Tomorrow (Tuesday, July 1st) at 10 pm, PBS will broadcast "Election Day," a film by Katy Chevigny that combines 11 stories - shot simultaneously on November 2, 2004 (Election Day) from dawn until long past midnight.

A segment of the documentary highlights felon disenfranchisement with formerly incarcerated New York City resident Leon Batts who just regained his right to vote. Preparing to cast his first ballot, Batts sees his vote as one representing all individuals denied the right because of a felony conviction. But Batts finds casting a vote more problematic than he anticipated. Click here to view trailer

This weekend, the Central Kentucky Chapter members registered voters downtown at both the Lexington Pride Festival and the Diversity Festival.  Members participating included Jenn Myatt, Joe Gallenstein, Danny Cotton, Caitlin Powell, and Doug Rigsby.

Members also circulated postcards to David Williams encouraging him to support restoration of voting rights for former felons, and had several good conversations with people who had lost their voting rights. 

Our friends at Lexington Fairness were kind enough to provide some space for our table and for our volunteers to take some rest in the shade and members said they really enjoyed working with them in a show of solidarity across organizational lines. 

Mining hurts Kentuckians' quality of life

In Pike County, Clintwood Elkhorn Mining has self-reported to the Army Corps of Engineers that it had mined through two streams and constructed two sediment ponds without having a permit. As a result, water on Millers Creek above Fishtrap Lake, the source of drinking water for Pikeville and much of Pike County, was affected.

Despite this, Bill Caylor, president of the Kentucky Coal Association, says he doubts there is any validity to Kentuckians for the Commonwealth's and Sierra Club's allegations.

I invite Caylor and the media to visit the site with members of the community, who won't drink their home water, won't eat fish they catch in Fishtrap Lake and have been and are being affected by the destructive and desperate act of mountaintop removal mining.

Caylor can sit in his office in Lexington and continue to close his mind, but the people who live with this every day would like to open his eyes and the eyes of people who live downstream and want to protect their drinking water.

John Cleveland

Sierra Club organizer

Blackey

Big Coal wins again

I guess coal companies have won again. In this year's legislative session, the "stream saver" bill was voted down. Actions like this keep showing coal companies they are above the law.

I guess they can keep destroying the mountains, murdering animals and poisoning our streams with no law to stop them and no government agency to police them.

Do you think Kentucky Coal Association President Bill Caylor will ever admit what mountaintop-removal mining really does to the environment? According to him, it is the best thing for the mountains.

Our politicians are afraid to vote against the coal industry because they fear angering too many of their voters and not getting re-elected, even though they know what they are doing is wrong and should be against the law.

Larry Wilder

Pineville

Central Kentucky KFTC Members Sarah Harcourt, Sally Evans, and Doug Rigsby appeared on the front page of Ark - the publication of the National Organizer's Alliance this month, along with a story about voter empowerment campaigns in Kentucky spearheaded by KFTC and Kentucky Jobs With Justice.

More than 80 people turned out for a lively potluck dinner and celebration of local youth, KFTC members and elected officials who demonstrated leadership and courage in the 2008 General Assembly.

"There is no denying that many of the outcomes of the session were a bitter disappointment," stated Teri Blanton, who emceed the event."But anyone who has ever worked for something worthwhile knows that success doesn’t happen overnight. Along the way it is important for us to celebrate each other and say thank you."

The chapter presented three legislators from Madison County with certificates of appreciation for their leadership and courage. Rep. Harry Moberly, Rep. Lonnie Napier and Rep. Don Pasley all supported many of KFTC's priority bills.

"As members of the Appropriations and Revenue Committee, they were in the hot seat," explained Melissa Fry-Konty as she presented a certificate to Rep. Lonnie Napier. "Legislators on that committee were the first to cast votes on many of the most difficult and important issues facing the commonwealth, including tax reform, the state budget, the stream saver bill, and a major initiative on renewable energy and energy efficiency."

Awards were also given to the many young people from Madison County who traveled with KFTC to Frankfort in 2008, including the entire fourth grade class of Berea Community Elementary School. Fourth grade teacher Karen Mattingly accepted a certificate on behalf of those students.

"I am proud to be part of this fine organization and group of people," declared member Gail Waldeck as she presented awards to four members of the local chapter who testified before legislative committees.

Music during the event was provided by a terrific local band called Mud Pi. Dozens of volunteers helped with the set-up and clean-up of the event. Thanks to everyone who turned out and pitched in!

We received a note today from John Cleveland, a long-time KFTC member who lives in Letcher County. His story is yet another example of how state budget cuts are making it impossible for public agencies to fulfill their mission of protecting public health and the environment.

John writes that oil and gas inspectors have apparently been told to ignore aspects of the law they are charged to enforce. This is not surprising, since the budget proposed by Governor Steve Beshear and passed by the General Assembly slashed the budget for the Kentucky Department of Natural Resources by 21%! Here's John's letter:

I had a State Oil and Gas (O/G) inspector show up at my house today. He told me that the State is not enforcing state law that requires an oil/gas company to register all tanks that collect oil or brine that are located at gas wells. He told me that he was inspecting an area, when he discovered a new tank and well that had not been there in the past. He couldn't find any info in his records of this tank, so he took a gps point for the site, and checked on it when he got back to his office. He was unable to find info there either. He asked his supervisor about this, and his supervisor told him that since the state budget cutbacks over the last few years, that they weren't registering these tanks any more, because they didn't have the staff to do the paperwork or the inspections.

He told me that the unregistered tanks he's aware of are mostly owned by Chesapeake and Equitable Gas companies. State law requires oil/gas companies to register all tanks that hold brine or oil. That doesn't mean that they don't have to do it if they don't feel like it, the law states SHALL register! So obviously some of the oil/gas companies are no longer registering storage tanks and the state is not assuring that they do.

What if there is a leak, or some vandals shoot holes in one of these tanks. How long might it be before someone happens to come by and see toxic brine water or oil running in the stream? There has been a massive number of new wells in the last two years in eastern Kentucky, so this is a disaster that will happen, it's just a matter of when.

Wouldn't complying with the law and assuring an adequate number of inspectors, be the right thing to do? When does too much cutting the budget start to endanger the water, fish, wildlife or even human life? It appears to me that we have reached that point or gone past it. I call on Governor Beshear to look at the long-term costs of cutting enforcement in oil, gas and mining, and fix this problem.

The following are news articles and blog posts about coal, mountaintop removal mining and valley fills, and energy from a regional, national and global perspective.

The Price of Central Appalachian Coal:

•  According to Reuters, central Appalachian coal was selling for $128 a short ton on the spot markets on June 11th. Which means metallurgic, the coal that is used to make steel, is probably selling for close to $300 a short ton.

Articles about Coal:

•  Here is a CNN story with the latest news about the search for the remaining 12 miners still missing after a methane gas explosion in a Ukrainian coal mine.

• Opposition to building new coal fired power plants continues to grow all across the US. Here is a press release from a coalition of groups calling on the Governor of New York to to Ditch plans for a new coal fired power plant in Jamestown New York. I still believe God's method of carbon sequestration is the best. Help save a planet. Coal, leave it in the ground.

• Many of you may have heard about film maker Morgan Spurlock's newest episode of his hit TV show 30 day where he becomes a deep miner for 30 days. You can watch the hour long episode here. It's a very good program to humanizes the dangerous and difficult work being done daily by deep-miners in central Appalachia.

• The program reveals the pride that deep-miners have in their work and the work of their family members and friends. But Morgan Spurlock also has conversations with miners who admit that they do not want to see their children go into the mines.  And, in conversations with other miners, they raise concerns about what the long-term damage to the region's environment will be from mining. The program also touches on the destruction being done to the mountains of central Appalachia by mountaintop removal mining. What most people who are not familiar with deep mining will find shocking about this program are the recurring conversations Morgan Spurlock has with his fellow miners about Black Lung. It will be a shock for most people to realize that through their occupation deep miners are slowly committing suicide from Black Lung because of their exposure to coal dust. I came away from the program with a sense of awe of miners who are willing to perform such a dangerous job day-in and day-out, but also a sense of anger at the industry and the county for not making this job safer and for not moving away from our reliance on coal so nobody's children will have to go into the mines. We need to invest in the people of Appalachia so there are more than two choices for people in this region: to either get an education and have to move away to find work or to stay and work in the mines. We can’t continue to live on the backs of their sacrifices.

• Here is an interesting editorial from the Huntington Herald Dispatch about the need for the country to figure out how we are going to proceed with developing coal fired power plants with carbon capture and sequestration technology. Unfortunately the editorial fails to address the real question, does it make sense for tax payers to throw billions of dollars into developing the process? Nobody disputes that for right now we will continue to use coal, but for the future we need to use our hard earned dollars to invest in safe and clean energy such as solar and wind. We may always need some base load energy to come from coal or natural gas but our dependence on these fossil fuel needs to decrease to around 5 to 10 percent of our electricity production. only then will we have the political will to make our mines safe and to fully enforce all mining regulations.

• With companies such as James River Coal making money hand over fist they they will be trying to mine as much coal as possible as quickly as possible in order to sell it while the price is so high. According to this article in in Forbes, James River Coals stocks have risen 320% since the beginning of the year, I wonder how much of those profits are being passed on to the miners?

• Picketing miners at a Montana coal mine vote to continue their strike even though they get on $35 a day on the picket lines. You can read about it here in an article by Tom Lutey in the Billings Gazette.

• This news story shows that it's even possible for deep mines to reduce their emissions of Green House Gases. Of course if both the coal and the methane were to stay in the ground, but at least they trying. Removing the methane from a deep mine and burning is is not only better for an increasingly hot planet, it is also safer for the miners. Now that companies see they can make money on removing the methane from deep mines maybe they will really try. And according to this website, methane gas is 20 times stronger as a Green House Gas than CO2. Think for a minute about how much methane gas is released from a strip mine where they have no way of collecting the methane gas.

• Here is a great article written by Jeff Goodell, the author of the book Big Coal's Dirty Secret. The title of the piece says it all How Clean Coal Cooks Your Brain. And some of the videos at the top of the page are pretty good too. For that matter just take a while and explore the whole website www.coal-is-dirty.com, it's work a look.

"Clean coal" is not an actual invention, a physical thing – it is an advertising slogan. Like "fat-free donuts" or "interest-free loans."

• More news about coal industry stock prices rising, Business Week says stocks for Alpha Natural Resources, which operates 64 mines in central Appalachia, have tripled since December of '07 and they are likely to go much higher due to China's demand for metallurgic coal-used to make steal. Once again I wonder if the coal miners will see any of these gains in profits or if that will only go to the stockholders.

Articles about Mountaintop Removal Mining and Valley Fills:

•  This is an editorial in the News & Observer from Dr. Matt Wasson, a staff person with our ally organization Appalachian Voices. In the editorial he takes Duke Energy to task for saying one thing to get a coal power plant approved and then reversing its position to fight legislation to prevent public utilities in NC from burning coal from mining methods that blowup mountains and bury streams.

• This is an important article everyone should read. Here is further evidence that coal mine valley fills are seriously impacting the streams of central Appalachia. It's a story from Ken Ward Jr. of the Charleston Gazette about a recent study complete by the Federal EPA that finds valley fills from coal mines are eliminating mayflies in the creeks downstream of the fills. Mayflies are a key indicator species that lets scientists know if the stream is health or polluted.

While habitat degradation from mountaintop mining is what one sees on the surface, we found that chemical effects are quite pronounced and limit much of the expected biodiversity from what were once naturally rich, diverse Appalachian stream systems," [Greg] Pond said in the EPA news release.

•  And here is an article in the Appalachian New Express out of Pikeville that once again shows coal companies willingness to break the law and enforcement agencies willingness to let them do it. The Army Corps of Engineers has known about the illegal valley fills since March and so far they haven't lifted a finger . What would happen to someone if they stole a car, then called the police and told them they stole the car? Do you think the police would let them continue to drive the car around for 3 months?

• By following this link you can read about an interesting effort by business leaders in southwest Virginia to oppose Dominion's proposed coal fired power plant. The news story also talks about the efforts of the Blue-Green Alliance, an alliance between the steelworker's union and the sierra club, to propose Virginia invest in clean renewable energy rather than Dominion's dirty coal plant.

As a business leader in Virginia, an electric power consumer and concerned citizen, I strongly urge you to halt plans to build a controversial coal burning power plant in Wise County.

Articles about Energy:

• I've had a few conversations recently with people who have questions about how a cap and trade system would work for limiting CO2 and other global warming Green House Gases. Here is an article from Catalyst, the magazine of the Union of Concerned Scientists that describes how a Cap and Trade system to limit CO2 would likely work in the United States. It should be noted that KFTC at this point does not have a position supporting or opposing a Cap and Trade policy for limiting Green House Gases. Here is a link to a web site describing who the Union of Concerned Scientists is and what they do.

• It should be noted that a Cap and Trade system is not the only method being discussed to limit Global Warming Gases. Another system being heavily discussed is a CO2 Emissions Tax. Here is an article I found on the web site weathervane.rff.org that gives some well thought out reasons for why a CO2 Emissions Tax may be the best option not only for limiting Global Warming Gases but also for generating money to invest in safer and cleaner forms of energy production. The website is sponsored by a organization called Resources For the Future (RFF) and here is a link to their website describing who they are and what they do. Like the Cap and Trade policy, KFTC does not have a position supporting or opposing a CO2 Emissions Tax.

KFTC and the Sierra Club have sent notice to TECO Coal Company of their intent to sue the company for creating two large valley fills without a permit.

The letter, sent on Tuesday, accuses TECO subsidiary Clintwood Elkhorn Mining of violating the Clean Water Act by dumping its mining waste into Pike County streams and allowing it to remain there. The violation is near Fishtrap Lake.

A “Section 404” permit from the U.S. Corps of Engineers is required before a company may fill a stream. Clintwood Elkhorn has applied for this permit but it has not been granted.

“Clintwood Elkhorn's filling of the streams at issue in this letter before the Corps has considered the permit application betrays a reckless disregard for the rule of law,” the letter states.

“It's a slap in the face to the community members and to the enforcement departments,” said KFTC member Rully Urias, who lives near Fishtrap Lake. “It shows their total disregard of the laws in place to protect the environment and the people. And maybe they'll get a slap on the wrist for it."

Urias and Sierra Club organizer John Cleveland visited the site on May 22 and saw two valley fills and two ponds that were not approved on any permit. A followup conversation with Corps officials in their Sassafras, Kentucky office revealed that they were aware of this violation because Clintwood Elkhorn had self-reported it, but the agency has not acted.

“You can't do two valleys fills and say I didn't know. They knew what they were doing. It's definitely not a mistake,” said Urias. “I knew they did stuff like this, I just didn't think they'd be so bold about it. How often does it happen if they have a protocol for when it does happen?”

Learn tools to build our democracy together along with our allies at Kentucky Jobs with Justice and other organizations.

Become a “Community Captain” and help your friends and neighbors to register to vote, get them valuable information about candidates and the election, and mobilize them to vote!

Friday August 1^st and Saturday, August 2^nd in Louisville

For more information or to reserve your space, contact Dave Newton at Dave@KFTC.org or call (859) 420-8919.

UPDATE - 7/8/08

Our online signup form is now up.

Please sign up online if you want to participate in the training!

You can also learn more and see the agenda on our online calendar event listing.

The following are news articles and blog posts about coal, mountaintop removal mining and valley fills, and energy from a regional, national and global perspective.

Price of Central Appalachian Coal

According to the Federal Energy Information Administration (EIA) the current price for Central Appalachian Coal is about $108 a short ton on the spot market. Last year at this time Central Appalachian Coal was about $45 a short ton.

Articles about Coal:

• The following is an article from The Nation about future of climate change policy with either Senator McCain or Senator Obama as the next president of the United States of America.  Below is an excerpt from the article quoting James Hansen, the leading climate scientist at NASA.

We need a moratorium on the construction of traditional coal-fired power plants by 2010 and a phase-out by 2030," Hansen said in an interview. This farewell to coal "has to be global," the NASA scientist added. That means it must include China and India, which won't be easy; both countries insist that burning coal is essential to lifting their people out of poverty.

• Here is an article from the AP about a methane gas explosion in a mine in the Ukraine that has trapped 37 coal miners. According to the article "for every 1 million tons of coal brought to the surface in Ukraine, three miners lose their lives." external-link

• And here is another posted an hour ago from the AP reporting that 23 of the 37 miners have been rescued.

• Miners working at the Absaloka Mine in Montana strike because of poor wages and a hostile work environment. external-link 

Citing years of below-average pay and a hostile work environment, the mostly Crow Indian workforce of the Absaloka Coal Mine vowed Monday to strike around the clock until conditions change.

• This is a funny video that is a parody of some of the recent advertisements touting clean coal possibilities.

• Here is a good article from the New York Times about problems the coal industry is confronting trying to develop carbon sequestration technology. The article goes on to describe why carbon sequestration is not likely to be a part of the solution to Global Warming. And this is a good follow-up letter to the editor in the New York Times about the previous article on carbon sequestration written by Mary Anne Hitt, the executive director of Appalachian Voices.

• I think it is important that those of us working to protect ourselves from the abuses of the coal industry understand what is happening on the economic side of things related to coal. Below is an excerpt from a June 5th U.S. News and World Report article titled Skip Alternative Energy - Dig for Coal Stocks, written by Kathy Marquardt, found in the Your Money Section.

"That said, we think the most exciting part of the U.S. energy sector today is our nation's coal companies. According to the Energy Information Administration, the U.S. has the largest reserves of coal in the world, with a 27 percent share. Compared to other fossil fuels, coal is by far the cheapest fossil fuel in the world today.

Also, the dynamics are changing in the coal industry. Three situations have developed: First, China, which was once a big exporter of coal, has become an importer to feed its growing demand for electricity. Second, there have been major disruptions to the operations of the traditional coal exporters, with flooding in Australia and power outages in South Africa. Third, U.S. coal is more attractively priced than coal from other regions of the world. These dynamics have made for dramatic increases in the exports of U.S. coal, although traditionally, our coal was used primarily for domestic consumption. This export demand shows no signs of letting up in the future, as both India and China each plan to build more than 1,000 new coal-fired electricity plants over the next five years.

How are you investing in coal?

First, we want companies with a lot of coal reserves, and that leads us to Peabody Energy, the largest publicly traded coal company in the world. Peabody has mining operations in the U.S. and Australia, so they'll be able to meet the rising demand from both Asia and eastern Europe for coal. Second, we like companies that are well positioned to take advantage of this new demand for U.S. coal exports, and that brings us to Alpha Natural Resources, which is based in the Appalachian Mountains and is the largest coal exporter via their partial ownership of one of the nation's busiest coal ports in Virginia.

• Once again High School students are helping to lead us down a path of clean survivable energy policy and away from our dependency on dirty coal power plants. This article talks about grassroots groups in Minnesota protesting a proposed new coal fired power plant in south eastern South Dakota.

Articles about mountaintop removal mining and valley fills:

• A north Carolina State Representative and ally organizations such as Appalachian Voices are pushing a bill in the North Carolina legislature that would ban public utilities from burning coal from mines that blow up mountains and bury streams. You can read about this effort here, at the environmental news  source Gristmill.

• This editorial from the Roanoke Times shows how energy in the United States has always had a high cost, no matter how "cheap" it may appear especially when we are talking about external costs of coal mining.

• Here is a very good article about allies in West Virginia promoting a long term wind project that will supply more energy and long term economic development over a short term, highly destructive mountaintop removal mine.

• The message is spreading across the country, here is a letter to the editor in a Massachusetts news paper. And at the bottom of this page is another letter to the editor about mountaintop removal mining in a Brattleboro Vermont News paper.

Articles about Energy:

• Here is a blog post talking about a new method of creating solar powered electricity, it's called Nanosolar. The company working on developing nanosolar technology says using their method of generating solar electricity it costs about 30 cents per watts vs. about 1 dollar per watt to produce electricity from coal.

A Letter to the Editor and an article worth noting, both underscoring the irresponsibility of the current budget.  Below is a member's call for tax reform that offers access to higher ed, and an article that shows how chronic underfunding of the Cabinent of Health and Family Services has compromised our ability to protect some of the state's most vulnerable. 

Amar Shah's Letter to the Editor in yesterday's Courier-Journal.  Shah is among the U of L students building support for affordable higher education.

Taxes and tuition

"Crit Luallen's opinion piece on the exorbitant costs of higher education in Kentucky could not be any more relevant. As she notes, Kentucky is among the least educated states in the nation and desperately must catch up. Luallen reports that tuition at our four-year institutions have risen by 96 percent over the past six years, forcing a massive decrease in enrollment. These tuition increases can be attributed to, at least in part, a refusal of our state government to raise the revenue badly needed to support higher education.

Luallen's figures demonstrate that the shortchanging of public higher education in Kentucky has been an ongoing trend, but our current governor and legislature must do everything in their power to reverse it. Simply put, raising revenue means raising taxes.

In this state, the wealthiest pay a smaller proportion of their income in taxes than do those who are merely eking out a living. In the end, it is the students who pay, in the form of sky-high tuition, as universities look for ways to shore up their budgets.

As a student at the University of Louisville, I challenge the readers of this newspaper to quit harking to the fear-mongering of anti-tax rhetoric and admit that the only way to an educated Kentucky is through economic justice and tax reform. Only when the state government has the guts to raise taxes on the wealthy will our public universities secure the funding necessary to ensure that higher education is affordable for all."

AMAR SHAH
Student
University of Louisville
Louisville 40217

And here is an article in the Herald-Leader about the effects of chronically underfunding the state wards, which care for the 2500 Kentucky adults who are unable to care for themselves.  Notice the incredible caseloads pointed out (and bolded) in the excerpt below:

Luallen said in an interview that the problems are not indicative of the quality of the employees hired by the state to handle guardianship cases.

      'These are committed, caring workers who are doing the best they can.' The problem, she said, is that there are too few of them.

A national study issued in 2005 recommended a ratio of one worker per 20 wards.  As of last year, Kentucky averaged one case manager for each 58 wards, the audit found. Since then, caseloads have increased to an average of one worker per 61 wards.

All this, and the Senate President isn't convinced that anyone is being cut to the bone.  These pieces, along with all the other calls for strengthening our investments our commonwealth, are cases for more inclusive, more participatory government, with elected officials who truly represent Kentuckians.  What are your thoughts?