Earlier this week the Environmental Protection Agency held a public hearing on a newly proposed rule to strengthen federal ozone standards. A coalition of environmental and public health advocates called Clean Air Texas rallied in support of the new rule, which would improve air quality across the state and make our communities healthier.  Over a hundred citizens presented their comments to the EPA in support of the new, stronger rule — more than the EPA has seen at a public hearing in years.  Public Citizen was on hand to give comments and capture the stories of concerned citizens that came to the hearing, check out the videos below to hear what folks had to say!

Also check out this video of the press conference to hear what matters most about the ozone rule from activists with Kids for Clean Air, Public Citizen, the American Lung Association, Health Professionals for Clean Air, Sierra Club,  and the Galveston-Houston Alliance for Smog Prevention. The lead image is acting a little funny, but the video will still show up, I promise

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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.

Kettleman City, California, is one of the place names that most experts in environmental justice recognize right away, along with Chester, PA, Cancer Alley in Louisiana, and the Niger Delta. Kettleman City has been been a conflict location between the local, deeply impoverished Latino community, the county, the state and the EPA for over a decade now. Kettleman City is the location of the largest toxic waste dump in the state of California–and it’s not just a relative measure. By any measure of volume and toxicity, this is one of the largest facilities in the US.

There are 1,500 residents in Kettleman City, and the conflict has moved back to the public eye after going quiet largely because the community has identified a clustering of birth defects and they are getting traction for their claims under Obama’s EPA. It’s about time. The LA Times has run many stories on the conflict, which I have collected here:

Infant deaths, cleft palates raise concern about toxic landfill in San Joaquin Valley | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times

Kettleman City asks: Why so many birth defects? – latimes.com

EPA to review oversight of toxic waste | Greenspace | Los Angeles Times

Schwarzenegger orders state to investigate birth defects in Kettleman City – latimes.com

Kettleman City birth defects: Schwarzenegger steps in | Greenspace | Los Angeles Times

On another sad note, when I was collecting these articles, I saw that rights attorney Luke Cole had been killed far too young in a car crash. Cole was one of the attorneys that helped put the Kettleman City case on the national environmental justice agenda. His obituary is here:

Luke Cole dies at 46; leading practitioner of environmental law – latimes.com

I was pretty pointed in my review in JPAM of the book that Cole co-authored about the original environmental justice conflict in Kettleman City, largely because the authors allowed their personal dislike of EPA staffers to color their writing. They missed an opportunity to write about the institutional issues that really prevented justice from being served here and instead allowed readers to go forward with the impression–all to comforting to American readers–that government employees are lazy and inept and politicians are sleazy and that’s why the residents of Kettleman City were gaining no traction. They failed to describe how the law really is stacked against communities here–property rights are established, environmental rights are not, and the knowledge burdens are prohibitively high to overcome.

Here, I suspect it will be difficult for the community to win on this, but they do have some tenacious activities. Nobody knows what causes cleft palates; we do know it’s one of the more common birth defects, and it does have a higher incidence in Asian and Latino families. This means that the environmental causes get harder to locate because it is not established that Asian communities are disproportionately located near chemical stressors, though it has been established in California for Latino families.

So this is a group of people that has a higher incidence of the problem to begin with, and if this is a small town, the clusters may be related to clusters of families who have a genetic link to the defect.

That said, the case demands investigation; cleft palates are not the only birth defect reported in Kettleman CIty, and the reports have been coming in over a decade. This is an important learning opportunity for environmental policy and public health in addition to being a crucial community issue for the residents.

References:
Cole, L., & Foster, S. (2001). From the ground up: Environmental racism and the rise of the environmental justice movement. New York: New York University Press.

TODAY is our National Coal Ash Day of Action -  please ask the White House to allow the US EPA to finally regulate coal ash as the hazardous waste it is. Currently, coal ash is less regulated than household trash!  This toxic waste stream has never been regulated and that must change, now.

1.  Please send an email to President Obama:  http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

This toxic waste is often stored in wet, slurry impoundments  like this TVA one that failed just over a year ago in Tennessee. Such facilities post the risk of catastrophic failure – the TVA disaster was labeled one of the worst environmental disasters in history by the EPA. Toxic sludge can leech and runoff into nearby watersheds over the course of years, contaminating the ecosystem. The ash is also sometimes stored in dry landfills, as is often the case in Texas. While these landfills don’t pose the same catastrophic risk of slurry impoundments, they still contaminate the environment through leeching, runoff and by the wind blowing the toxic dust off the piles.

It is extremely important that Texans call in because Texas tops the list of states at risk from coal combustion waste. The coal industry is attempting to get dry-ash landfills exempted from new regulations – and most of the coal ash in Texas is stored in this fashion. It is the same, exact, toxic substances in both storage facilities, the only difference is whether or not you mix it with water. ALL coal ash waste MUST be regulated as the hazardous waste it is.

Because coal ash waste has been largely unregulated it is permitted to be used or “recycled” in many different applications such as fertilizer manufacturing (for spreading on our cropland) and components in building materials such as wallboard and roads. Basically, we are allowing the coal companies to profit by selling their toxic, hazardous waste and having it spread throughout our environment.

The coal industry has been successful at affecting EPA regulation so heavily that they have been allowed to directly edit and change EPA publications and presentations. Read this article for more on that insanity.

Below are instruction for joining in TODAY’S action — we ask that you take a small amount of time out of your day to let the White House and EPA know that this is an issue that needs action now. PLEASE do not let this opportunity for change slip away.

1.  Please send an email to President Obama:  http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

Fill out the form provided at this White House link (see above), including the space for your personal comments – tell President Obama:

America has waited far too long for comprehensive protections against toxic coal ash threats to our health and our water. Industry should not be allowed to flex its lobbying muscles and stand in the way of better health and a cleaner environment.

Despite the known threats to our health and environment, coal ash dumps remain unregulated by the US EPA. A deadline to propose the first-ever national coal ash regulations by the end of 2009 has been missed.

Please instruct the US EPA to regulate coal ash as a hazardous waste and use the full extent of the law to protect our health and environment. Coal and power industry lobbyists are pressuring your Administration to scale back plans to propose the strongest safeguards. Lobbyists are using power and influence to misinform and misguide federal regulators.

President Obama, you promised you would put an end to the influence of special interests – and we call upon you, now, to fulfill that promise to all Americans.

Thank you.

2.  Call the White House:

• Comments: 202-456-1111 – leave a message
• Switchboard: 202-456-1414 – talk to an operator
• FAX: 202-456-2461

Here is a sample script that you can use when calling the White House (202-456-1414):

“Hello. My name is [first and last name], and I’m calling from [city, state] to ask that coal ash be immediately regulated as hazardous waste.”

“I’m very concerned that coal ash dumps remain unregulated by the EPA, and that a deadline to propose the first ever national coal ash regulations by the end of 2009 has been missed.”

“I’m asking for federal regulations that use the full extent of the law to protect our health and environment from coal ash ponds and landfills.”

[Additionally, you can include one or more of the following:]

“I’m especially concerned about coal ash, because:”

• Coal ash contains dangerous pollution like arsenic, lead, selenium, mercury and other toxins that can cause cancer and lung disease, damage internal organs and nervous systems, and cause developmental problems in babies and young children.
• The EPA estimates there are nearly 600 coal ash ponds in 35 states—and just as many landfills. These huge dump sites contain enough coal ash to flow continuously over Niagara Falls for 3 days straight!
• The EPA has said it planned to regulate coal ash by the end of 2009, but did not meet that deadline. Now coal ash regulations are being delayed by industry lobbyists pushing for less federal oversight.
• Coal ash spills have occurred far too often. In April 2000, drinking water wells in Town of Pines, IN, were poisoned with arsenic, boron and other pollutants from coal ash ponds.
• In November 2007, Constellation Energy settled with residents of Gambrills, MD for $54 million for poisoning water supplies with dangerous pollutants.
• State coal ash rules are often grossly inadequate and ineffective. Federal protections are needed to guarantee strong, equal safeguards for public health and the environment across the U.S.
• Coal ash is hazardous waste that should be regulated under the strongest provisions of the law.

3.  SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT COAL ASH – AND THE NEED FOR FEDERAL REGULATIONS:

Share this Action Alert with your family and friends … neighbors and co-workers — we need and deserve federal protections from toxic coal ash.  Let’s send a message to President Obama – we seek the fulfillment of his promise for hope, change and a government free from the influence from special interests.

Thanks for standing with us on this important day … and for standing up for protections for all!

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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.

Right now the EPA is accepting public comments on proposed new ozone standards that will make the air we breathe cleaner and our communities healthier, but they are facing fierce opposition from the coal industry and its allies. The Houston EPA hearing on new ozone standards is one of only three across the country (the other two are in Virginia and California), so this is a big deal!

Can you join us for an important EPA public hearing on hazardous ozone standards in Houston on February 2nd?

The final decision by the EPA will have an impact on our air quality for decades, but they need to hear from you.

Who: The EPA and you, your friends, family and neighbors.  There will be carpools from around the state.

What: EPA public hearing on proposed revision of the ozone standard which would improve the air quality in Texas

Where: Hilton Houston Hobby Airport, Moody Ballroom, 8181 Airport Boulevard, Houston, TX 77061 (map)

When: Tuesday, February 2, from 9:30am – 7:30pm (or later if there are still people waiting to testify!)
- 10:45am: Morning press conference/rally
- 6:30pm: Evening rally with speakers

RSVP!

Texans deserve standards that follow the law and abide by the Clean Air Act.  There are twelve new coal plants proposed in Texas, and we already have 17 coal plants up and running (some of the dirtiest in the country).  We deserve better.

Thanks for all that you do!

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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.

Now it’s cadmium that is the latest abomination from amoral manufacturers in China http://abcnews.go.com/Health/WellnessNews/wireStory?id=9527916.

Why?  After the lead in toys.  After the melatonin in milk (maybe at first it was just cheating on protein content, but after the pet food scare it was criminally willful adulteration with a toxic chemical).  Now cadmium, one of the well known top heavy metals (along with lead, mercury, chrome VI).  What is wrong with these guys?

Are they stupid?  I don’t think so.  Is it just chasing money? Are those looking to make and sell the cheapest stuff just moving to the next raw material that hasn’t made the list yet?
Are they simply betting they won’t get caught before making a bundle? And are they right?  Are these just short term operations that disappear and reform to play dirty again as another entity?

I think they are criminals operating with a desire to harm or at least totally amoral and negligent not caring what harm they may cause others.  China’s capital punishment may not be so drastic after all.  On the other hand, it doesn’t appear to be a successful determent.

What about the US importers?  Sounds like some of these guys are fly-by-nights too.  But the retailers aren’t (Walmart, Disney) – how many times do they need to get burnt?  What systems do they have in place to ensure that their suppliers are decent people who do not knowingly make their products out of toxic chemicals?  On the other hand, who would have thought that suppliers would even think of substituting cadmium?!

You won’t have to wait long for the politicians at local, state and national levels to start to race each other to draft new laws requiring cadmium testing of children’s jewelry.  Along with lead, BPA and mercury and hundreds of other real or imagined toxic chemicals.

It’s got to be more than just checklists of chemicals or explicit laws against using individual chemicals.  Regulatory lists will always lag.  Just like closing the barn door after the next crazy thing the terrorists will try on planes.  (Will those phobic people who worry about one molecule of a carcinogen/endocrine disruptor worry about more killer xrays for which there is no safe threshold of exposure?)

Of course, we can essentially ban imported toys by requiring totally impractical and expensive up front screening.  Or ban them outright:  Buy USA!  Who needs toys anyway?  Kids can play with virtual toys online (oops, computers are made of chemicals too).  My mom gave me her keys to chew on; wonder what they were made of? (no wonder I’m nuts)

So what do we do?

• ensure serious consequences for willful use of harmful chemicals in products that create uncontrolled exposure (not every chemical that someone somewhere thinks is trouble, but certainly those uses of known toxics that we any rational person would agree is bad – like charms made of heavy metals like lead or cadmium).  Seems like basic tort and criminal law ought to work. Or heads on pikes.

• teach and expect moral behavior.  I like to call it Product Stewardship:

Product Stewardship occurs when all those involved in the life cycle of a product take shared responsibility to reduce adverse environmental, health and safety impacts to achieve the most value from a product.

• I don’t think product stewardship is something you legislate or regulate.  It’s a way of thinking and acting, taking responsibility to be aware of the potential consequences of your decisions and actions and continuously making improvements.  It’s working with others to be more sustainable.  It’s something every player in the life cycle needs to do:  suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, users, recyclers, disposers, governments, businesses, communities and individuals.  See other my other blogs on the topic.

• Companies that purchase products from others must work with their suppliers to ensure they understand and are practicing product stewardship.  Education, training, quality control, third party verification and accountability need to be tailored according to the capabilities of the supplier.  It’s not enough to just stick to the regulatory requirements.  Compliance is a base, but life cycle stewardship is a moral imperative.  EHS Strategies, Inc. can help you figure out how to institute a product stewardship program.

Great editorial in the Dallas Morning News this weekend. We couldn’t agree more

Editorial: Texas, a state of denial on pollution rules

To the surprise of no one, the Environmental Protection Agency announced tougher ozone limits this week. The move to tighten pollution standards had long been anticipated as evidence mounted to illustrate the serious health risks associated with smog exposure.

In Texas, a state with notoriously dirty air, the appropriate response from leaders would be to get to work. Significant changes must be made to comply with federal rules – not to mention, to protect the people who live here.

But instead of getting started, too many state leaders just got angry. They seemed shocked – shocked! – that the EPA would dare abide by the science showing significant consequences of allowing a less stringent standard.

Gov. Rick Perry stuck with his three-pronged approach to environmental regulations: deny, deflect, pout.

In his statement, the governor denied the need for tougher ozone limits, somehow conflating smog rules with carbon dioxide regulations and suggesting that flawed science spurred this week’s announcement.

In fact, scientists have found that ozone exposure damages our lungs and is linked to heart and respiratory illnesses. Smog can be deadly. By lumping ozone standards in with climate change legislation, Perry only confuses the issue.

The governor also deflected suggestions that the state has less than pristine air. He focused on Texas’ modest anti-pollution efforts, ignoring the fact that our skies are still dangerously dirty.

And Perry pouted, arguing that the EPA has made Texas workers and taxpayers a target. Some of Perry’s allies have echoed that idea, asserting that the new administration has been hostile to the state.

The EPA is not picking on Texas.

The same pollution standards will apply to every state. Inhaling smog-choked air is a dicey proposition, no matter where folks live.

Admittedly, complying with the new rules will be tougher for Texas than many other states. That’s because years of plugging our ears, closing our eyes and pretending that new pollution rules weren’t looming did not leave Texas in a state of preparedness.

Implementing the lower ozone limits will come at a cost. But, the EPA notes, the new rules should yield comparable savings by reducing illnesses, emergency room visits and lost work days resulting from ozone-related symptoms.

The state now must get started on a serious ozone reduction strategy. Deny, deflect, pout doesn’t seem to be working.

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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.

In response to the EPA’s announcement today of a proposed rule for tougher ozone standards, Governor Perry and his appointee to the TCEQ, Bryan Shaw, have been blowing a lot of smoke and hot air about what the rule would mean for Texas.  Specifically, Perry and Shaw have stated incorrectly that the rule did not take cost-benefit analysis into account, and that it will do nothing more to protect human health.

Current standards for ozone are not protective of human health – in fact, the current rule ignored the recommendations of the EPA’s own scientists, and that is why Obama’s EPA has reconsidered it.  In their decision to propose the rule, EPA reviewed more than 1,700 scientific studies and public comments from the 2008 rulemaking process – studies and comments that were simply ignored by the Bush Administration.  The new rule will save lives, reduce cases of aggravated asthma, and avoid unnecessary hospital and emergency room visits.  All things considered, the proposal will yield health benefits between $13 Billion and $100 Billion, with an implemented cost of $19 – $90 Billion – information which can be clearly found in the EPA’s press announcement today.  It sounds like Governor Perry and Bryan Shaw were taking notes today from oil and gas profiteers scared they’ll have to pay for the devastation they’ve wreaked on Texas’ air rather than sound science and the facts.

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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, cleaner cars, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.

Today Texas environmentalists, legislators, and medical practitioners wait with bated breath for an announcement from the EPA about a new air quality standard for ozone pollution.  The proposed rule would strengthen the Bush administration’s ozone standard, which did not meet scientific scrutiny or standards to protect public health. Now that scientists have demonstrated that ozone is harmful at lower quantities than previously thought, the EPA will announce a revision to their ozone rule so that the threshold of ozone concentration where cities enter “non-attainment,” or violating the rule, is lower.

Three major metropolitan areas in Texas are already in non-attainment of the less-protective standard: Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston/Galveston, and Beaumont/Port Arthur.  As a result of the new rule and lower threshold, several other areas could now be in risk of non-attainment: Austin, Tyler/Longview, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, and Waco.  Reaching non-attainment status has some serious consequences for cities, such as losing federal highway funds.

In August of this year the new rule will go into effect, after which time the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) will submit a State Implementation Plan (SIP) to the EPA.  The SIP plan will more or less be a road-map to stay within the new standards and drastically reduce ozone pollution.  The SIP is really where the good news comes into play, because to stay in line with higher standards Texas will need new pollution controls, clean energy alternatives and transportation choices.

Oh, Santa, you shouldn’t have!  This is a much better gift than the coal we got in our stocking in the form of the Oak Grove Coal plant going on-line just days before the new year!

But there’s also a chance that this new ozone standard could ALSO give us a new opportunity to stop the coal rush.  Pollution from coal plants is one of the largest single sources of ozone, so a really awesome super-smart SIP plan could potentially give us the chance to review existing clunkers and gum up the works for new plants. Oh I hope I hope I hope!

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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, cleaner cars, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.

In early December, on an unseasonably hot and humid Florida day, I sat under a large tent in a crowd of hundreds at the edge of a man-made canal draining the Everglades. On stage, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, deputy assistant secretary of the Army ‘Rock’ Salt who oversees the Corps of Engineers, Gary Guzy, deputy director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and assorted dignitaries to celebrate the decision by the Obama White House and Congress to invest in the elevation of the roadway—one mile of Tamiami Trail—allowing fresh water to flow and hopefully nourish parts of the Everglades that remain as a pale reminder of spectacular biodiversity. Make no mistake: among serial claims of historic accomplishments for restoring the Everglades, this was a big deal. The first hard dollars for a project to restore water flow into the Everglades.
A few hundred feet away, cars and trucks sped across the highway seemingly oblivious to the proceedings. They might have slowed if it were a car crash, an instant fatality, of passengers and drivers thrown from the cars. But the Everglades is another kind of wreck; happening in slow motion over such a long period of time that the easiest course is to forget. It is easy enough to do, in Florida.

From the highway, one cannot even see the Everglades to the north. It is blocked by limestone spoil dredged from the canal and set back from its edges to nearly twenty feet. Even from the tent and rows of folding plastic chairs—brought in by a caterer for the occasion—to see the Everglades you would have to scramble up the spoil bank. The bank itself is only authorized to public access pending approval of half a dozen law enforcement agencies. For me, standing on that spoil was itself an historic occasion. From that vantage, you could simultaneously grasp the speeches, the travelers beyond encased in cars of steel, aluminum and molded plastic, and the Everglades, dammed, diked, and deformed.

Just like the drive-by motorists who have no inkling of the tent and its meaning, and the fishermen ignoring toxic mercury contamination of the fish caught in the canal, many of the attendees at the event were themselves oblivious —or simply could not hold contradictory images at once—that just a few miles away, the Corps of Engineers is about to permit more destruction of Everglades wetlands for industrial rock mining. These permits for wetlands destruction, to be issued soon at the end of nearly a decade of litigation, will likely rob some of the water meant to flow beneath the raised Tamiami Trail costing more than $100 million.

If they wanted, senior officials of the EPA and White House Council on Environmental Quality could elevate the Lake Belt permits sought by industry from the Corps to a higher review. The way things stand, is that DC defers to the local office of the Corps, that defers to the state, the state defers to local jurisdictions that defer to big contributors to political campaigns from the Growth Machine and the engineering cartel. A 2005 St. Petersburg Times special report detailed how in fifteen year period during which “no net loss of wetlands” was federal policy, 84,000 acres of Florida wetlands simply disappeared. (“Paving Paradise: Florida’s vanishing wetlands” by authors Craig Pittman and Matthew Waite was expanded into one of the most important books of 2009.)

The tent sheltered seasoned veterans in the matter of assembling the puzzle of public policies with odd shapes, ownership of land tracts, and laws intersecting at angles that rarely fit into a coherent piece, strong enough to withstand special interests, polluters, and the voracious need of cities for water supply to fuel more growth. A strange division of labor unites the group. Like supervisors who constructed the pyramids of Egypt in the desert, they are informed by a vision and ideal that this damaged ecosystem can rise like a Phoenix.

Maybe. You could glean the tenuous nature of this prospect of man-made resurrections of man-made damage to the environment from a report that appeared a week after the mash-up in the Everglades. The article in the South Florida Sun Sentinel is titled, “South Florida firm now exports cement”. Here how the story begins, “Loading a ship in Broward with tons of cement made in west Miami-Dade is ‘like filling a swimming pool with a coffee cup and stake that cup 30 miles each way’, said (a spokesman) for cement maker Titan America.

The story manages to avoid, utterly, the key point: that the cement coming 30 miles away is coming from Everglades wetlands. There, a foreign corporation based in Greece, paying no tax to the federal treasury on its profits, is excavating Everglades wetlands to ship lime rock to Panama. Consider: at the same time the Everglades are valued highly enough to collect ministers, top political appointees, congressmen and county commissioners, not to mention environmental leaders from hither and yon, only a few miles away the same Everglades are cheap enough to dynamite, chop and grind and ship to Panama.

The ironies pile up so fast you need a IPhone App to keep track. While District Engineer in South Florida in the 1990’s and director of the Governor’s Commission for A Sustainable South Florida, the Corps’ top political official, Rock Salt, was involved in the rock miners’ permits judged to be illegal. Judge William Hoeveler, in his July 2007 ruling, wrote, “In three decades of federal judicial service, this Court has never seen a federal agency respond so indifferently to clear evidence of significant environmental risks related to the agency’s proposed action”. While it has taken nearly a decade for federal litigation to wind its way toward a victory for environmentalists, the current permits under which miners operate are expiring. The rock miners, one of Florida’s wealthiest and most secretive constituencies, are confidently lining up more permits. Win, but lose.

Back under the tent, the Republican congressman whose district encompasses the Everglades, Mario Diaz Balart, talked enthusiastically about the bipartisan love in the Florida delegation for the Everglades. The theme: “Yes it is hard and we have differences, but we are working together” could have been pulled from any speech for the Everglades by a public official; five, ten, fifteen, or twenty years ago. The same utterances were available from the speakers podium in Palm Beach County in October 2004 when Governor Jeb Bush announced a multi-billion dollar commitment by the state to accelerate restoration of the Everglades. But the Jeb Bush money was for water supply projects benefiting cities and agriculture first, not the Everglades or only at the back end of the investment, and when a longtime Republican congressman, Clay Shaw, had the temerity to say so he was not only banished from the platform wrapped in red, white and blue bunting, in his next campaign he was targeted by the radical, conservative wing of the G.O.P. that had engorged itself on the fictions of the housing market bubble, of wetlands “mitigation” schemes, and the cartel created from serving highly engineered water supply to new suburbs; a game of leap-frogging infrastructure and other cartwheels of public policies that flourished by ignoring its porous financial underpinnings and fraudulent environmental benefits.

But jobs are jobs. That’s what the Sun Sentinel says. “The story behind the first boatload carrying South Florida cement from Port Everglades to Panama this week proves how much work it takes to shift trade gears and save local factory jobs during the U.S. business slump.”

For decades, the United States had permitted the destruction of Everglades wetlands to provide cheap cement for the overdevelopment of Florida. From this point of view, wetlands destruction in Florida partnered with wealth destruction on Wall Street, to balance an unprecedented boom in Florida real estate on the tip of economic and financial catastrophe. Thousands of millionaires floated on the bubble. They depended on Everglades marshes like characters from Glengarry Glen Ross inflated to the size of Macy Day Parade floats. The biggest include sugar billionaires and rock miners, even more secretive and contained behind barbed wire fencing, security cameras, and massive drag lines.

The rock miners don’t want the wetlands. They scrape them clean. What they want is underneath a scrim of soil covering cap rock. Once the limestone—made from fossilized coral – is dynamited and gobbled up by crushers, exposing the aquifer, it is converted to base material for cement and asphalt. A thousand highways growing like kudzu and shopping malls blooming like bougainvillea and new tracts of farmland or wetlands opened to sprawl: all are derivatives of Florida wetlands.

The rock pits left behind after the wetlands are dug out are also convection routes for pollution (Judge Hoeveler also ruled that the Lake Belt rock mines had put the drinking water wells serving more than 2 million residents of Miami-Dade County at risk of contamination) and political corruption. In Palm Beach County, a 1999 deal to put one rock mine in public ownership—for the purposes of “water storage”—eventually landed three of five Palm Beach county commissioners in federal prison but not before a well-connected Republican campaign contributor grossed $200,000 per acre from the state.

This free market folly rises to nearly the height of new nuclear reactors sought by FPL, the largest utility in the state, at the water’s edge of Biscayne National Park; the cost to be borne by ratepayers, $20 billion, is what is estimated to restore the entire remaining Everglades. An important project feature includes a rock mine– presented by the engineering cartel as a faux restoration feature—for provide enough fill to raise the reactors twenty five feet above sea level.

In the Lake Belt in West Miami-Dade County in 2002, the US Army Corps of Engineers issued ten-year permits to Florida rock miners for 5600 acres of Everglades wetlands destruction. Those permits have been judged to be illegal in federal court. There is time for the Obama administration to fairly balance the costs to the Everglades and the public. The price the rock mining industry pays per ton for its privilege to destroy Everglades wetlands in the Lake Belt Area is 25 cents.

Alan Farago writes on culture, the environment and politics in Coral Gables, FL. He can be reached at afarago@bellsouth.net

The Sustainable Technology Policy Program, an interdisciplinary project of UCLA School of Law and the UCLA School of Public Health, has received a research grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Public Health Law Research Program to study safer alternatives to the use of lead in industrial and consumer products and processes. The grant, in the amount of $400,000, will fund the 2 ½ year study “Deploying Safer Alternatives through Public Health Law.” UCLA School of Law Professor Timothy Malloy and Dr. Peter Sinsheimer, of the UCLA School of Public Health, will lead the study. Dr. John Froines and Dr. Hilary Godwin of the School of Public Health are also participating in the study.

Despite the serious health effects of lead exposure and the existence of available and emerging alternatives, the pervasive use of lead continues. The project will use four case studies of different commercial or consumer uses of lead to examine what role the law can play in driving the substitution of toxic chemicals with safer alternatives. The research will have three phases:

• In phase one, publicly available information will be used to generate a systematic assessment of the scope of lead use within the United States, and four cases will be selected for in-depth analysis;
• In phase two, an alternatives assessment methodology will be developed and used to analyze each of the selected cases to identify any commercially available, safer alternatives;
• In phase three, a conceptual model of the legal and socio-economic environment in which the businesses using lead make technology choices will be constructed; the model will be used to identify the legal, technical, economic and social barriers to the adoption of viable alternatives, and potential regulatory approaches to overcome or mitigate those barriers will be evaluated. 

The project will produce a comprehensive overview of lead use and exposure in the United States to provide policymakers and NGO’s with the information needed to prioritize their activities and resources. It will also identify available existing and emerging alternatives, and will provide policymakers with support in the development of regulations adopting an alternatives approach. 

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Public Health Law Research Program, based at Temple University’s Center for Health, Law, Policy and Practice, funds legal analysis and research to learn about the health impacts of specific laws and regulations.

Citizens aware of extreme drought conditions point to potential serious conflict over water if coal plant were built

(Abilene) – The Multi-County Coalition, Sierra Club, Public Citizen, and individuals from the West Texas areas of Sweetwater and Abilene raised questions about how a proposed Tenaska coal plant would affect water availability and water quantity in the region.

Water Availability

The Tenaska coal plant project, still in the early permitting stages, would obligate between one million to ten million gallons of water per day for a cooling process.

“Particularly in West Texas, we are aware of how any period of drought puts great stress on our basic water resources,” said Professor Jeff Haseltine. “The city of Abilene is taking extraordinary steps to ensure a safe and reliable water supply far into the future, and it simply makes no sense to tie up massive amounts of water to cool a coal plant. We need to continue to find ways to use all of our water resources for the direct benefit of our own community, not for the profit of an out-of-state corporation.”

Next to municipalities, power plants – both coal and nuclear use the largest volumes of water in the state.

Water Quality

The groups at Thursday’s Abilene City Council hearing spoke about mercury that the proposed Tenaska coal plant would emit if built.

“The Tenaska plant would pump 124 pounds of mercury per year into the atmosphere and that mercury from Tenaska would fall onto the rivers, streams, and lakes in the region,” said Ryan Rittenhouse of Public Citizen. “West Texans do not want to stand by and allow that fate for their vital water resources and wildlife.”

According to chemist Neil Carman with Sierra Club, “Mercury is a highly potent neuro-toxin. It only takes one gram of mercury to contaminate a twenty-acre lake and make the larger fish unsafe for people to consume. Mercury most seriously effects pregnant women, young children, and the elderly. Mercury ingestion causes developmental disorders, delays and other brain diseases in fetuses and young children. We can avoid putting more mercury in our environment by refusing to build more coal plants in Texas including Tenaska.”

Mercury is one of the ‘criteria’ or major pollutants that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality will consider in an upcoming contested case hearing brought by the Multi-County Coalition, Sierra Club and Environmental Defense Fund protesting the Tenaska coal permit application before the State Office of Administrative Hearings.

Other criteria pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and particulate matter would seriously affect air quality.

“I moved with my family to enjoy the clean air of West Texas and now this company wants to build a coal plant here,” said Sierra Club member Elaine Root. “Two members of my family have conditions that would worsen if this coal plant is allowed. My entire family is praying that they won’t build Tenaska and I’m making my voice heard.”

Background Information

Tenaska is one of five proposed coal plants in Texas that Sierra Club is challenging this Winter.

No other state in the nation has near so many new proposed coal plants as Texas. New coal plants have been rejected in other states that are avoiding water conflicts, the rising costs and risks of coal-fired electricity in a carbon and pollution-constrained environment and the health risks and costs from coal plant pollution including ozone and smog-forming gases, acid gases, mercury, and the global warming gas, carbon dioxide.

For more information, see http://sierraclub.org/coal/tx/

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“Young women in Fallujah in Iraq are terrified of having children because of the increasing number of babies born grotesquely deformed, with no heads, two heads, a single eye in their foreheads, scaly bodies or missing limbs. In addition, young children in Fallujah are now experiencing hideous cancers and leukaemias. These deformities are now well documented, for example in television documentaries on SKY UK on September 1 2009, and on SKY UK June 2008. Our direct contact with doctors in Fallujah report that: In September 2009, Fallujah General Hospital had 170 new born babies, 24% of whom were dead within the first seven days, a staggering 75% of the dead babies were classified as deformed.”

Will the UN or the USA or the UK ever acknowledge this serious problem in Iraq specifically in Fallujah, Basra, Baghdad and Al – Najaf? Will they implement the cleaning up of toxic materials that was used by the occupying forces to “bring democracy” to the people of Iraq? Was the use of Depleted Uranium and White Phosphorus, among other deadly and toxic weapons, necessary for the Birth of the “New Middle East”? Was it worth it? Just wondering…

Coal has been used by man for several centuries as a means of warmth, transportation (via Watt’s steam engine) and most recently electric power. It is currently used nearly exclusively for the generation of electricity in the US (in 2001: 86% of total US coal production). It has always been claimed that coal makes good economic sense because it is both cheap and abundant (both economic variables).  As for factors that fall outside of this – how do we measure these in an economic sense? Perhaps we should just leave them by the wayside, or dust them under the carpet? Out of sight, out of mind? In this blog, let’s consider some of the external costs of coal.

A report was recently released by the National Academy of Sciences examining the externalities of energy – the hidden costs of the energy we use. It was requested by Congress in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This little statement, found in the executive summary, gets at the heart of what an external cost is:

Modern civilization is heavily dependent on energy from sources such as coal, petroleum, and natural gas. Yet, despite energy’s many benefits, most of which are reflected in energy market prices, the production, distribution, and use of energy also cause negative effects. Beneficial or negative effects that are not reflected in energy market prices are termed “external effects” by economists. In the absence of government intervention, external effects associated with energy production and use are generally not taken into account in decision making.

Interesting, and perhaps even a bit understated. The point is that externalities exist within our energy-economic system, and by keeping them external they can have fairly serious consequences.

Here are some of the more grave externalities of coal-power, with an illustration to help:

Effects of Coal, Alan Morin, taken from "Cradle to Grave: The Environmental Impacts from Coal," Clean Air Task Force: http://www.catf.us/publications/reports/Cradle_to_Grave.pdf

(1) Classical Pollutants: Particulate Matter (PM), SO₂, NO_x, as well as other pollutants such as O₃, CO, Benzene, Benzo-[a]-pyrene, and a host of other tongue-twisting compounds. These have negative effects on health through cancers, respiratory disorders, and a general decrease in life expectancy. They can also have a negative effect on building materials (acid damage), crops (yield reduction, acid deposition), and ecosystems (eutrophication).

(2) Greenhouse Gas emissions: CO₂, CH₄, N₂O, and others. Contributes to climate change.

(3) Direct Environmental Damage: Mountain-top removal mining (MTR), Strip mining, etc. Mining causes irreparable damage to the local land and water resources, and can lead to chemical spills as a consequence of the mining.

(This information was taken from a similar European Report, published in 2003).

The grand total in external coal-induced damages put forward by the report is $62 billion (for 2005). That said; keep in mind the fact that not all coal-fired power plants are created equal. Researchers took data from 406 coal-fired power plants from across the US (excluding Hawaii and Alaska) and produced some notable results. The top 5% in terms of pollution caused damages of over 12 cents (per kWh), whereas the lowest-emitting 5% of the plants caused less than 0.5 cents (per kWh) of damage. That is quite a difference. This diagram illustrates the extreme variation in damages:

Damages of Coal and Natural Gas Plants, taken from "Hidden Costs of Energy," report in brief: http://dels.nas.edu/dels/rpt_briefs/hidden_costs_of_energy_Final.pdf

These numbers take into account neither possible climate change effects, ecosystem damage (such as MTR), nor mercury emissions. The study done by the European Commission did try to include all factors, and as expected found significant costs related to climate change and ecosystem damages. Here is a summary of the external costs produced throughout the energy sector in Germany:

Taken from "External Costs," European Commission: http://ec.europa.eu/research/energy/pdf/externe_en.pdf

Looking at the same data, we can see the relative little external costs of wind or hydro power (renewable energy sources).

There is quite a lot of crying these days about subsidies for renewable energy, and how these forms of energy are too costly to be feasible. However, as this report points out, if we were to look at all of the costs of conventional coal power (internal and external) at least we would have a more level playing field. Perhaps then wind, solar and other renewable energy sources would be better able to compete? (This discussion ignores both the fact that coal is a finite resource and that there are huge subsidies given to coal companies each year – other matters altogether).

But the past is behind; let’s see this in light of the future. The US Department of Energy, in their International Energy Outlook of 2009, has predicted that world coal consumption would increase by 49 percent from 2006 to 2030, saying that “coal’s share of world energy consumption increases from 27 percent in 2006 to 28 percent in 2030.”

By continuing to allow the torrid growth of coal in the next two decades, how much more damage will be left out of the equation? You can work out the economics of that one.

J Baker.

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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, cleaner cars, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.

Every year, we prepare ourselves to meet Ramadan month which is the best month of the whole year. To feel the aspiration of worshiping and to approach it with great desire, we must know the secrets of this worshipping, and to know the scientific secrets to the elementary foods that were mentioned in the noble Quran. Let us dive together and visualize these wonderful benefits:

The most important thing: To be psychologically ready for fasting

The believer who realizes the benefits of fasting in this life, and the delights he would achieve in the hereafter, he with no doubt greets this month with great energy, eagerness, enthusiasm to fast and meet it with good and comfortable psychological state. This would strengthen the believers’ immune system, and hence, achieving the optimum benefit of fasting.

In contrary to who meets Ramadan with disappointment! He probably smokes and worries about losing some cigarettes during the day, or eats so much and is afraid of losing some meals because of fasting. And some people are used to amusement, enjoyment and disobeying Allah, so they would feel that this month is going to constrict them and prevent them from some pleasures.

People like those don’t feel the joy of fasting. Instead, days pass by heavily, and they count the days with frustration waiting for the month to end. Thus my brothers and sisters, we must read articles like this one to prepare ourselves psychologically to perform this worshiping when knowing its secrets.

Did you know that fasting kills viruses and rejects toxics out?

Scientists say that avoiding food and drink for limited periods give the immune system an opportunity to accomplish its responsibility better and it relaxes the other body systems because extra food does weaken the body. Hence, just by performing fasting, your body cells start discarding accumulated toxics that have been built through out the year. You will feel highly energetic, psychologically relaxed and full of life!

Western studies assure that fasting treats diabetes and heart problems.

A new study revealed that discontinuous fasting like fasting amongst Muslims is essential to treat some of the prolonged diseases such as diabetes and heart problems. Also, another study that was published in the American Society of Animal Science Organization revealed that discontinuous fasting increases the efficiency of two of the hormone’s “adiponectin” receptors. This hormone helps regulate the body consumption of glucose, fatty acids catabolism, and it increases cells response to insulin hormone which regulates the build up and the break down of glucose in the body.                              There is another study that was prepared by experts in nutrition and was published via British association for nutrition regarding fasting. This study was aimed toward a group of people who fast during Ramadan. Changing meals’ times and reducing them to two main meals daily helps to increase the body response to insulin hormone for those who would possibly be diagnosed with diabetes.

Fasting decreases the chance of causing inflammation

After experimenting on some mammals, a study was done by researchers from Grenoble France Universityshowed that discontinuous fasting is responsible for decreasing the chance of having some types of lymph’s inflammatory to almost 0%. Also, other studies showed that discontinuous fasting is accountable for increasing the likelihood healing among people who suffer from damages to their livers’ tissue which has a chance to become inflamed in the future.

Fasting slows elderly phase

Beside the benefits of fighting prolonged diseases, fasting also slows elderly phases crawling to the brain cells. Scientific studies showed how discontinuous fasting helps in delaying the phases of the brain’s cells to become old, and it assists in slowing the development of Alzheimer disease. This study was done via “The Research Institute for the Care of the Elderly” regarding the possible effect of discontinuous fasting and some dieting were the amount of calories consumed is reduced to half. The study found that fasting contributes in slowing the elderly phase to the brains’ tissues.

Fasting reduces the probability of being diagnosed with cancer

In a new study that was accomplished via scientists from California University and was published in “Psychology and Endocrine Glands Magazine”, the scientists proved that fasting relentlessly stops the division of cancerous cells. In their results, fasting was more effective than following a certain diet.

Do you have extra weight… the opportunity is in front of you

This is what all of doctors assure us. Avoiding food is the easiest and cheapest way to lose weight. This can be achieved via fasting. Allah Almighty gave you a gift no one knows its values unless realizing its benefits. This gift is Ramadan. This month is an opportunity for you to control your body and to get rid of the access fat, and it gives a chance to regulate hormones and blood cells to reorganize the body systems and to treat the extra fat.

Do you have a prolonged disease doctors and medicine couldn’t treat?

There are plenty of studies which guarantee that fasting treats prolonged diseases. A prolonged disease is the one which medicines failed to treat so it stays for a long period. Now, this is the golden opportunity to heal what ever that disease is. Diseases regarding liver, kidneys, colon… and other complicated diseases, scientists have found a successful cure. It is fasting!

And when you realize my believed brothers and sister the importance of fasting in healing complicated diseases, you with no doubt will become more eager to meet this month. You will also feel the happiness and pleasure while performing fasting because you will obtain lots of benefits.

Fasting proves its ability to treat arthritis

Fasting is used today in western world (in their way) to treat joints’ inflammations and back aches successfully. Fasting is a process similar to “magic” in its ability to organize the work of the different body systems, healing pains related to cervical bones, back, neck or legs bones.

I also want to tell you about another advantage: which is to eat dates during “Eftar (the meal consumption after fasting) and Sohor (the meal consumption before dawn).” Dates has shown it ability to treat knees and joints pains because it consists of “seen through information” that can regulate cells and increases the body immunity to cease the pains.

Dates…. Then dates

We can’t count the medical benefits of this blessing seed that Allah (SWT) has mentioned in his book, and the prophet (peace be upon him) has mentioned it in his sayings. Date is considered a complete diet. It consists of uncountable good substances for the body; it contains numbers of minerals, and essential vitamins. The sugar it contains is easy to absorb, and doesn’t harm even diabetic people (if they consume it with intermediate amount). So my beloveds, don’t forget dates on your dining tables even without Ramadan!

Fruit… curing and nourishment

Allah (SWT) has created many types of fruits and prepared them for us to be used as food and medicine. All researchers

http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=all&q=fruit&m=text

assure that fruits are very healthy. You should remember them when you break your fast, and don’t forget that fruits are the food of people in paradise.

Allah Almighty says: “Then, We brought forth for you therewith gardens of date palms and grapes, wherein is much fruit for you, and whereof you eat.” [Al-Muminun: 19]. He also said: “And fruit in plenty* Whose supply is not cut off (by change of season) nor are they out of reach.”[Al-Waqiah: 32-33]. And I would like to remind you dear reader that the best types of fruits are the ones mentioned in Allah’s Almighty book such as fig, grapes and pomegranate.

And glory to Allah (SWT). There is no kind of fruits except it has some medical benefits. And that is from Allah’s delights for us. My advice to you is to eat more fruits and to avoid fast food or sweets that contain plenty of artificial sugar which can cause many diseases such as diabetes if it was consumed with great amount.

Don’t forget herbs

Allah (SWT) gave us numerous types of herbs that have curing benefits such as anyus, chamomile, cumin and green tea. Science has demonstrated uncountable advantages for these herbs. They are good for the heart, neurons, and for diseases concerning blood pressure and cholesterol. They also assist in regulating hormones levels and systematizing cells’ work. My advice to you is to stay away from soda, such as cola, and to concentrate in consuming known medical herbs.

Olive oil from a blessing tree

Many researches proved that olive oil is one of the best nutrition for human. That because of its ability to cure many

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=olive%20trees&w=all

diseases such as heart problems, stroke, ulcer, cancer and it numbs pains. Other studies also say that olive oil reduces the toxicity levels (which damages cells) in the body cells. Olive oil contains antibodies that protect your cells from the toxicity danger!

Charity alleviates diseases!

When medicals fail to treat your illness, you should try this “magical treatment” which is charity in the sake of Allah. Allah Almighty is capable to arrange for you the causes of healing and to show you the suitable treatment, but how? By giving deprived people some money, and by donating some money to spend for the sake of Allah (SWT) to preach for Allah’s (SWT) religion. That might be a reason to guide a person who went astray. To spend some money to please Allah (SWT), Allah will reward you a lot, save you causes of treatment, show you the appropriate medicine to your illness and relieve your pain.

Easy advices

Also my dears; don’t forget taking too many steps to the mosques. Walking is one of the best workouts that protect the body from possible strokes and heart attack. It also helps reducing weight and treating many diseases especially the ones regarding spinal column, back and nick and legs pains. Moreover, it helps in treating blood pressure, diabetes and cholesterol.

There is also a golden advice which is to have the honey available on your house because it is a medicine for every sickness! Science has proved many advantages for this amazing substance. It is the best cure for prolonged coughing, and the finest to treat injuries and burns…

Milk is a significant nutrition substance that you shouldn’t disregard. It is useful for ulcer, bones aches, and is very important for children development…..

Be careful from anger. It is the worst enemy for the heart and the brain. Anger and nervous tension may cause sudden death, heart diseases, blood pressure, and diabetes. If you get angry, you should remember death because it is the best method for healing. We all are going to die and be buried under the ground. Everything will vanish, and only your deeds, patience, and also your good manners will leave with you which are the heaviest thing in your weighing scale in the judgment day.

Don’t forget smiling! It’s a treatment, medicine, and charity that will not cost you anything. Always smile. That will spread happiness around you where ever you were….. Smiling might also treats some diseases. This what doctors assure today.

Being optimistic is the best way to increase your age, of course “Every matter there is a Decree (from Allah)” [Ar-Rad: 38]. But to live your life happily and with good health is way better. Researches say that being optimistic increases the immunity body response and cures many prolonged diseases.

Finally…….the Quran is the best treatment

Allah gave us all the materials that were mentioned previously to benefit from them and use them to treat our illnesses. However, there is a thing that is more important than all of these materials. It is Allah’s Almighty words the one who created the whole universe. It is “healing via the Quran”. Reciting the Quran and listening to it has a great influence on the cells, the heart, and all other body organs.

Reading the Quran humbly influences the heart work positively, increases the body’s immune system response, organizes the cells work and activates them especially the brain cells. And don’t forget to apply the Quranic instructions. Hearing and reciting the Quran is not enough, but practicing it is more importantly. That’s because the Quran was revealed to practice it and to follow its teaching. When you answer Allah’s call for prayer, it is a healing for you. When you are being patient, going to perform pilgrimage to Allah’s house, helping others, obey your parents or taking care of your kin, all these are efficient techniques to treat illnesses.

Now my beloved brothers and sisters: are you going to apply these advices and save your money and energy, and protect yourself from worst diseases from now on?

——————–

By: Abduldaem Al-Kaheel

www.kaheel7.com/eng

Source:

1.       http://www.althealth.co.uk/services/info/misc/fasting1.php

2.       www.juicersaustralia.com.au

3.       http://www.fasting.com/solution.html

4.       The Sapporo Medical Journal, 1986; 55(2): 125-136

5.       http://www.fasting.com/index.html

6.       Masoro, E.J., Shimokawa, I., Yu, B.P., Retardation of the Aging Process In Rats by Food Restriction, Annals of the New York Academy of Science, 1990; pp. 337-52; Goodrick, C.L., Ingram, D.K., Reynolds, M.A., Freeman, J.R., Cider, N.L., Effects of Intermittent Feeding Upon Growth, Activity, and Lifespan In Rats Allowed Voluntary Exercise, Experimental Aging Research, 1983; 9: 1477-94.

7.       http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/psychology/health_psychology/fast.htm

8.       http://www.hps-online.com/nsectionfast.htm

9.       Salloum, T. Fasting – Patient Guidelines Textbook of Natural Medicine, Bastyr University, Seattle WA. 1987.

10.   http://www.healthy.net/scr/article.asp?ID=496#1

11.   http://www.medicomm.net/Consumer%20Site/am/fasting.htm

12.   http://www.healthy.net/scr/article.asp?ID=1996

13.   http://www.healthpromoting.com/Articles/articles/benefit.htm

14.   http://www.althealth.co.uk/services/info/misc/fasting1.php

15.   http://www.geocities.co.jp/Beautycare-Venus/2032/english/paper.html

16.   http://www.healthy.net/scr/article.asp?ID=496

17.   http://www.healthy.net/scr/article.asp?ID=1996#1

18.   http://www.healthy.net/hwlibrarybooks/chaitow/chap4.htm

19.   Carrington, Dr. Hereward, Fasting For Health And Long Life.

20.   www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12850886&dopt=Abstract

21.   www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=date

22.   www.dipbot.unict.it/Palms/descr02.html

23.   www.aljazeera.com

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I was outraged when I heard Jim Rower’s response to Lesley Stahl’s question on 60 Minutes on Sunday, the 4th: “We shouldn’t get rid of coal,” said the power industry lobbyist. People like him don’t quite understand the risk caused by waste that results from burning coal, or they might just simply ignore it.

This is an issue that has not been addressed and covered much by the media ,which is disturbing when you know how much coal combustion waste impacts our lives. A 2007 report about the EPA’s Human and Ecological Risk Assessment of Coal Combustion Wastes, stresses the fact that waste from coal combustion such as fly ash, bottom ash, and slag do pose risks to human health.

For humans exposed via the groundwater-to drinking- water pathway, arsenic in CCW [coal combustion waste] landfills poses a 90th percentile cancer risk of 5×10-4 for unlined units and 2×10-4 for clay-lined units. The 50th percentile risks are 1×10-5 (unlined units) and 3×10-6(clay-lined units). Risks are higher for surface impoundments, with an arsenic cancer risk of 9×10-3 for unlined units and 3×10-3 for clay-lined units at the 90th percentile. At the 50th percentile, risks for unlined surface impoundments are 3×10-4, and clay-lined units show a risk of 9×10-5. Five additional constituents have 90th percentile noncancer risks above the criteria (HQs ranging from greater than 1 to 4) for unlined surface impoundments, including boron and cadmium, which have been cited in CCW damage cases, referenced above. Boron and molybdenum show HQs of 2 and 3 for clay-lined surface impoundments. None of these noncarcinogens show HQs above 1 at the 50th percentile for any unit type.

This is a risk and a struggle for a lot of people. As it shows in 60 Minutes, people who reside in water areas that are exposed to coal ash, they are advised to not swim or drink from the water. Also, those people are at higher risk of being wiped out by coal ash spills like the one of the Kingston Fossil Plant in Tennessee.

You might think that since many of us don’t live in such areas, it shouldn’t be our concern. But it should be because many companies, in order to spend less on coal waste disposal,  recycle it. Coal waste is used in the manufacturing of carpets, cement, asphalt, tile, sinks and other, as some misleadingly call them, “green products”. All of these products put us in direct exposure to these toxics.

It is time to voice out our opinions against the usage of coal to produce energy. It poses major risks in many areas of the country, especially Texas that has 17 existing coal plants and 11 proposed or already under construction. People’s lives shouldn’t be jeopardized when we know we can use sources of energy that are cleaner and better for us and our environment.

Note: You can watch and comment on the Leslie Stahl’s 60 minutes piece by clicking at this link

Yesterday marked the end of a State-Wide “Roll Beyond Coal” press tour of Texas coal plants. This tour has seen representatives from Public Citizen of Texas and Sierra Club travel across the state visiting communities which would be impacted by proposed coal plants and meeting with local organizations. This was all in a bid to support recent bold action from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concerning the coal plant permitting process of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and to request that the EPA take further steps to create a moratorium on the permitting or operation of any new coal-powered plant (Texas currently has 11 in either the pending, permitted or under-construction phase).

The crux of the matter is the discrepancy between the TCEQ permitting standards and the Federal Clean Air Act. The TCEQ is responsible for the permitting process of coal plants in Texas. For some time now the TCEQ has been issuing what it calls ‘flex permits,’ which essentially allow individual polluters to emit over the limits of the Federal Clean Air Act, as long as the aggregate pollution of an umbrella of regional sources is below the allowed level. In summation: “EPA ruling claims Texas’ air permitting standards are so flexible and record keeping so vague that plants can circumvent federal clean air requirements [emphasis added].” I suppose these ‘flex’ permits are aptly named.

Here are some of the steps the EPA should take as it reviews the relevant TCEQ policies over the coming months (taken from the Texas Sierra Club web site, where you can take action and contact the EPA):

1) Halt any new air pollution permits from being issued by the TCEQ utilizing the TCEQ’s current illegal policy.

2) Create a moratorium on the operations of any new coal fired power plants in Texas until the TCEQ cleans up its act by operating under the Federal Clean Air Act.

3) Require companies to clean up their old, dirty plants – no exemptions, no bailouts, and no special treatment by reviewing all permits issued since the TCEQ adopted its illegal policies and require that these entities resubmit their application in accordance with the Federal Clean Air Act.

(Read this blog concerning plans to “grandfather” Texas coal plants, where you can also contact Texas senators about these issues)

The tour visited communities in Waco, Dallas, Abilene, College Station, Corpus Christi, Bay City, Houston, and concluded today in Austin. The travelers included a giant coal plant float and local protestors at each site, attracting much local media attention. I’ve included some of the media links below:

9/23: WFAA (Dallas)

9/29: Corpus Christi Caller Times

9/29: KRIS-TV (Corpus Christi)

09/30: KIII-TV (South Texas)

09/30: Houston Press

10/01: TheFacts.com (Brazoria County)

This is a long-overdue first step taken by the EPA, and it now needs to be followed by some decisive and bold action in the coming months.

J Baker.

Great news from the Edmunds.com Green Car Blog:

Southern California Port Pollution Drops Dramatically Under Clean-Truck Program

A clean-trucks program at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in California has shown quick progress, with an 80 percent decline in diesel emissions expected by the end of 2010 — a year ahead of schedule.

“This is the most successful effort to clean a port in the world,” said Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. “I mean, think about it. Nobody thought it was possible to retrofit 5,000 trucks in a year, and we’re at 5,500 and growing.”

So far, the program has reduced diesel truck emissions at the Los Angeles port (pictured) by 70 percent compared with 2007 levels, Villaraigosa said. Long Beach has seen similar results, according to Mayor Bob Foster.

The program is part of a larger effort to reduce diesel emissions at the port complex, one of the major sources of pollution in Southern California. Increased rates of cancer, asthma and other serious health ailments for area residents have been attributed to port pollution.

Villaraigosa and Foster unveiled the promising figures during a briefing at the Port of Long Beach on Thursday, when U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced $26.5 million in federal grants for clean-air programs throughout Southern California.

This is really great news for our port cities, whose dirty air is tied at least partially to the pollution from the ports.  Diesel emissions also contain black carbon particles, which can have a much greater effect on the climate than CO2, methane, or any of the other greenhouse gases.  Also, as a particulate, it can get lodged in your lungs and cause all sorts of respiratory ailments.  Cutting black carbon should be a major goal, and one which the Ports of LA and Long Beach seem to be tackling very well.

Farbeit from me to advocate that Texas ever in any way should try to be like California, (*smirk*) but this shows that specific programs designed to tackle specific problems can be very effective.

“LA and Long Beach Together– Now You Know You’re In Trouble…”

The Texas Political Alliance hopes that everyone reading this today has ensured they are registered to vote in the November election, as the deadline for doing so is Monday, October 5.

The Texas Cloverleaf reviews proposed changes to the city of Denton’s charter that will be on the November ballot.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme notices Rick Perry has had a busy week what with Channeling Glenn Beck and messing up a wrongful execution investigation.

TXsharon had a hard time keeping up with all the fracking, moving, shaking and gasping for toxic air in the Barnett Shale this week so there is a BS recap that includes a recently released URGENT alert for all current and former residents of DISH–formerly Clark–Texas to complete and submit a health survey.

Bay Area Houston wonders what $640 a frickin hour buys you in Houston Mayor’s race.

If a Republican holds an on-line event, will they properly provision for the people who want to join it? McBlogger’s pretty sure they won’t and isn’t terribly surprised that they blamed it on the nefarious actions of others.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the Gov. Perry’s latest outrage. It’s another example of why Texas needs accountability in our state’s government, Perry’s pride and the Willingham case.

This week on Left of College Station, Teddy writes about why he gets up early on Saturday mornings to escort patients at Planned Parenthood; guest blogger Litia writes about the frustrations they fell while trying to get students to participate in class at Texas A&M. Left of College Station also covers the week in headlines.

XicanoPwr is encouraging people to vote for Prop 4, the “national research university” proposition, on Nov 3. Texas currently has three flagship universities – The University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University and Rice University – compared to states such as California, with nine, and New York, with seven. If passed, it would allow seven “emerging universities” – Texas Tech, University of Houston, University of North Texas, University of Texas at Arlington, University of Texas at Dallas, University of Texas at El Paso and University of Texas at San Antonio – tap into a $500 million education fund to help them be part of the elite three and “achieve national prominence” as a major research university.

WhosPlayin’ has video from Denton County’s “Donkeyfest” where candidates John Sharp for U.S. Senate and Neil Durrance for U.S. Congress spoke.

Off the Kuff has a simple suggestion for how Governor Perry and Williamson County DA John Bradley can counter the perception that Perry’s elevation to Chair of the Texas Forensic Sciences Commission was a blatantly political move designed to bury the findings of the Cameron Todd Willingham case: Reschedule the meeting that the Commission was going to hold before Perry’s maneuver.

Neil at Texas Liberal offered a post this week about the famous Dogs Playing Poker paintings. These paintings have been around for more than 100 years now. How many of our blog posts will last in any meaningful respect beyond next week?

The Doctorate of Shadetree Psychology is hereby awarded to PDiddie of Brains and Eggs, for his compelling dissertation that Rick Perry is a sociopath.

At TexasKaos, Libby Shaw gives Senators Hutchison and Cornyn a chance to put up or shut up . If government health care is so horrible, so “socialist”, give up your govenment coverage. Read the rest here: Senators Hutchison and Cornyn: Get Us What You Have or Give Up Yours.