Asia,emitting carbon that would rival the infamous Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The nightmarescenario has solidified communities across the Pacific Northwest, bringingtogether a coalition that includes environmental groups, hunters and anglers,farmers, business leaders, mayors and state leaders, faith leaders, and thehealth community.

"All of us locally involved in this love the Columbia River and ourenvironment here," Darrel Whipple, an organizer with the group Clean ColumbiaCounty, said in the Los Angeles Times."We have concerns about coal dust polluting the river, coal dust polluting theland. We have children and asthma patients who are at risk."

Activists in the Pacific Northwest have already won several battles.Just two months ago, Ambre Energy licked its wounds after the Oregon Departmentof State Lands tabled a decision on a dredging project for a planned facilityat Port of Morrow that would receive nearly 9 million tons of coal a year viatrain from the Powder River Basin. The state's decision to delay came two daysafter hundreds gathered at the state Capitol to demand that Big Coal stay out.

Congratulationsto everyone in the Pacific Northwest for this much-deserved victory!

-- Brian Foley

http://sierraclub.typepad.com/compass/2013/05/huge-victory-in-oregon-b

Celebrating a Huge Offshore Wind Victory in Maryland

The winds of change brought some great progress to Maryland this week when the Maryland Offshore Wind Energy Act of 2013 passed through both houses of the legislature. The offshore wind bill has been championed from the start by Governor Martin O'Malley, who stands ready to sign the bill into law.

This is a huge victory that is nationally significant for two reasons. First, it could well be the tipping point that allows us to finally tap the massive offshore wind potential off the East Coast. Second, it will ensure that historically underrepresented minority groups and small businesses will benefit from the jobs and investment dollars that offshore wind projects generate.

The bill will help develop a 200-megawatt wind project off the coast of Ocean City by requiring electricity suppliers to buy offshore renewable energy credits.

This victory comes after three years of hard work by thousands of activists who know that Maryland can be a national clean energy leader.

"We started this campaign with our allies in 2010 with a town hall meeting in Ocean City, out of which the Maryland Offshore Wind Coalition formed," said Sierra Club Maryland Conservation Organizer Christine Hill.

"Since then, we've kept up a steady campaign of rallies, more town hall meetings, door-knocking, phone-banking, mailings, letters-to-the-editor, and lobbying members of the legislature -- positioning ourselves to win."

What makes this offshore wind bill even more monumental is that it will bring more jobs to historically underrepresented groups. It includes a $10 million development fund targeted to small and minority businesses to assist them in preparing to participate in the offshore wind supply chain and sets up a task force to study the feasibility of incorporating degree programs into Maryland's Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

The legislation was championed by various organizations because of this focus on providing key provisions for minority groups. The Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland was a major champion of the task force. We held a rally where over 100 students came out to rally their legislators to incorporate offshore wind degree programs at HBCUs. The NAACP's Maryland Conference also named offshore wind as one of its top priorities this year.

As Christine put it, "It's so great to see our state committed to replacing dirty, outdated fossil fuels that contribute to climate disruption with clean, renewable offshore energy that will create more jobs and safeguard our children's future."

This new clean energy can't come soon enough, as dirty and outdated coal plants are harming Marylanders' health. For example, the Charles P. Crane and Herbert A. Wagner plants in Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties threaten the region with dangerous sulfur dioxide pollution at levels more than four times what the Environmental Protection Agency has deemed safe.

Sulfur dioxide is known to cause respiratory problems, including breathing difficulty, asthma attacks, and diminished lung function. It can be especially dangerous for kids, the elderly, and those suffering from respiratory disease.

Offshore wind is a solid economic choice for the state. Based on a report from the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a major 200-megawatt offshore wind project would create almost 850 manufacturing and construction jobs for five years and an additional 160 ongoing supply and operations and maintenance jobs thereafter.

We hope this will inspire many other Atlantic coast states to move forward with offshore wind as well. Clean energy boosts the economy, creates jobs, and doesn't harm public health. Congratulations to everyone in Maryland who worked so tirelessly on this bill.

TAKE ACTION: Thank Governor O'Malley for being a champion of offshore wind.

-- Mary Anne Hitt, Beyond Coal Campaign Director

http://sierraclub.typepad.com/compass/2013/03/celebrating-a-huge-offsh

Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining Poisons Appalachia's Waterways

I remember the first time I saw a mountaintop-removal coal mining site - Kayford Mountain in southern West Virginia. Those images have never left my mind - a barren landscape where there was once lush forest. And right around the destroyed site, homes where people were trying to live despite having the world blown up next door.

Their lives are never the same when a mountaintop-removal coal mine starts blasting. One major loss for these families is clean water. We expect our water to be safe and drinkable. Many folks here in Appalachia have streams or creeks running through their back yard. Kids from Kentucky to Tennessee grew up fishing and many of us still enjoy heading out with the pole for a lazy Sunday afternoon hoping to snag a trout.

Sadly, for many people in Appalachia that pristine ideal no longer exists. Pollution from mountaintop-removal mining has poisoned many of our streams making them dangerous for certain fish and other aquatic life.

Mountaintop-removal is the process by which companies use explosives to remove the peaks of Appalachian mountains in order to get at the coal underneath. They then dump millions of tons of rubble and toxic waste into the streams and valleys belowthe mining sites. This devastating practice has damaged or destroyed nearly 2,000 miles of streams, and threatens to destroy 1.4 million acres of mountaintops and forests by 2020.

Mountaintop-removal coal mining allows toxic heavy metals such as cadmium, selenium, and arsenic to leach into Appalachian's local water supplies. Research shows that "residents in mining areas - especially mountaintop removal mining areas - have higher incidents of cancer, heart disease, kidney disease, birth defects, premature mortality and otherissues."

One of the key measures of water pollution from mining is called water conductivity. The Environmental Protection Agency has stated that "high levels of conductivity, dissolved solids, and sulfates are a primary cause of water quality impairments" downstream from where rubble from mountaintop-removal is dumped.

In other words, corporations dump the waste from their mountaintop-removal minesinto nearby valleys and at the bottom of each of those valleys is a stream which gets covered up. The water still runs through all that dirt, it just comes out the other side chock-full of pollution.

When conductivity levels get too high below mine sites, scientific studies show that some fish cannot maintain healthy populations. And when selenium, a key contributor to conductivity levels, gets above a certain point fish can be born badly deformed.These fish, and our water ways, are signals when the safety of our water and the health of our environment are declining.

Unfortunately, the four states that make up our Appalachian community - Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky refuse to take the threat to our water seriously. West Virginia and Kentucky are actually both considering state action to make it even easier to pollute our waterways with mining waste.

The governments of Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee have shown themselves unable to responsibly enforce clean water safeguards, putting our families at risk. That's why now is the time for our EPA to work on a real solution to the problem.

As part of the Sierra Club's 100 Days of Action on Climate and Clean Energy, this week we're focusing on the theme of mountaintop-removal coal mining. For the sake of our rivers, our community and the responsible stewardship of our land, it's time for enforceable clean water protections against coal mining pollution.

TAKE ACTION: Protect Appalachia's water from mountaintop-removal coal mining.

-- Mary Anne Hitt, Beyond Coal Campaign Director

http://sierraclub.typepad.com/compass/2013/03/mountaintop-removal-coal

Los Angeles Announces 'Coal-Free By 2025' Goal

Angelenos cheered this week when Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced his intention to sign two agreements that will make the city coal-free no later than 2025.

This comes at a moment in our campaign when massive rallies across the U.S. in February called on President Obama to take immediate administrative action to tackle the threat of extreme climate change devastation.

Here in L.A., 2,000 Angelenos showed up in front of City Hall to demand national action on climate change last month. The good news this week is that Angelenos' demand for clean energy is driving significant progress in our own backyard.

L.A. gets nearly 40 percent of its power from two aging out-of-state coal plants -- the Navajo Generating Station (NGS) in Arizona and the Intermountain Power Project (IPP) in Utah. These aging plants have become a financial liability for Angelenos as a result of the necessary and required retrofits at both of the several-decades-old power plants.

The prospect of Los Angeles being poised to sign agreements to get off of coal represents a pivotal moment. This would mark a major transformation for our city and would be the result of ordinary Angelenos coming together to demand change in the energy choices we make. In 21st-century Los Angeles, it has become simply unacceptable for nearly 40 percent of our city's energy supply to continue to come from aging, out-of-state, polluting coal-fired power plants.

When Mayor Villaraigosa took office in 2005, the city got nearly half its power from coal and a measly three percent from clean energy. What a difference eight years make. Los Angeles was the first city in the state to hit 20 percent clean energy. It recently launched the largest urban rooftop solar program in the nation, and it has reimagined its energy-efficiency program to create good careers while saving more energy. In the past year alone, L.A. has locked in enough clean energy commitments to power 330,000 homes with solar (that's basically the equivalent of Cleveland or Minneapolis).

The coal transition is as much an economic transition as it is an environmental one, and it represents a victory for all Angelenos. The city's new CLEAN LA Solar program (a solar buy-back or "feed-in-tariff") -- the largest city-wide program of its kind in the nation -- promises to create 4,500 jobs and nearly $500 million in economic development for the city. Toronto-based Solar Provider, for example, has plans to hire 30 Angelenos and to invest $50 million in Los Angeles as a result of the new program.

At the same time, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is ramping up its energy efficiency program, increasing its energy savings, goal which will help lower Angelenos' energy bills.

By leading on a transition away from coal, Los Angeles is showing how we can transform our economy to create jobs, clean our air and water, and improve the health of our environment. Crippling drought, devastating wildfires, and superstorm Sandy have brought climate change home. It's time for a renewable energy future that breaks our addiction to dirty and dangerous fossil fuels like coal, natural gas, nuclear, and tar sands oil.

The Beyond Coal campaign's activists and supporters, along with countless other organizations, have been at the forefront for a transition from coal to renewable energy to reduce our city's human-caused carbon pollution footprint. We look forward to seeing the details of the agreements being considered for the mayor's signature. It's imperative that the city continue to replace dirty coal with more of the clean energy that is already bringing new jobs and investments to L.A.

We look forward to continuing to work with the mayor, city council, and Department of Water and Power to finally end our city's reliance on dirty coal.

-- Evan Gillespie, L.A. Beyond Coal. Photo of Mayor Villaraigosa from Moapa solar project signing ceremony in 2012.

http://sierraclub.typepad.com/compass/2013/03/los-angeles-announces-co

Enormous Grassroots Response to Coal Export Plan in Washington

How many messages do you need to leave before theyget the hint?

One can only wonder what Big Coal is thinking after morethan 124,000 comments poured onto the desks of decision-makers who will beoverseeing an environmental impact statement concerning a massive coalexporting scheme that would alter Washingtonstate's coastline and send countless coal trains through people'sneighborhoods.

The issue surrounds Cherry Point, where SSA Marine wants to build an export terminal that would connect the coalmines of Powder River Basin with energy-hungry East Asia.

It's one part of a larger plan to open up the coastline tocoal exports and completely reverse any progress on the climate crisis. Itwould send millions of tons of coal each year through Washingtoncommunities and farmland, clogging up rail lines and roads and leaving coaldust behind.

The overwhelming response has caught the attention of thethree agencies in charge of deciding the plan's fate: the Army Corps, the stateDepartment of Ecology, and Whatcom County.

"We're looking at an unprecedented number ofcomments," said Washington Department of Ecology spokesman Larry Altose inthe Bellingham Herald.

The sheer number of comments means it will take months to gothrough all of them.

"Everyday this plan is delayed it proves that this is a muchbigger issue than what the coal industry tried to make it out to be," saidRobin Everett, Associate Regional Representative of Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign. "There are huge consequencesthat the public takes issue with and the state is going to take the time toevaluate this in the right way."

Meanwhile, some from Big Coal's corner havefigured that the hassle of fighting entire communities is not worth it. InAugust, RailAmerica gave up on its plans that would have sent five tons of coaleach year through Grays Harbor.

Another coal export proposal on the table awaits in Longview,a few hundred miles south of Cherry Point on the Oregonborder. Community members and clean-air advocates are poised to take this on aswell later this year.

"This movement against the Cherry Point proposal has set up a great precedent for the next fight," Everett said.

http://sierraclub.typepad.com/compass/2013/02/coal-export-washington.h