From Jim Kleissler, Chair, Public Lands Committee, Allegheny Group.

The Allegheny National Forest is under a complete assault from the oil and gas industry. Over the last four years, the US Forest Service approved 3,726 new oil and gas wells. In fiscal year 2009 (which ended June 30th),  ~773 new oil and gas wells were approved for drilling.  Now, the oil industry has proposed 2,431 new oil and gas wells that will affect Tracy Ridge National Recreation Area, Chestnut Ridge Wilderness Study Area, Rimrock scenic overlook, occupied Northern Goshawk habitat, and many other important areas.

Earlier this spring, the Sierra Club and others won a major victory for the conservation of Allegheny National Forest. After 25 years of ignoring their responsibility to conduct environmental reviews of planned oil and gas drilling within the forest, the US Forest Service is now required to conduct environmental assessments and take public comment on those documents.

The seeds of change in Allegheny National Forest management have been planted, but we now need organizers and volunteers to help these seedlings bloom into vital protections for Pennsylvania’s only national forest.

Here are two immediate actions that you can take:

1. PARTICIPATE IN A CONFERENCE CALL:  Join the US Forest Service’s planned conference call for the public on the proposed 2,431 oil and gas wells (which are now being considered as part of the “Transition Oil and Gas” Environmental Impact Statement).

   Date: Tuesday, July 7, 2009
   Time: 12:00 Noon
   Call-in Number: 1-877-939-0384,  Passcode: 9408961#

   • TALKING POINT #1: The Forest Service must take immediate steps to protect areas of special concern through targeted purchase of mineral rights and development of standards and guidelines to ensure surface, water and air resources are protected.
   • TALKING POINT #2:  The Forest Service must hold more meetings in urban areas such as Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Buffalo so there is a broader diversity of viewpoints heard.
   • TALKING POINT#3:  The Forest Service must disclose well and road locations for proposed drilling so the public can provide substantive and informed comments to the Forest Service.
2. HELP LAUNCH AN ALLEGHENY NF CAMPAIGN: Join us at the Sierra Club Field Office in Pittsburgh for a discussion and workshop on the Allegheny NF.

   Date: Thursday, July 16, 2009
   Time: 6:30pm
   Where:  Sierra Club Office, 425 N. Craig St., Suite 202, Pittsburgh PA 15213

   A 30 minute workshop on Allegheny National Forest issues will be followed by planning for forest outings, efforts to mobilize members and the public over forest issues, and developing a campaign to conserve the Allegheny NF in the face of this oil and gas drilling onslaught.

   For more information, contact Jim Kliessler at jim at palands dot org or by calling 412-559-1364.

photo from the FirstEnergy plant fact sheet

The borough of Shippingport, in Beaver County down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh, was the site of the world’s first commercial nuclear power plant. It was decommissioned in 1982. But the Bruce Mansfield coal-fired power plant is still standing in Shippingport, producing 2,640 MW of electricity by burning seven million tons of coal annually.

After all that coal has been burned, the ash has to go somewhere. That somewhere is the impoundment created by damming the Little Blue Run in nearby Greene Township. According to a spokesman for the power company, EnergyFirst, “The dam contains 9 million cubic yards of fill material. It is 400 feet high, 1,300 feet thick at the base and 2,200 feet across at the crest of the dam”.

The federal EPA has now placed the Little Blue Run impoundment on a list of 44 “high hazard potential” impoundments containing “coal combustion residuals”– it is the only Pennsylvania entry.

“The presence of liquid coal ash impoundments near our homes, schools and business could pose a serious risk to life and property in the event of an impoundment rupture,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “By compiling a list of these facilities, EPA will be better able to identify and reduce potential risks by working with states and local emergency responders.”

The Bruce Mansfield plant has a history of accidents and legal battles. This recent move by the EPA may encourage a new wave of local action.

On July 1, the Board of Health of Allegheny County showed a complete lack of leadership on improving air quality. Despite resolutions from McKees Rocks Borough and Stowe Township, along with strong testimony from environmental groups and citizens, the Board voted to table an updating of the 21-year old Air Toxics Guidelines (ATG).

Instead of acting now, the Board decided to wait 1-2 years to see what guidelines the state DEP develops before the County Health Board sets its own ATG. Such action is consistent with a general philosophy that raising air pollution standards may discourage new industry to settle in this area. Meantime, the residents in the County suffer, especially around Neville Island and in the Mon Valley.

Two well-produced and informative audio reports on coal-related issues were broadcast on “Living on Earth” on NPR, June 28, 2009. (The first report is by Ann Murray of The Allegheny Front, WYEP, in Pittsburgh.)

Carbon Capture:

A coal-fired power plant in West Virginia is the site of the first carbon capture and storage project at an existing U.S. plant. The technology is expensive and untested, but some say if it can be economically developed, it’s a necessary part of the energy mix in the fight against climate change.

And a related report on the same day:

Calculating Coal’s Cost:

Coal supporters like to point to the jobs and economic activity that coal mining brings to communities. But a new study argues the human costs of coal mining in Appalachia far outweighs its benefits. Michael Hendryx, a researcher at West Virginia University, talks with host Steve Curwood about coal’s toll and policy options that would encourage richer, healthier communities in coal country.

Environmentally Responsible Recycling of Electronic Waste:
The Allegheny County Health Department and the Pennsylvania Resources Council are sponsoring a drop-off collection event for electronic waste and other hard-to-recycle items.

When: 10 a.m. to 2 pm, Saturday, July 18
Where: Steel City Harley Davidson, 1375 Washington Road, Washington, PA 15301 (Route 19 and Racetrack Road)

No fees will be charged for cell phones, ink and toner cartridges, compact fluorescent light bulbs, alkaline batteries, crutches, canes and walkers.

The following items will be accepted for the following nominal fees:

• Tire with no rim, $2
• TV 19” and under, $10
• TV 20”-29”, $20
• TV 30”-39”, $25
• TV 40” or greater or console TV, $35
• CPU, laptop or server, $5
• monitor, $10
• combination personal computer/monitor/keyboard, $15
• printer/scanner/fax/small ups, $5
• VHS/DVD/phone/router, $2

Health officials assure that the electronic waste will be refurbished or recycled in a way that protects public health and the environment from exposure to toxic chemicals.

For more information or to volunteer for the collection event, please call the Pennsylvania Resources Council at 412-488-7490, ext. 236.

For those of us who wonder about the ‘carbon footprint’ as we sip our Shiraz or Merlot from parts domestic and foreign, a recent article by Christine MacDonald in E, the Environmental Magazine may be of interest.

MacDonald writes in part:

Calculating all environmental savings, however, is not as straightforward. Distributors brandish scientific studies showing their boxed wines have a much lower carbon footprint than their bottled cousins. But it all depends on the details.

(more…)

What the House achieved on June 26 is truly remarkable. By passing the Clean Energy bill (H.R. 2454) Congress recognized, for the very first time, that climate change is real, man-made, and can be addressed with the creation of a whole new economy. We thank all who contacted their Representatives to help make this happen.

The bill is not perfect, and will be criticized by some as being inadequate to meet the standards that scientists say are needed. But the Democratic leadership expertly judged how far they could go with compromises to just, and only just, gain passage of the bill. The final vote was 219 to 212, a margin of a mere SEVEN votes.
(more…)

In the June 22 issue of the New Yorker magazine, environmental journalist Elizabeth Kolbert wrote an extensive profile of NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen. Perhaps more than anyone else, Hansen has understood the climate changes that will overcome our planet, unless we do something about it very soon.

A day later on June 23, Hansen was arrested in West Virginia in a civil disobedience action against mountain top removal. He was among more than 30 people, including actress Daryl Hannah, arrested for obstructing officers and impeding traffic outside Massey Energy’s Goals Coal preparation plant in Raleigh County, Southern West Virginia.

In Kolbert’s article, she reported on going with Hansen a few months ago to a protest against the Capitol Power Plant on the Hill in DC. Would that more Members of Congress had the vision and courage of this sixty-eight year old NASA scientist. Then again, he’s not running for another term.

Carbon sequestration is in the news, but if not done right, it could lead to more greenhouse gases. HB 80 is being considered in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. Although the bill seeks increases in alternative energy sources, its benefits are outweighed by provisions establishing a flawed carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) network.

While the Sierra Club supports efforts to control greenhouse gas emissions, we have pointed out the flaws in HB 80 that need to be fixed.

• HB 80 gives alternative energy credits to new coal powered combustion plants that will install technology to capture carbon dioxide, even if they do not actually capture and store the carbon dioxide underground. Without capture and storage, the end result will be more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, not less.
• The rush to build a CCS facility by 2015 does not provide sufficient time to ensure a safe storage facility. Carbon dioxide would be pumped underground at extremely high pressures, and it has the potential to leak back into the atmosphere or to pollute ground water through cracks in the geology.
• HB 80 gives the coal-plant owner immunity from any liability resulting from leaks of carbon dioxide from the underground storage site. In the end, taxpayers will have to assume this liability.

Please E-mail your State Representative and urge them to vote “NO” on HB 80.

On June 24, the Environmental Protection Agency released its latest assessment of the risk of cancer posed to communities by air pollution.

The EPA finds that communities in the Mon Valley are at particular risk. Using 2002 data, the calculated cancer risk for Clairton residents was 762 in 1 million, and for Glassport residents it was 700 in 1 million. Those numbers can be compared to a national average of 36 in 1 million.

The only cities ahead of Clairton and Glassport were Los Angeles at 1,200 in 1 million and Madison County, Ill, at 1,000 in 1 million.
(more…)

Sometimes ‘Calls for Action’ fall into a black void after the initial event. To avoid that destiny, here are the outcomes of a couple of recent events:

Proposed Coal Mine by Ohiopyle SP: At a crowded June 11 meeting of the Fayette County Planning Commission it was attorneys who presented the cases for the coal company and for the environmentalists. Following release of the transcript, the two attorneys will have 30 days to produce briefs summarizing their arguments for the Zoning Board. The Board will then have 45 days to render a decision.

For more information, contact Krissy Kasserman, the Youghiogheny Riverkeeper, at yrk at mtwatershed dot com or call (724) 455-4200.

Development on Pittsburgh’s North Shore: At the request of the developers of the proposed hotel and amphitheater on the North Shore, Continental Realty, the City Planning Commission postponed the June 23 second public hearing on the matter. In the meantime, Northside United is hosting a bus tour of the neighborhood for elected leaders and community leaders. (Read local blogger Bram Reichbaum’s impressions of the bus tour.) The Northsiders want the city to understand the impact of the proposed development on local residents. They also want to show how local communities are working to improve their neighborhoods in this important part of the city.

Beech Hollow Power Plant: Action for Change Today (ACT) hosted a remarkably successful information session on the Beech Hollow Project. Over 100 concerned residents turned out to hear information on the proposed coal-waste power plant in Robinson Township. Presentations in opposition to the project were made by Lisa Graves-Marcucci (Environmental Integrity Project), Drew Michanowicz (Center for Healthy Environments & Communities) and Rachel Martin (Sierra Club). Developer Robinson Power Company, LLC failed to send a representative.

A public hearing on the Robinson Power Company’s application for a DEP permit to re-mine the waste coal at the Champion gob site is expected sometime in the next eight weeks. For more information contact Randy at randy dot francisco at sierraclub dot org.

Here in SW Pennsylvania a large portion of our electricity is produced with coal removed from mountain tops.  But coal also comes from closer to home, dug from below the surface by longwall mining.

An eight minute video illustrating the damage wrought to residences and the environment by longwall mining has been produced by the Center for Public Integrity.

The video suggests that there are two villains here, the coal industry as led by Consol Energy, and the state’s Dept. of Environmental Protection.

All across our region, companies are drilling for the natural gas stored in the Marcellus Shale deposits on farmland, on State Forest land, and even on golf courses. However, there is an environmental hazard to this extraction bonanza that needs to be fixed, and that hazard is the possible contamination of drinking water.

To get the gas out of the deeply buried shale, the operators use a process known as ‘fracking’, whereby fluids are injected at tremendous pressure in order to crack open the shale and allow the gas to flow more freely. Studies show that, while some of the injected fluids are returned to the surface, some remain underground and may seep into drinking water sources.

The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) of 1974 is designed to ensure the quality of our drinking water, but the industry-backed Energy Policy Act of 2005 exempts hydraulic fracturing from the SDWA.

Last Tuesday, June 9,  Reps. DeGette (D-CO), Hinchey, (D-NY), and Polis (D-CO) introduced H.R. 2766 “to repeal the exemption for hydraulic fracturing in the Safe Drinking Water Act, and for other purposes”.

H.R. 2766 will be first considered by the Energy and Commerce Committee, on Reps. Mike Doyle and Tim Murphy, and no doubt they have already been lobbied by the oil and gas industry.

ACTION:  Please contact your Representative now and urge them to vote for H.R. 2766 and repeal the exemption of hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act.

An updated list of Farmers Markets with dates and times of operation is available at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette website.  Included is an interactive map for market locations.

If you know of a market that is not on the list or map, please contact Bob Batz Jr. at 412-263-1930 or bbatz at post-gazette dot com.