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Whatever results come in tonight, we need to mobilize. El Cabrero has a good post up - Occupy Wherever
A common criticism of these new actions is that they seem to take a (nonviolent) shotgun approach, meaning that they cover the map of issues rather than getting too specific. And from what I've seen, there's some validity to that. I tend to be pretty specific and focused about issues I've worked on. Still, it's interesting and exciting to see such a spontaneous series of actions raising economic justice issues.
Every shotgun has a pattern, and he's identified it - economic justice.
The FArCES of Coal:"With Our Head in the Sand, As Loud As We Can" Edition
Well, I'm not sure how it happened. But it seems like southern West Virginia has survived its first post-apocalyptic, economy-annihilating, way-of-life-ending weekend after EPA heroically vetoed Arch Coal's Spruce Mine permit last Thursday. As bad as Joe Manchin, Shelly Moore Capito, and the Friends of Coal said life was going to be after the veto, myself and most folks in West Virginia ended up having a pretty decent weekend, all things considered. Heck, we even learned that despite the snow many if not most nearby residents are celebrating EPA's veto of Spruce #1 mine.
Which leads me to wonder...has anyone ever been so loud and proud about shoving their head in the sand and ignoring the cries of their constituents and colleagues, the consensus of scientists, and the pleading of health professionals as loudly as Joe Manchin and Nick Rahall? Senator Manchin certainly hasn't had a very positive first few weeks in the United States Senate. In fact, despite not taking too many big votes, he has found that his actions have already left him with a lot to apologize for. He set another high bar last week when EPA announced its decision on Spruce. Not only was his rhetoric irresponsible, but his information is just plain incorrect - particularly in asserting that EPA was "retroactively" vetoing this permit.
First of all, if you do your research (as Ken Ward does) you know that EPA never signed off on the Spruce Mine Permit. GOT THAT? EPA has raised concerns since the very beginning about this permit, and when Arch Coal was pressed to address those concerns, what did Arch Coal do for the people of Appalachia? They walked away.
Despite EPA's willingness to consider alternatives, the company did not offer any new proposed mining configurations in response to EPA's concerns based on science and the law.
SNL Financial goes into further detail about a meeting between top EPA officials and Arch Coal from November 16th,2010:
"The permittee also indicated that other approaches previously discussed, such as 'sequencing' or 'phasing' of valley fills, remained unacceptable to Arch Coal, Inc., due primarily to economic considerations," EPA said. "In the meeting, the permittee did not propose new or additional corrective actions for EPA's consideration."
"This transaction gives us a direct stake in participating in the growth of U.S. coal exports off the West Coast," said Steven Leer, Arch's chairman and CEO. "With our superior operating position in the Powder River Basin and Western bituminous region, we have the capability to service growing coal demand in Asia, the world's largest and fastest-growing coal market. We believe this first project - along with others in the pipeline - will provide Arch with more exposure to the seaborne thermal market and will further unlock the value inherent in our western coal assets.".
Even though the inner workings of the nation's capital might seem ritualistic, irrelevant and sloth-like on the surface, many explained, the fact that six cabinet heads-Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu missed out due to illness-spoke at the Dec. 15 forum is an indicator that environmental justice is an enormous priority for President Obama.
For instance, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice collaborate on these issues all of the time, explained assistant attorney general Ignacia Moreno with DOJ's Environment and Natural Resources Division, and Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator with EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.
"I am going to ask for some partnership and some patience," Moreno told the doubters. "You're right, we have to get there. You want to see results on the ground. It will take some time to turn that big vessel. This administration is on it when it comes to environmental justice. We need to figure out how we set priorities together."
Still, there's a limit to what can be accomplished in Washington, DC alone.
Though plenty of other attendees joined Canales in pointing their fingers at the federal government, they admitted that much of their frustration stems from inaction on the part of state and local agencies. Nothing will change, they claim, unless federal authorities wield a heavier hammer.
Sounds a lot like what is happening in West Virginia, doesn't it? Every time the federal government takes action, there are loud voices in West Virginia standing up for the status quo.
"It's changing in Washington, D.C. but it hasn't trickled down," said audience member Teri Blanton of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth.
In making a plaintive plea for the Department of Justice to intervene, she explained that her advocacy organization had uncovered 20,000 Clean Water Act violations in her home state after combing through discharge monitoring reports from three coal companies.
"The feds are trying to help," she told SolveClimate News in an interview, answering "hell, yes" when asked if she's noticed progress under the Obama administration. "They know what we're up against in our state. We are ground zero for energy issues. They need to take this into the field and make sure everyone is playing from the same playbook."
Blanton, sporting a colorful "I Love Mountains" pin said she trekked to the nation's capital because somebody has to be relentless when unsustainable practices by coal companies are flooding residents of Appalachia out of their homes.
"My people are suffering every day because they don't have a clean drink of water and have to breathe in dust," said Blanton, who was appointed to the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council this year.
Is the Obama administration doing enough?
Fellow New Yorker and panelist Eddie Bautista, executive director of the Environmental Justice Alliance, lauded the Obama administration for "shifting the Titanic" with a noticeably invigorated approach to environmental justice.
However, he also warned the audience about an upcoming change that he figured federal government employees couldn't discuss in such a forum. When the 112th Congress convenes in January with a Republican-majority House, some legislators will likely question every penny being directed toward this resurgent environmental effort.
"A lot of these initiatives are threatening to be stillborn," he concluded. "Already, the attack is coming."
It's up to us to keep supporting what has already been done--even while pushing for even more--and to remind our elected officials that there is support here in Appalachia for policies that promote environmental justice for all West Virginians.
We have record levels of poverty and inequality in America. Our armed fores are still engaged in two wars. Nearly fifty million people (myself included) are without health insurance. So what is the message that conservatives had for small town America this weekend via the right-wing small town media market that is Ogden publishing?
The more we learn about President Obama's childhood, the scarier he becomes.
That's the final line of "columnist" Ben Shapiro's opinion piece entitled "Barack Obama's Secret History." I first read it in the pages of the Wheeling Intelligencer, the "flagship" paper for Ogden Newspapers (in 39 cities) on Saturday morning. I'm sure it popped up in most of the other Ogden papers. And it's part of a concerted effort that has taken place since day one of the Obama presidency to portray him as "other" and "different" and "odd" and scary.
Really delegates, do the voters really need to be misled again? Recently in this election cycle, and with evidence readily available back to 2008, we're being assaulted with misinformation campaigns which I can only assume is intended to sway voters. I know we hear reports regularly of one politician or another lying to us, but these are local representatives in my community so these issues just a little closer to home than usual.
The incidents in question are as follows: for Delegate Overington, there was an article in the Martinsburg Journal on 10/4 in which he claims "the state mandates that a flagman be compensated at $34 per hour" while private industry pays $15 per hour. Delegate Jonathan Miller has made repeated claims of $32 and $35 per hour; first in The State Journal on 06/05/08, and then more recently on 10/01 on the candidate debate on WEPM and then on 10/06 in a Letter to the Editor in the Martinsburg Journal. In these instances he claims private or state workers get paid $10-$15 per hour. So the question I have is this: do our delegates understand the issue and willingly mislead us or do they just not understand the issue?
First, prevailing wage: this is what our state pays to contracted workers on state projects. There's two parts to this payout; first is the per-hour wage paid to the worker, and the second is the per-hour value paid toward the worker's fringe benefits (paid vacation, health care, etc). To see these rates, anyone can check the Secretary of State's website. There are two categories to search, the 'Building and Construction' or the 'Heavy and Highway' rates. Let's examine the most recent (2010) and most expensive (Heavy and Highway) rate sheets. We'll focus on a Laborer Class III - better known as the flagman - since this seems to be the example tossed around in the argument. According to the rate sheets, our flagman makes $22.76 per hour. That's right, $22.76 per hour, right out in plain sight for all to see. This is not the $30 to $35 hourly rate that has been repeatedly quoted by our sitting delegates unless they include the value of the fringe benefits at $11.95 per hour. $22.76 is also, higher than the private sector wage quoted by the delegates, but can we believe that? As I've been taught in school and my professional life, I tend to not believe numbers without references or data to back them up.
So, why are we presented the skewed numbers? Does anyone really report their fringe benefits along with their wage when discussing pay? I surely do not, and I'm not sure I've ever met someone who does. So is it intentional or are they misinformed? I'd hate to feel we're electing representatives who lie, but at the same time I also hope we elect individuals who can properly collect, present, and document the information they present. We, as voters, need to carefully evaluate all candidates on all of the issues before November 2 and be sure we're voting for candidates who will give us the whole truth, and not just what they want us to see.
Personal vehicles and coal trucks just don't seem to get along.
Reported Jul. 23, 2010 10:38 PM EDT
A 19-year-old is dead after his car hit a coal truck. It happened on Wednesday just before noon in Fayette County on Route 61 in the Robson area near Beards Fork.
It doesn't seem to matter if you are a new and possibly inexperienced driver.
Sunday Aug. 29, 2010
CUMBERLAND - A 20-year-old Evarts man died from injuries sustained in a two-vehicle collision Saturday morning on U.S. 119 near Cumberland in Harlan County, Kentucky State Police said.
Even more mature drivers have problems.
Updated Saturday October 2, 2010; 12:59 PM
Kanawha Sheriff's Deputies are reconstructing the crash that claimed two lives in Kanawha county Friday afternoon. Sheriff's say the head on collision between a Coal truck and a pickup truck occurred just before 2 p.m. on Route 60 near Glasgow.
Wonder how this became a "head on collision". And how two survived.
(- bumped by CA Berkeley WV) It's the second Friday this week. And since something happened on Tuesday, we might have something to talk amongst ourselves. Seems like a long time since we have gotten together in more than just pairs.
Raise a glass of the beverage of your choice in honor of The Hulk, to our own Tom Price, and to the Mountaineer spirit. Give yourself a break from the Gibbs War.
Sign. My. Cast.
8:00PM, Peking Restaurant, 139 S. Queen Street, Martinsburg is the time and place.
It's the second Friday this week. And since something happened on Tuesday, we might have something to talk amongst ourselves. Seems like a long time since we have gotten together in more than just pairs.
(Welcome to WVaBlue mtngirl2! Thanks for your post. - promoted by wvblueguy)
I am writing this blog in response to the decision made by the West Virginia State Board of Education to provide in excess of 8 million dollars to Kanawha County to build a "School of the Future" while other projects in Southern West Virginia were ignored and Marsh Fork Elementary in the Coal River Valley of Raleigh County was offered only a portion of what would be needed to build a new school safe from the threats that the children in this school face daily. As a child I attended school in a coal town. Even though we had fantastic teachers who always did the best they could, the resources that were needed weren't always available. Every day millions of dollars in coal passed through our town on trains and trucks, thanks to the work of the fathers of many of my classmates, but still we did not receive needed resources, adequate facilities or the same opportunities available to children who attended school in Princeton or Bluefield.
As I have watched the events that have unfolded in the last year I can't help but see the similarities of these situations. The fact that the children of the coalfields are not given equal treatment by our state government is glaringly obvious. We eventually received a new high school, built on an old strip mine site that was really unstable and not suitable for building. We moved into a largely uncompleted school in the fall of 1983 and to my knowledge many of the completions were never made. Structural problems have appeared as a result of where the school was built. It is now an elementary/middle school because the declining populations of the small communities forced an unwanted but accepted consolidation of the county's four smallest high schools and in the near future the middle school students will face the same consolidation and I suspect the elementary will soon follow.
I have written all of this history to say that the children of the coalfields deserve better. The communities where billions of dollars in coal are extracted by the blood and sweat of their citizens should be some of the wealthiest in this state. Instead the coal counties of Appalachia are the poorest in the nation. The people who are subjected daily to coal dust, bad roads, unregulated coal companies, poverty and poor health conditions, should instead have the best kept roads (funded by the coal companies in my opinion), state of the art health facilities, libraries and schools along with the promise of bright futures for their children. Instead children grow up thinking that they aren't important and that they can never have professional careers because they would have to leave their homes to find work. They accept whatever insecure jobs are available from non-union coal mines or fast food establishments so that they can remain in the area where they grew up. This is oppression.
The children of the coalfields of Appalachia deserve so much more than they are given. The children of the Coal River Valley attend school in a 70 year old building that sits below the Shumate dam, which is one of the largest coal sludge impoundments in the nation. Less than 400 feet away is a coal silo with another one being constructed, a coal haul road and a coal preparation plant. They live with the daily threat of a break in the coal sludge dam that is situated directly above their school, now containing millions of gallons of thick, toxic coal sludge. Add to all of that a large mountaintop removal coal mining site where blasting is occurring daily, adding to the already ever present coal dust and the instability of the Shumate Dam.
It would seem to me that the number one project for a new school in West Virginia would be a new school for Marsh Fork Elementary followed closely by other inadequate schools in Southern West Virginia. With the health and lives of so many children and staff at stake, how can a "School of the Future" for Kanawha County be so important that it has received the largest amount of the available funding? More and more in West Virginia we are losing our communities. For too many years the people of Southern West Virginia have sacrificed so that other areas (i.e. Charleston, Parkersburg, Morgantown) may prosper. And, the people of Appalachia sacrifice every day for the comfort of America. We, the people of Southern West Virginia must demand our share of the wealth that is extracted from our mountains and it should begin with investments in the future of the children of the coalfields.
We want your feedback! Please take a few minutes to submit your ideas on what the Federal Government can do to help support economic and community development in your community and across Appalachia.
To help ensure that Appalachia takes full advantage of economic recovery efforts, the Appalachian Regional Commission, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and several other Federal agencies are coordinating the "Appalachian Regional Development Initiative" (ARDI) to identify what the Federal Government can be doing to help create stronger and more diversified Appalachian economies.
Several listening sessions are being held throughout Appalachia to gather opinions from local stakeholders on the challenges facing communities across Appalachia and potential opportunities for economic and community development. Not everyone will be able to attend these sessions, therefore we have created a Webpage so that concerned citizens and private, public, and non-profit sector leaders across Appalachia can share their thoughts.
The many federal partners involved in this Appalachian effort will compile the feedback collected at the listening sessions and from the online feedback website into a summary report. This report will help inform federal development strategies aimed at diversifying and strengthening economic and community development in Appalachia.
Please feel free to pass along this email and the feedback website to anyone who might be interested.
Missing Parsons Report (Matthew and Billy Parsons) performing John Prine's Paradise on April 7, 2010 at The House of Art in Bluefield, WV. While the song is about a place in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky the same words apply to the coal fields of southern West Virginia.
When I was a child my family would travel
Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born
And there's a backwards old town that's often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn.
And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away
Well, sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill.
And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away
Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.
And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away
When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam
I'll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin'
Just five miles away from wherever I am.
It's the second Friday this week. And since my taxes have been lowered since January 2009, we're getting a bigger refund on the 9th. Seems like a long time since we have gotten together.
Raise a glass of the beverage of your choice in honor of the fallen miners, to the Mountaineer spirit, to the grit in a great tournament, and in defiance to the preaching of hate by folks from the #NetherRegionsofGlennbeckistan.
8:00PM, Peking Restaurant, 139 S. Queen Street, Martinsburg is the time and place.
n an attempt to further pressure EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to enforce the Clean Water Act and halt mountaintop removal coal mining (MTR), activists early this morning erected two 20-foot-tall, purple tripod structures in front of the agency's headquarters. A pair of activists perched at the top of the tripods have strung a 25-foot sign in front of the EPA's door that reads, "EPA: pledge to end mountaintop removal in 2010." Six people are locked to the tripods and say they won't leave unless Administrator Jackson commits to a flyover visit of the Appalachian Mountains and MTR sites, which she has never done before.
This is the latest in a series of actions and activities aimed at pressuring the EPA to take more decisive action on mountaintop removal coal mining. Today's tactic is modeled on the multi-day tree-sits that have been happening in West Virginia to protect mountains from coal companies' imminent blasting. Called the worst of the worst strip mining, the practice blows the tops off of whole mountains to scoop out the small seams of coal that lie beneath.
"We're losing our way of life and our culture," said Chuck Nelson, who worked as a coal miner in West Virginia for three decades and came to DC to support today's protest. "Mountaintop removal should be banned today. The practice means total devastation for communities, the hardwood forests, the ecosystems, and the headwaters. Why should our communities sacrifice everything we have?"
Written by James F. Fox of the University of Kentucky and J. Elliott Campbell of the University of California, Merced, the paper leaves no doubt that, even if CCS works and is widely deployed, questions will remain about the climate change impacts of mountaintop removal.
[snip]
In fact, this paper reports that mountaintop removal's life-cycle carbon dioxide emissions are 17 percent greater if you include carbon dioxide from sources other than the actual burning of the coal - emissions from cutting down and burning forests, potential release of carbon previously locked up in the soils of the mountains, and from mining and transportation equipment.
That's the potential high-end of those emissions if you assume coal is burned in a conventional power plant.
If the industry switches to CCS-equipped plants that capture most of the emissions from coal-burning, then these other carbon dioxide sources would actually account for nearly twice the emissions of coal burning.
Let's try a little bit of advanced math here. If it takes 30% more fuel to create the same amount of energy after carbon-capture and storage is added to a coal-fired electric plant... and if, conservatively, only 50% of that coal came from mountain top removal coal mines... let's see...
100 + 17 = 117 (100% at plant + 17% more)
0 + 17 + .3 * 17 / 2 = 19.55 (0% at plant + 17% more +
19.55 / 117 = 17%
That means that even if we are able to advance CCS technology to the point where it can capture 100% of the greenhouse gases produced during electricity production, we'd still be producing 17% as much CO2 as we started out with.
So much for the carbon neutral claims Big Coal has been advertising. That's just one more way that clean coal ain't.
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Which leads me to wonder...has anyone ever been so loud and proud about shoving their head in the sand and ignoring 
First of all, if you do your research (as Ken Ward does) you know that
