Every Austin City Council member has pledged to move Austin beyond coal and phase out of the Fayette coal plant. Please thank the City Council members for their bold leadership in moving Austin towards a clean energy future.
In more good news, the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) last week officially rejected a water permit for the White Stallion coal plant after over 2,000 of you sent comments and demanded that LCRA not give another drop of our water to dirty coal. This LCRA victory comes on the heels of San Antonio's recent decision to shut down their Dealy coal plant and invest in clean energy.
These are huge victories for our Texas grassroots movement!
Since the 2009 Austin Generation Task Force, our volunteers have been urging Austin City Council to move beyond coal. You collected petitions, attended leadership trainings, hosted house parties, made phone calls, flyered events, contacted City Hall, and now your efforts have paid off!
Austin joins cities across the country that have recognized coal's health effects and increasing costs are too risky to sustain. It's no longer a question of IF Austin will move beyond coal; it's now a question of WHEN.
Our next goal is to work with Austin Energy and the LCRA to develop an aggressive timeline to shut down Fayette by 2016. If we succeed, Austin will be the biggest city in the country to phase out of a municipally-owned coal plant. This is an opportunity for us to lead by example, and we look forward to the challenge of making Austin #1.
These victories show that when we work together, we can build a cleaner, smarter energy future for our community. Thanks for all your help to get us there!
(Impressive organizing efforts from Sierra Club's push to get Austin to divest from coal-based electricity. - promoted by Katherine Haenschen)
We're making great progress moving Austin Beyond Coal.
In just two months, we've signed up 24 house party hosts and gathered more than 1,000 petition signatures demanding Austin Energy phase out of our city-owned Fayette coal paltn. We're well on track to meet our goal of 5,000 signatures by Earth Day 2012.
These efforts are getting noticed. Last week, Mayor Lee Leffingwell told the Community Impact Newspaper that he's "willing to entertain the option" of moving beyond coal.
Now we need to keep the momentum going...
We need as many people as possible to attend our Beyond Coal Town Hall on December 4th and show the decision makers that our grassroots movement is growing bigger every day. We'll also be presenting new policy research that shows the Fayette coal plant can be phased out in a cost-effective way, protecting Austin Energy rate payers from the rising costs of coal.
What: Beyond Coal Town Hall
When: Sunday, December 4th, 3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Where: Texas State Employee's Union Office, 1700 South 1st Street, Austin, TX 78704
RSVP:Click here to RSVP
This campaign is important because Fayette pollutes our air and wastes 5 billion gallons of water every year. But if we phase Austin out of coal, this will set an example for the rest of the country. Austin could become the biggest city in the country to divest from a municipally owned coal plant.
Let's work together to make Austin a leader of the 21st century clean energy economy!
(After last night's debate, it's important to remember the human and health costs of Rick Perry's energy and environmental policies. - promoted by Katherine Haenschen)
Rick Perry just unveiled his energy plan for America. The plan, if implemented, will poison our air and water with toxic pollutants like soot, smog, arsenic, cadmium, dioxin, lead, and formaldehyde. It would also undercut safeguards from mercury, which is a neurotoxin and is known to harm developing fetuses.
"Rick Perry's energy plan reads like a roadmap for making America's kids sick," said Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune. "Under this plan, we can expect to see much higher rates of asthma among children, and risk to pregnant women from mercury exposure. Republicans like Perry are putting polluters' profits first and our kids' health last. The Republican mantra should be 'wheeze, baby, wheeze."
Perry's plan calls for scaling back basic EPA safeguards that protect our clean air and water. It would simultaneously expand development of dirty energy like coal, oil, and natural gas amounting to a one-two punch to Americans' health.
"American families have enough to worry about," Brune said. "They don't need to spend more time taking their kids to the doctor or more money on hospital bills. The only people who stand to profit from this plan are overpaid oil, coal and natural gas CEOs."
"Dismantling the EPA and assuming that states are properly watching over natural gas drilling is dangerous and puts the health of our families and communities at risk."
Perry's plan would also undercut the expansion of jobs in industries like solar-the fastest-growing industry in the energy sector.
"There's a solution to the current epidemic of pollution-related illness that will also create good, lasting local jobs, and secure America's energy independence," said Brune. "It's clean energy. America's clean energy industry is strong and thriving, even in this down economy. Rick Perry's plan would stifle that growth and return our country to a dirty, antiquated energy system. Under his plan, we'll see asthma rates among American kids soar, while countries like China surpass us in reaping the benefits from clean energy like solar and wind."
In fact, America is predicted to become the world's leader in solar energy by 2014, and in 2010, the U.S. was a net exporter of solar by $2 billion. Solar energy creates seven times more jobs than coal, nuclear and natural gas.
Fayette area growers and producers point to damage from Coal Plant Sulfur Dioxide and Acid Gases
(Austin) Sierra Club and representatives of pecan growers and producers in Fayette and Colorado Counties in the Texas Pecan Alliance requested at an Austin City Hall press conference today compensation for losses resulting from pollution from the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) and City of Austin's Fayette Power Project coal plant.
"Over two dozen orchards and the livelihoods of my family and many of our neighbors have been seriously impacted by the pollution from Fayette coal plant," said Harvey Hayek of Hayek Farm and the Texas Pecan Alliance. "In 1980, the year after the coal plant went on line, we saw the abundant production out here drop and then in the Nineties, the trees began to die. Recently, I had to buy a bag of pecans at H.E.B. so my wife could make cookies."
Hayek and almost 50 people in the Texas Pecan Alliance met with LCRA officials and engineers from Austin Energy and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) on November 16. Since the meeting, the TCEQ is considering additional monitoring, members of Austin City Council have set up meetings for further discussion, and the LCRA has denied Fayette coal plant contributed to pecan industry losses.
Dr. Neil Carman chemist and Clean Air Program Director, biochemical injury process, "Acid pollution from the coal plant falls on the leaves causing damage characterized by brown, dead spots, while the sulfur dioxide (SO2) gas from the plant emissions enters the sensitive leaf structure from underneath, biochemically attacking the leaves from within and eventually causing leaf loss and the death of the tree."
Mr. Hayek explained that it takes 220 leaves to produce a single pecan nut on a tree.
"This orchard has been in my wife's family for the past century. We want to recover from this damage. We want the air, water, and soil to be clean and safe enough to replant so my grandchildren can enjoy the abundance we enjoyed," said Hayek.
Hayek, Carman, and others in the Texas Pecan Alliance also expressed concerns about corrosion, water quality, coal ash waste, and human health.
Eva Hernandez, with the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign in Texas said, "The pecan industry losses clearly show one of many direct economic blows from burning coal for electricity. From the Clean Air Task Force study, we also know that, on an annual basis, Fayette coal plant pollution is linked to almost 1,000 heart attacks, asthma attacks, cases of chronic bronchitis, hospital admissions, emergency room visits, and 37 early deaths. There are direct costs associated with these health impacts and we are talking about a devastating reduction in quality of life. We can do better and we deserve better. LCRA and City of Austin must phase out Fayette coal plant by 2020 and completely develop our energy efficiency and renewable energy future -- particularly solar power."
The Clean Air Task Force study, Dirty Air, Dirty Power: Mortality and Health Damage Due to Air Pollution from Power Plants can be found at:
Texas Pecan Alliance representatives from Fayette and Colorado county today delivered 'Vanishing Pecan Pies' baked by Austin residents calling themselves the Pecan Posse to the Mayor and Austin City Council Members, Cheryl Mele, Chief Operating Officer of Austin Energy, the City Manager's office, and to the LCRA. They explained that the pies symbolized "the growing awareness in Austin about Fayette coal plant pollution and growing support for clean air and sustainable conditions for local food."
Last week, hundreds of students and community members from Corpus Christi, Texas, disappointed with the carelessness of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality's permitting policy, began appealing directly to the Environmental Protection Agency's enforcement offices.
The proposed petroleum coke plant, the Las Brisas Energy Center, was proposed in 2008 and is currently undergoing the contested case hearing process to obtain a permit. The hearing, conducted by the State Office of Administrative Hearings, will result in a non-enforceable recommendation made by the Administrative Law Judges to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The hearing is set for late October.
"We decided that we can't wait while the TCEQ issues a questionable flex permit to the Las Brisas Energy Center. So we decided to gather petitions at our university calling on the EPA to intervene and sent them directly to Gina McCarthy, the head of enforcement at the EPA and assistant to Administrator Lisa Jackson" states Daniel Lucio, student at Texas A & M, Corpus Christi.
"We have a real problem with the TCEQ's permitting process," says Jim Klein, chair of Corpus Christi's Clean Economy Coalition, "Chairman Bryan Shaw and Commissioner Buddy Garcia have stated that a case by case MACT analysis is not needed for this plant, and we know that this flex permitting isn't complying with the federal Clean Air Act."
Hal Suter, of the local Sierra Club, explained, "Over a hundred of us took action and called, emailed, or signed a petition that went directly Gina McCarthy's office last week, because we can't wait while this dirty petroleum coke plant, Las Brisas, moves forward."
There's a very thorough new study funded by the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation – yes, old oil and gas money – by former Deputy Comptroller of Public Accounts Billy C. Hamilton, that says with a modest commitment to renewable energy, Texas could add 22,900 new jobs a year through 2020.
We are talking 220,000 jobs, $280 million per year in local and state taxes and a growth in the Texas GSP of $2.7 billion - per year.
The study, an exhaustive 120 pages reviewing Texas's electricity market and variouspolicies, found that if Texas were to increase its Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard by some 13,000 MWs of clean power, including a required solar commitment of 3,500 MWs, some 20 percent of Texas's electricity would be either wind, solar, or biomass, even as coal plants went from some 19% to some 16% in electricity.
That's right, folks.
The study assumes no carbon tax or cap and trade legislation takes place, but just making a commitment to clean energy would help transition us away from dirty coal toward clean energy.
The study also discusses other policies beyond the expansion of the RPS that could help –including tax incentives, a true net-metering policy – where homeowners are actually paid a fair value for any electricity they generate from solar panels– and making sure that Homeowners Associations stop outlawing solar panels.
Hamilton is going around from Texas city to Texas city to join up with leaders like State Senator Kirk Watson.
Join the conversation. Texas leads the nation in wind development – already over 10,000 MWs installed -- we can do the same in solar.
By Cyrus Reed, of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club. Follow us at @texassierraclub
We know about the Bad Health Brigade, and that coal ash contains toxic amounts of them, but there's an insidious friend of theirs that just isn't getting any attention at all.
Burning coal can produce Radon (it's actually TENORM, technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials), Polonium 210 and Lead 210- and it can be emitted as solid radioactive material, as gases, and as both.
For example, Radon gas emissions at the proposed NRG coal-fired power plant result from its presence in the coal, which means that alarming quantities of radon gas will be released into the air during large-scale coal combustion.
Radon gas emissions at the proposed Oak Grove plant result from the presence of radon in the coal, and significant quantities are released into the environment. The highest potential concentrations of radiation would be in the Robertson County area closest to the oak grove plant.
However, there is NO information about the average concentrations of radon and its radioactive relatives in the coal in the permit application, the TCEQ's technical review, or the draft permit for the Sandy Creek plant.
The Law:
1) TCEQ's Regulatory Definition of "Air Contaminant" in state law includes "radioactive material".
2) Radon is a radionuclide classified as hazardous air pollutant/HAP under Title III of the Clean Air Act.
Why isn't the TCEQ regulating radon exposure to radon and its carcinogenic byproducts? Well, they don't regulate much.
Has any radiation been detected near coal plants? In Texas!?
Yes.
The U.S. Geological survey conducted extensive flyovers of the US looking for radiation hotspots. Every coal-fired power plant had two radiation hotspots. One for the coal and one for the coal ash piles.
The highest concentrations would be in the Robertson County area closest to the Oak Grove Plant. Radon gas emissions at the proposed Oak Grove coal-fired power plant results from its presence in the coal, and significant quantities of radon gas are released into the air during large-scale coal combustion.
Get involved, fight coal ash at www.cleanuptexasnow.org
The EPA has proposed two rules to regulate toxic coal ash, and they're going to hold only five hearings across the country to hear from citizens. One of those hearings is going to be in Dallas, Texas, on September 8th, so we are putting all hands on deck to make sure that there's a powerful voice demanding a strong coal ash rule.
Not sure what coal ash is? It's all the waste produced when burning coal (you can imagine how toxic it is). It may look like dirt, but it tastes like a Superfund site: monitoring data at 31 coal ash sites found arsenic, lead, selenium, cadmium, thallium antimony, mercury, boron, sulfate, and more exceeding drinking water standards in groundwater at 26 of the sites.
Right now, coal companies are free to put it wherever they like, usually in ponds, landfills, and uncovered earthen pits.
The EPA has proposed a strong option, which would classify coal ash as hazardous waste, and under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Subtitle C, the EPA would have the power to federally enforce the following requirements: getting a permit for a disposal site, require effective clean-up in the case of a leak, groundwater monitoring, and storage sites. The soft option means continuing to classify coal ash as solid waste, which means that the regulation would be state-to state and enforcement would depend on the oh-so-easy citizen lawsuits. If you remember Pirates of the Caribbean, the soft option is kind of like Pirate Code. It's more of a guidelines, really, which means Elizabeth Turner is still going to be a prisoner on the Black Pearl and coal companies are still going to dump coal ash wherever they like.
Not sure how destructive this can be? See what happens when 1 billion gallons of coal ash sludge destroy a Tennessee community.
This was an obvious destructive catastrophe, but coal is a silent killer too. Living near a coal ash site is like smoking twenty, yes, that's right, TWENTY packs of cigarettes a day. Except if you live near a coal ash site, you can't just quit. You have to leave your home.
In Texas alone, the Brandy Branch Coal ash dump, the Southwestern Electric Power Co. coal ash dump, and the Texas Utilities Electric Martin Lake Reservoir have leaked elevated levels of selenium and toxic metals. There are no leachate collection systems in Texas, and there is no groundwater monitoring. It's worse than using a plastic bag for your goldfish- it's definitely going to leak.
But it's not just about coal ash. This is about making sure that polluters are responsible for external costs. This is about making sure that when there is environmental impact, the burden of responsibility falls on those who are responsible for the impact, not for those who suffer the collateral damage.
(Great live coverage from a big event in Houston. Broad coalition of Texans working for clean air and water! - promoted by Katherine Haenschen)
Hey all, We're live at the Discovery Green in Houston, moments from kicking off the Great Texas Clean Up Festival, what is being touted as the largest environmental event in Houston in decades. That's right, decades!
We'll be updating between acts and speakers, bringing you all the action and all the fun.
Juan Parras of Tejas (tejasbarrios.org) is calling the event a success before it even starts, simply because "it's brought a lot of people from a lot of different backgrounds together to fight for environmental justice."
The speakers' lineup is pretty long and pretty deep- expect some food for thought from Houston Director of Sustainability Laura Spanjian and Representative Ana Hernandez, representing a large portion of the Houston area. We'll give you their comments when they happen!
From the unverified rumor-mill: there are Tea Party protesters nearby.
From the verified rumor-mill: there's a woman working for BP public relations going around with a flip cam asking people if the entire oil industry should be penalized for the spill. Spin much? We're onto you, sister.
Note: It's currently 105 degrees, but we've still got a turnout from people concerned with cleaning up Texas and having a good time (at the same time, of course). We'll be right back!
File under "hugely important issue to everyday Texans that most of us know nothing about." Three prominent pro-citizen activists have been working hard to draw attention to a proposed rule change by the Supreme Court of Texas that would actually increase the ability of anti-consumer special interest groups to influence legislation and regulation here in Texas. SCOTX has proposed allowing lobbyists and special-interest groups to meet privately with state agencies before companies file applications for permits. In other words, Big Money will be able to enter through the back door and make sure they get their approval before the public even knows what's going on.
This comes at a time when lax regulation and enforcement have led to an unprecedented oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, when TCEQ has all-but-refused to follow EPA standards, and when state environmental agencies are refusing court orders to provide lawmakers with documents about the very back-door deals the SCOTX is trying to make fair game.
Three of the state's leading authorities on environmental and energy issues--Ken Kramer, director of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, Jim Marston, founding director of the Texas office of Environmental Defense Fund, and Tom "Smitty" Smith, Director of Public Citizen's Texas office--are calling attention to this outrage in the hopes of educating Texas citizens about this potential travesty.
This change will have terrible consequences for the citizens of Texas who care about regulation and enforcement, as special interests will be given even more control over the process. By the time the public finds out about regulatory hearings and opportunities to provide input, the decisions will have already been made behind closed doors. We the people don't even have a chance to weigh in. SCOTX is trying to take public accountability and transparency and replace it with back-room deals that take place behind the scenes, outside of public view.
The following public statement on this issue, written by Marston, Smith, and Kramer was sent to BOR by folks involved in this process, emphasis mine:
Regular Texans Getting Written Out of the Process by Back Room Rule Changes
As reported by Mary Alice Robbins in this week's Texas Lawyer magazine, the Texas Supreme Court has proposed a rule change that would undo a Professional Ethics Committee opinion that restricted secret contacts by lawyers with state agency decision-makers. Specifically, the court's current proposal would allow lawyers for polluters and other industry representatives to have unrestricted access to key agency personnel at any time before the actual filing of an application with the agency.
The public participation process in Texas is already flawed - recently the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a rule to disapprove of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality's (TCEQ) public participation program,
saying it "provides inadequate opportunities for the public to review permit decision in Texas, as compared with public participation opportunities provided by other states." We cannot afford to take another step backward.
In Opinion No. 587, the court's own ethics committee had ruled that the current ethics rules for lawyers prohibit such "ex parte" communications with agency decision-makers. The court's proposed rule change would completely reverse
that ethics ruling.
The potential adverse impacts on the public and consumers are immense. Lawyers for polluters, electric companies, insurers, and other corporate interests would have free access to those agency deciders to help "grease the skids" - before the public even knows what's coming.
It's pretty easy to win a completely one-sided argument. If the public doesn't know what a lawyer/lobbyist is getting ready to file, and doesn't know about the pre-filing secret meetings and contacts, the process can be just that one-sided and unfair.
We need more ethics for lawyers, not less, and more protection of the Gulf of Mexico and Texas air and water, not less.
For too long the Texas Supreme Court rule-making process has operated in obscurity. The rules have been written by lawyers, for lawyers and for their powerful clients. Court members and hand-picked lawyers have been writing these proposals over the past seven years-the public has not been invited to participate.
This year, other rule proposals also threaten public interests. For example, Houston Chronicle columnist Rick Casey recently (4/29/10 "Coddled Lawyers Complain") described how another rule change proposed by the Texas Supreme Court would make it easier for Texas lawyers to charge unreasonable fees and unreasonable expenses. (By contrast, the corresponding American Bar Association model rule flatly prohibits both unreasonable fees and unreasonable expenses.) Casey also explained how the court recently refused to adopt a rule recommended by its own committee to require a lawyer to tell a client if the lawyer is uninsured.
The point is that we Texans need to pay attention to what the Texas Supreme Court is doing with these rule changes. The rules can affect us just as much as the court's written opinions. Unless the Texas Supreme Court changes its mind, these anti-public/anti-ethics rule changes are likely to go into effect at the end of the year. (Three members of the court are up for election in November.) Between now and then, Texans should let the court know that it is headed in the wrong direction. The court should protect the public from back room deals and lobbyist influence, not open the doors of our state agencies for more of those abuses.
It should come as no surprise that the SCOTX is entirely populated with Republicans. They've shown a horridly anti-consumer, anti-citizen bias over the past years, routinely overturning decisions in order to bolster special interests. In Texas these days, it seems like you need deep pockets and special friends to get a fair shake these days, even on our supposedly-impartial statewide civil court.
Just getting good folks elected to office isn't always enough. We need to hold our state agencies accountable, and make sure that they're focused on doing their jobs and serving all of the people of Texas, not just those with the deepest pockets.
