Ohio, a Fracking Dumping Ground, Now Wonders About the Safety of Its Drinking Water

I guess that the state of Ohio is having one of those “Well, duh!” moments, when the folks there realize that expansive environmental degradation is not just the domain of their neighbors across the river in West Virginia.

            As with my last post that ended with West Virginia Senate Majority Leader John Unger warning that the toxic spill that deprived 300,000 residents of his state of basic drinking water could, if ignored, serve as a harbinger to the rest of the country. Through the lax enforcement of regulation and even the absence of regulation other parts of the country could have poisoned water pouring out of their taps as well.

            Just as West Virginia leads the country in mountaintop removal, Ohio leads the country in being a dumping ground for fracking waste. Fracking requires tons and tons of water, which becomes contaminated because of the chemicals used in the fracking process. Because Ohio is blessed, or cursed depending on your point of view, with unique rock layers that are ideal for disposing of fracking waste, the Buckeye State is home to over 200 injection wells where hydraulic fracturing waste is pumped deep underground, sometimes as deep as 5,000 feet.

            With so many West Virginians out of water for so long, a number of Ohioans are now asking how safe is it to pump tons and tons of waste under the rocks that provide their groundwater. A major spill in a river is a disaster, but the flow of the water cleanses the river within weeks or months. On the other hand, once groundwater is contaminated, it could be decades or even centuries before the contaminants make their way from an aquifer.

            Just as it seems obvious, now, that letting a large tank filled with a toxin to sit next to a major water source was a bad idea, you kind of wonder why weren’t some Ohioans a little leery of letting folks pump toxic waste into the rocks under their state in the first place.

Three Months On West Virginia Still Suffers From Troubled Waters

Three months on some West Virginians still aren't drinking the water.

Sorry to have dropped the ball on this blog for a while. There has been plenty to write about, but I’ve been tied up with a few things lately. I promise to get back to a more regular schedule with my posts here.

            The story that I’ve been following a great deal lately is the toxic spill in West Virginia’s Elk River that occurred in January of this year. Though the spill happened almost exactly three months ago, apparently there are still folks who are staying away from their tap water, and some folks are complaining that the telltale licorice smell still lingers in the water coming from their taps. The levels of the 4-methylcyclohexane methanol have dropped in the drinking water. The highest level of the chemical in water tested in a ten-home pilot project was found to be 6.1 parts per billion, much lower than the Center For Disease Control’s somewhat arbitrary threshold of 1000 parts per billion.

            It seems as though some members of the national press are keeping an eye on the water problems in the Kanawha Valley. I heard this story on Here and Now. Interviewed for the story is Rahul Gupta. The Kanawha-Charleston health director said that there may now be evidence pointing to long-standing low levels of MCHM being present in the drinking water of the Kanawha Valley. As he said, there is no research on what this chemical might do to people who are exposed to small amounts of it over long periods of time.

And the spill made the pages of the New Yorker. Evan Osnos, who years ago worked as a photojournalist in Clarksburg, West Virginia, my hometown, delves into the history of the coal companies and the grip that they have on the politics of the Mountain State. In his piece Osnos suggests that the rise of the GOP in West Virginia, a very traditional Democratic stronghold, is not a good trend. Although the anti-environmental rhetoric of the GOP and that party’s willingness to slash and burn environmental and health regulations would seem to support what he has to say, I think things are bad in my home state no matter which party occupies the state house or the governor’s mansion. The lack of regulatory control over the coal companies and the chemical industries goes back through the administrations of governors Joe Manchin and Jay Rockefeller, both Democrats.

            Democrats and Republicans both bear some of the blame for the state of affairs in West Virginia; the same can be said of the electorate that sends these politicians into office. Ultimately, however, the coal companies and the chemical industry in West Virginia are responsible for the polluted waters and sickened people. From the time Appalachian children attend grammar school, where the coal industry has developed and, with the blessing of the educational establishment, inserted into Appalachian schools’ curricula to indoctrinate students and turn them into coal industry loving adults, through the industry’s campaign against the president and environmental regulation in the guise of fighting Obama’s “war on coal,” King Coal and the chemical companies influence enough of the electorate to get coal-friendly politicians into office. Their influence is not total. Recent polling indicates that mountaintop removal remains unpopular in West Virginia. Even still, you don’t have to convince every voter, just enough to make the difference to get your preferred candidate into office. And once in office, no matter what a state senator or governor may believe personally, they are barraged with the money and lobbying of the industries that control West Virginia.

            Without footage of floodwaters or images of flattened houses, most of the national press moved on from the story of West Virginians and their water problems. But Osnos quotes West Virginia Senate Majority Leader John Unger pointing out why this toxic spill deserves the attention of the rest of the country, “Martin Luther King said that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Why should anybody care about what goes on in West Virginia? Because it’s the canary in the mineshaft. If you ignore it in West Virginia, it’s coming, it’s going to continue to build, and the issue is: Should our country have the debate about our rights to the very basic infrastructure that sustains us? Or should we continue to ignore it?”

Supreme Court Denies Arch Coal More Mountaintop Removal at Spruce Mine No. 1

The Supreme Court did a good thing today, rejecting an appeal from Arch Coal to review a decision by the U.S. District Court of Appeals. The original ruling of the District Court, which goes back to April of last year, found that the EPA could withdraw a previously approved Clean Water Act permit. The permits are granted to allow for pollution of waters and the filling in of streams. Coal companies need these permits to operate their mountaintop removal mines and dump the waste rock and soil or “overburden” from the mines into adjacent valleys and streams.

            Arch coal had sought the permit, and received the permit from the Army Corps of Engineers, to expand its Spruce Mine No. 1 in West Virginia. The Spruce Mine is already huge; with the permit it would have made it the largest such mine in the Mountain State. The EPA had rescinded the permit retroactively, after the Corps had granted the permit.

            Arch Coal said that wasn’t kosher. The District Court said it was. And now the Supreme Court has said that decision stands. We are not totally out of the woods on this, but this is a good turn of events.

The Educational Director Who Could

This is a great story. Bill Bigelow taught high school social studies in Portland, Oregon for almost 30 years before becoming the curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools and the co-director of the Zinn Educational Project. In 2011, while he was developing academic activities on coal and climate change for Rethinking Schools magazine, he came across The United States of Energy, a pro-coal propaganda “curriculum” for fourth grade students that had been sponsored by the coal industry and published by Scholastic, the well-known education publisher.

            Bigelow wrote a critique of The United States of Energy and teamed up with another prominent educator. Before long the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, and Greenpeace were on board with the effort.

            As a result, Scholastic severed ties with the coal industry and stopped distribution of The United States of Energy. Scholastic also began a review of its “In School Marketing” program.

            I love stories like this, when one individual brings about a needed change by simply speaking the truth. Now if Bigelow and Rethinking Schools could just get the coal companies out of the schoolrooms of Appalachia, where they still run the show.

Duke Energy Wants to Have Its Cake and Eat It, Too. And They Want to Have Your Cake and Eat It Too, Too

Sorry about that coal ash spill thingy. You folks don't mind paying for it now, do you?

This news item has my head spinning. In a move that goes way beyond having unmitigated gall, Duke Energy, whose spill of between 50,000 and 82,000 tons of coal ash fouled North Carolina’s Dan River last month, now says that the power company’s customers should pick up the bill to clean up the company’s dozens of coal ash storage sites.

            Lynn Good, Duke Energy’s CEO, told the Charlotte Observer that since rate payers had enjoyed the electricity the company provided for generations they are the ones who should pay for the cleanup of the byproduct of producing that electricity.

            OK, so I sell you a guitar. Years later, due to my bad business practices, I incur debts. I then tell you that since you bought a guitar and benefited from my bad business practices, you should pay my bills. That is exactly what Duke is trying to do here. They want to have their cake and eat it, too. And they want to have your cake and eat it too, too.

Hat tip to my friend Amy for this story.

CPAC = Big Crazy, At Least Where the Environment Is Concerned

photo Reuters

It looks like the darling of this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, in what is an apparent flirtation with the GOP presidential nomination, was Rand Paul, the son of Ron Paul and, like his father, a firebrand libertarian.

            Paul’s message of less and less government has some staying power for this conference. The Kentucky Senator was similarly lauded at last year’s CPAC. As the way things are going for Appalachians, I have little hope that things will change for the better in those states. They can continue to expect toxic spills in their rivers. With a Rand Paul administration, however, that dismal future would be a certainty. For him, the companies that mine coal can pretty much do as they please, and he dismisses mountaintop removal by saying, “I don’t’ think that anyone is going to be missing a hill or two here and there.”

            Looking at some of the other things to come out of CPAC, it certainly seems like a lot of Big Crazy is going on there. Here we have William Peter Pendly, author of Sagebrush Rebel: Reagan's Battle with Environmental Extremists and Why It Matters Today speaking on president Obama’s fictitious “war on fossil fuels.” Later in the video someone in on the panel discussion dismisses concern or action on climate change by saying that there is a “prejudice against the man-made,” due to “human racism.” That, in essence, folks who are concerned about melting glaciers, rising oceans, possible worsening weather events such as drought, floods, and more sever storms, are only concerned because of their prejudice against the human race. Is that Big Crazy or what?

West Virginia Leaders in Washington Sing the Same Old Tune

West Virginia leaders sing the same old tune

It seems that in Washington things remain quite the same,

with the law makers from West Virginia continuing to toe the line for King
Coal. Once again, this is from Ken Ward, who knows way more about West Virginia
and coal than I ever could, and his Coal Tattoo blog.