The Cash Creek Coal Gasification Plant is one of three proposed huge coal gasification projects, which would process coal into expensive ‘synthetic gas’ planned for the Owensboro-Henderson area in western Kentucky. These plants – the Cash Creek Generating Station, Peabody NewGas, and Indiana Gasification – are financially risky and would adverse impact public health.

Monday's hearing concerns the water pollution permit that the Cash Creek plant must get from the Kentucky Division of Water. The plant would require 14 million gallons of water daily, and would discharge polluted water that contains arsenic, selenium and cyanide.

The hearing will take place from 6-9 p.m. in the Henderson County Fiscal courtroom, located on the third floor of the Henderson County Courthouse, at First and Main Streets in downtown Henderson.

Download a Sierra Club factsheet here.

Earlier today, fifteen KFTC members, friends and allies participated in the annual Fancy Farm picnic and political event in Graves County.  The major issue of the day for us was restoring voting rights to former felons who have served their debt to society. 

We passed out almost 400 stickers, thanked a few legislators for voting for the measure in the past (like Representatives Will Coursey, Mike Cherry, and Jody Richards) and talked with candidates like Trey Grayson, Daniel Mongiardo, Rand Paul, Darlene Fitzgerald Price, Jack Conway, and Gatewood Galbrath.  

Special thanks to our allies at the Catholic Conference and  People Advocating Recovery for helping to connect with people at the picnic.

   

   

The Obama administration yesterday nominated a Pennsylvania bureaucrat and coal industry ally
 as the new director of the U.S. Office of Surface Mining (OSM).

The White House called Joseph Pizarchik "a pragmatic innovator with 17 years of involvement in many progressive advancements in Pennsylvania's mining program." He has been the director of the PA Bureau of Mining and Reclamation, Department of Environmental Protection since 2002.

However, he also approved mining permits knowing that they would lead to acid mine drainage and cause subsidence and damage to area residents' houses. He supported the disposal of toxic coal combustion waste in old coal mines even though the National Academy of Sciences has warned that such a practice would damage groundwater.

Last month, the Mountain Watershed Association based in Pennsylvania publicly opposed the potential nomination of Pizarchik. In a letter to  their U.S. senators, the group wrote:

We do not believe this is a good choice as several environmentally dangerous policies have been expanded under his watch. One of these is the practice of burying power plant waste in unlined pits, sometimes in old mines, creating contamination in groundwater.

Pizarchik's record and the concerns of the environmental community had been made clear to the White House and Department of Interior.

KFTC had twice written to Department of Interior officials urging the nomination of someone who was not a bureaucratic insider or had close ties with the coal industry. OSM has been plagued with inefficiency, has supported the weakening of mining and water protection rules and has some glaring failures in its oversight of state mining programs. KFTC supported candidates like Joe Childers and Pat McGinley who could help change OSM's non-enforcement culture.

   Bowling Green KFTC Members met with new Kentucky Senator Mike Reynolds earlier today, as part of a broader resolution by KFTC to spend more time building relationships with legislators outside of the annual General Assembly sessions near the start of each year.

   Apart from just teaching Senator Reynolds about KFTC's background, members talked about local issues including housing problems and our issues in the state legislature, including the Streamsaver bill.

Reynolds was very aware of the legal system in Bowling Green with respect to landlords and tenant law, said member Dana Beasley-Brown.  "It'll be really useful to keep that conversation going, including what kinds of legislation we can pass on a statewide level to make things safer for renters here."

   Members also thanked Reynold for his support of HB 70 to restore voting rights to former felons who have served their debt to society. 

It was really important to have your vote on the Senate committee for that," said Greg Capillo.  "We hope to bring the bill back to you next year and get a hearing from the Chairman so we can pass it."

  

   

   This was the first time some of the nine KFTC members who made it out to the meeting had ever lobbied a legislator.

He was really frank and easy to relate to and it was great to work on building a relationship with him," said Kristen Houser.  "It was easy and we should do this kind of thing more often."

   Bowling Green KFTC members will have the opportunity to meet with another legislator quite soon, actually.  They have a meeting with Congressman Brett Guthrie tomorrow morning.

KFTC is joining with the United Mine Workers, the Appalachian Citizens Law Center, the AFL-CIO and others in calling for the defeat of House Bill 119.

HB 119 would reduce the number of Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs, also known as mine emergency technicians or METs) required at smaller mines.  Currently the law requires that two EMTs be available when miners are working.

But HB 119 would reduce that to just one miner if the shift is less than 18 miners.

“We worked so hard to get new laws to protect the miners and now the politicians want to start taking them away when they think the people aren’t paying attention,” said Carl Shoupe, a disabled coal miner, former UMWA organizer and KFTC member in Harlan County.

He expressed surprise and disappointment that the attempt to weaken this law is coming from eastern Kentucky legislators. HB 119 is cosponsored by Reps. Keith Hall of Pike County, Ancel Smith who represents Knott, Magoffin and part of Letcher county, and Ted Edmonds who represents Breathitt, Estill and Lee counties.

Rep. Hall told the Lexington Herald-Leader that he was looking out for  "the small Mom-and-Pop operators," who have trouble keeping trained EMTs available. Read John Cheeve's story here.

Hall has interests in coal mining operations that have fewer than 18 workers per shift.

The required number of EMTs at each mine was just increased by the General Assembly through the passage of Kentucky’s landmark mine safety law in 2007. That legislation was in direct response to and designed to prevent situations like the accident that claimed the life of David “Bud” Morris at H & D Mining in Cumberland (Harlan County), where the only EMT on the shift failed to treat Morris’ life-threatening injuries. Had there been another EMT on site, Morris likely would not have bled to death.

B
Bud Morris

According to the federal accident investigation report, both the ambulance service medic and the emergency room doctor who treated Morris stated that the results would have been different had Morris been properly treated by the EMT at the mine.

On Monday, a letter was delivered to all members of the Kentucky House asking them to vote against HB 119. That letter came from the United Mine Workers of America, the Appalachian Citizens Law Center, the Kentucky AFL-CIO and Morris’ widow, Stella Morris.

“The financial impact of maintaining the current number of METs is small, especially in light of the life-saving services which they provide,” the letter stated.  “Now is not the time to cut back on safety measures that were so recently enacted. Saving a few dollars for a coal mine operator is not worth risking a miner’s life.”

The Kentucky House could vote on HB 119 this week.  The legislation previously passed the House Natural Resources Committee without discussion or dissent even though Reps. Jim Gooch, Fitz Steele, Tim Couch, and Hubert Collins are on the committee, all of whom represent coal mining districts.

“There ought to be more EMTs than less. You never know the situation when someone is going to get hurt,” said Elmer Lloyd of Cumberland, also a KFTC member. “Instead of cutting back on EMTS, everyone in the mines ought be qualified for the training.”

MET training is provided free by the Office of Mine Safety and Licensing at all six district office locations in the state.

Lloyd said when he worked at the Scotia mine the miners’ contract required an ambulance standing outside and two EMTS on site. But that was when miners were represented by the UMWA.

Mike Reynolds (D) won the special senate election against J Marshall Hughes (R) in Warren and Butler counties yesterday 8,283 to 6,858 .  The election was to fill the vacancy left by Brett Guthrie (R) as he ascended to become a US Representative early this year. 

KFTC members mobilized to vote in the special election, including many hundreds of voters that we registered this past year.  

For the full election numbers, visit the Secretary of State's Office website Here.

Reynolds will be sworn in and will start in the Senate early next week, but now is a great time for him to hear from his constituents about issues they care about.

As in so many other communities in the past few weeks, Bowling Green KFTC members gathered earlier today for a lobby training to talk about what it takes to have an impact in the Kentucky General Assembly, building support for progressive tax reform, the streamsaver bill, green power, and voting rights.

Members talked about our bills, lobbying experiences, a typical day in Frankfort, role-played conversations with legislators, and even planned a series of at-home events aimed at communicating with the General Assembly.

I care about this issue (HB 70) because I've tried to register so many people across the tracks and they haven't been able to because of something in their past... Our Democracy is important, but sometimes I feel like I'm asking people to buy into a really flawed and system when I try to get them to register (to vote).  We need to make the system better."  - Greg Capillo

I really feel prepared now to lobby in Frankfort.  I know what it's going to be like and it's not as mysterious," said Rebecca Katz.  "I'm ready.

Remember House Bill 1 from the 2007 special interest legislative session #2?  The bill was written specifically to give Peabody taxpayer money to build synthetic fuel plants. Now it's time to start paying for it!

The companies announced their plans as Kentucky is facing a $456 million revenue shortfall.  The legislation promised Peabody at least $300 million in subsidies and incentives.  In case you forgot how bad this legislation really was you can read Mark Hebert's WHAS blog post from August 13, 2007 — $800,000 Per Job....Good Deal or Bad Deal?

Included in the incentives is the potential for millions in cash up front. The so-called “Incentives for Energy Independence Act” would offer payments potentially worth tens of millions of dollars to companies that convert coal or biomass into synthetic fuels even before those multi-billion-dollar projects produce their first barrel of fuel.

 The facility would be “carbon storage ready,” and the two companies are already helping fund a test project directed by the Kentucky Geological Survey.  But being "ready" is no assurance that best available technologies will be used to protect public health.

On Friday October 17th, the federal Office of Surface Mining (OSM) proposed a final draft of the rewrite of the Stream Buffer Zone Rule. This proposed rule change would exempt valley fills and sediment ponds from or sludge ponds from having to comply with the 100-foot buffer zone around streams. The new rule also changes the language from preventing mining with 100-feet of a stream to requiring that coal companies, to the extent possible, limit the damage done to a stream from mining. The new rule actually encourages the filling of streams.

It seems that right now the last and best hope for subverting this rule is for folks to write to the EPA and ask them to not agree with this rule change.

• Read OSM's rule change here.
• Take action to help stop this rule change. Be sure to also write to the presidential candidates. They have each said they oppose mountaintop removal mining. Now we need to ask them to commit to repealing this awful rule change.
  
• Read Jeff  Bigger's article on the Huffington Post
• Read the New York Time editorial about this rule change
• Read the Courier Journal article about the rule change
  

Since 1983, the Stream Buffer Zone Rule has existed to protect both streams that run at least 1 month in a year, intermittent streams, and streams that run all year long, perennial streams.

By relaxing the regulations of the Stream Buffer Zone rule the OSM is hoping to “streamline” the permitting process to make it easier for coal companies to get permits to mine, blow up mountains, and push them over burring the streams beneath valley fills of coal mining waste.

Some of the findings of the Final Environmental Impact Study done for the stream buffer zone rule were that between October 2001 and June 2005 coal mining created 1,603 valley fills in central Appalachia. This buried approximately 367 miles of headwater streams in just 3 years and 8 months.

Another effect of this rule change is states like Kentucky will no longer be forced to grant waivers to coal companies to allow them to bury streams. In the last three years nearly 50% of the coal mining permits received stream buffer zone waivers allowing coal companies to bury streams beneath valley fills.

In 2005 alone, the state issued 137 new or renewed coal mining permits. These permits allowed coal companies to bury 149 named streams. And this was only for the 137 new or renewed coal mining permits and does not include the 319 amendments to already existing permits issued in 2005 because it is impossible to tell if the stream buffer zone waivers in the amendments were issued for the amendment or if they were issued to the original mining permit.

A recent poll conducted by Opinion Research Corp. reveals that Kentuckians want the state to expand investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency while decreasing reliance on old dirty power from coal.

As Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear frames a new energy plan for his state, the #1 priority identified by the largest number of Kentucky residents is “transitioning to renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind” (43 percent), with the second most-popular priority being “increased emphasis on energy efficiency/cutting wasted energy” (30 percent). Few state residents picked nuclear power (7 percent) and “more coal mining” (12 percent) as their top priorities.

Kentuckians overwhelmingly (78 percent) support a five-year moratorium on new coal-fired power plants. Nationally, 73 percent favored such a moratorium.

The president of the Kentucky Coal Association, Bill Caylor, responded to the findings by calling the people of Kentucky uneducated sheep.

I don't think the public has been educated on this issue. The general public is like sheep. They'll be led by small special-interest groups.

Since when are people who prefer clean air to breathe and safe water to drink a "special interest group?"

“The poll results show that the majority of people in Kentucky and the nation believe that we need to take action to switch from a coal-based energy economy to one of renewable and alternative energy," said KFTC member Sara Pennington during a tele-conference announcing the findings. "As Gov. Beshear and state leaders prepare to release a new energy plan for Kentucky we hope they realize there is no time to waste in making this necessary choice.”

Are our public officials listening?  Three new coal plants are permitted in the region that encompasses southern Indiana and western Kentucky, which already claims the largest concentration of coal capacity (coal burning electricity plants) in the world: 15,000 - 18,000 MW depending on the radius of the circle you draw. The new plants, if built, will add more than 2,300 MW to that mix. That's more than anywhere else in the U.S., more than any place in India, South Africa or China. What will happen when these electric utilities have to begin paying for their carbon emissions? They are going to pass those costs right along to their customers and our electric bills will literally be going through our roofs. All because we Kentuckians rely on coal for 96 percent of our electricity. It feels like we sheep are about to get fleeced.

Pollsters questioned 601 Kentuckians in September. One thousand more people responded to the national survey.

You can read Jim Brugger's story about the poll results in The Courier-Journal here.