General Coal Issues

Urge Gov. Corbett to support clean energy policies that yield quality jobs.

Citing the higher costs of coal, overcapacity, the inefficiency of 60-year-old facilities, and the need to harmful emissions, GenOn Energy Inc. announced on Leap Day that eight power plants will be closed by 2015. Welcoming this move, which will reduce mountain top mining, reduce emission of toxins like mercury, and lessen the problem of treating harmful coal ash, the Sierra Club called for a shift to renewable energy sources.

To be closed in June 2012 are the Elrama plant on the shores of the Mon River in northern Washington County, followed in April 2015 by the Shawville plant in Clearfield County and the Newcastle plant in Lawrence County. Three other plants are in the eastern part of the state, two in Ohio, and one in New Jersey. (more…)

Little Blue Run. Photo courtesy of CACA

A number of organizations, including the Sierra Club, announced on January 18 their intent to sue the EPA regarding the agency’s two-year-old delay in issuing the first-ever protections from toxic coal ash pollution. New rules could affect the fight against the Little Blue Run coal-ash disposal site at the Bruce Mansfield plant in Beaver County. (more…)

On February 13 Sierra Club and Earthjustice released a Notice of Intent to Sue the Homer City Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant in Indiana County, on the grounds that the Homer City plant has violated the Clean Air Act. The Sierra Club also released new air pollution modeling which showed that the coal-fired power plant’s current permit allows it to release pollution in excess of the limits the Environmental Protection Agency sets to protect human health. (more…)

Beech Hollow citizens’ meeting, Mt. Lebanon, August 2009. Photo: R. Francisco

One of the longest power plant campaigns in Western Pennsylvania appears to have ended in a victory for the local citizens. Being of interest to the Sierra Club’s ‘Beyond Coal Campaign’ on these pages since 2008, the issue is the building in Robinson Twp. (Washington County) of a power plant fueled by waste coal. The initial plan called for a single 272-megawatt plant.

The DEP denied the Robinson Power Company (RPC) an air quality permit in 2010. Through pressure by local citizen groups and with the support of the Sierra Club and the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), the township supervisors recently approved a conditional use permit for one 150-MW natural gas plant and one 150-MW waste coal plant. As part of the permit the township would require an annual fee of $250,000 along with strict adherence to 55 conditions and guidelines for fly ash and monitoring of air and water quality. The township retains the authority to revoke the permit of the conditions are not met. (more…)

In a huge win for clean air and public health, First Energy (Akron OH) announced on January 26 that the company will retire six of its dirtiest coal-fired power plants. These plants, located in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Ohio, will stop burning coal by September 1, 2012. The Pennsylvania plant is in Adrian on the banks of the Allegheny River north of Kittanning in Armstrong County. (more…)

Want to make sure that your friends are enjoying mercury-free sushi? For free, the Sierra Club has produced an acclaimed App for Androids and iPhones as ‘safe sushi’ in the App store.

On December 7 the Environmental Integrity Project issued a report on toxic emissions from coal-fired power plants around the country. The data used were taken from the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory. In 2010 Pennsylvania was the nation’s top emitter of arsenic, cobalt and lead, and second in emissions of hydrochloric acid. Whereas the installation of scrubbers, etc., has reduced the pollution from most plants, the arsenic emissions in Pennsylvania have actually increased from 15,861 pounds reported in 2001 to 17,666 pounds in 2010. Below are Pennsylvania’s top six nationally ranked toxic power plants. (more…)

Senator Casey has a good environmental record but he is now under a lot of pressure from Big Coal’s lobbyists in DC to cut EPA’s authority and funding. We need EPA to protect our communities from air and water pollution by old coal-fired plants.

5:00 pm., Wednesday, November 2
Mellon Square
Corner of William Penn Place and 6th Avenue,
Pittsburgh, PA 15222

The rally will be part of a coordinated day of action in front of all of Sen. Casey’s district offices across the state.

HELP make sure Sen. Casey hears us loud and clear.

Be part of the movement to protect the health of Pennsylvanians from corporate polluters.

Questions: Randy Francisco, randy dot francisco at sierraclub.org, 412-802-6161.

‘Occupiers’ in New York City. Photo Credit: OccupyWallStreet

The call for corporate accountability from the Occupy Wall Street protests fits very well with the Sierra Club’s strategic priority of confronting the power of coal and oil and gas companies, companies that have wrecked communities, polluted our environment, and dominated the political process. (more…)

Driving along Rte 22 in Indiana County the billowing clouds from the stacks in the north are obvious. Those stacks are at the coal-fired Homer City power plant, one of the dirtiest plants in the nation. The regional impact of the Homer City plant was highlighted in the ‘Mapping Mortality‘ series in the P-G, and in a July article on highlighted the impact on air quality in New York City. Last week a federal judge dismissed a suit brought by the EPA to hold the owners of the plant accountable for their past violations of the Clean Air Act. (more…)

Preparing to deliver inhalers to Rep. Altmire’s office. Photo by R. Francisco.

On October 12th, a group of Congressman Jason Altmire’s constituents donned breathing masks and held asthma inhalers as they gathered in front of his Natrona Heights Office. They were there to deliver petitions from over 100 constituents disappointed with his recent vote in favor of the TRAIN Act (H.R. 2041). This bill, passed by the House and now in the Senate, is designed to prevent the EPA from going forward with Mercury and Air Toxics standards for power plants and the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule to cut smog and soot pollution. (more…)

Coalition for Healthy County – Sierra Club table at Indiana County Fair. Photo: P. J.Wray

Just down the road was a Consol bill board proclaiming coal is clean and safe, there was a Haliburton fracking fluid facility, and only a few miles away was the old, polluting Homer City coal-fired power plant. That did not stop the Coalition for a Healthy County (CHC) and the Sierra Club from having a stall at the Indiana County Fair in Indiana PA during the last week of August. The following account is from Gerald Smith, a principal member of CHC. (more…)

“Battle for Blair Mountain“.

A CNN documentary to be re-aired at
8 pm on Sunday, August 21.

Watch local miners seeking work and activists marching to save Blair Mountain from destruction by the coal industry. Read Soledad O’Brien’s preview of the hour long documentary here.

For responses to the Aug. 14 showing of this documentary, see  Jeff  Biggers column at the Huffington Post.

Please watch and find out how you can help.  Contact Randy at randy dot francisco at sierraclub dot org or 412-802-6161.

To forget our past is to choose ignorance.
To choose ignorance is to invite manipulation.

Mayor Bloomberg announcing $50 million donation to coal campaign.
Photo courtesy of the National Sierra Club.

Last Wednesday an NRDC report found that Pennsylvania has some of the worst toxic air pollution from fossil-fueled power plants, finishing second to neighboring Ohio. The following day the Bloomberg Philanthropies joined the Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal Campaign” with a $50 million, four-year commitment. In his video-taped annoucement, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg explained his intent is to make our air healthy by helping to effectively retire one-third of the nation’s aging coal-powered plants by 2020. (more…)

What is one to do about all that carbon dioxide that we earthlings pump into the atmosphere every year? If you are a climate change denier then that doesn’t matter, but for the rest of us it is a huge concern. Most of the CO2 is emitted when fossil fuels are burned – about 33 billion metric tons in 2008 – of which 40 percent was from burning coal. One idea promoted by the coal industry is to capture the CO2 at power plants and store or sequester it below ground. This Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) idea is part of the ‘clean coal’ technology included in the Obama administration’s energy independence strategy. Last week CCS was dealt a severe blow when the utility American Electric Power decided to halt plans to build a $668 million CCS plant in West Virginia. The company cited possible failure to raise rates to pay for the project, along with uncertainty of Congressional action on climate change legislation.