Dave Cooper - OnEarth Magazine, from NRDC

From the G20 Talks: Pittsburgh Police Harassing Non Violent Citizens

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is perhaps best known as the home of the Pirates and the Steelers, and the birthplace of the mighty Ohio River. This week the city is trying to put on its best face for the International Coal Conference and the G20 Summit of world leaders, chaired by President Barack Obama.
"The Pittsburgh Summit is an important opportunity to continue the hard work that we have done in confronting the global economic crisis, and renewing prosperity for our people," said President Obama in a statement. "Pittsburgh stands as a bold example of how to create new jobs and industries while transitioning to a 21st century economy."
Yet thus far this week, Pittsburgh has shown itself to be a bold example of police harassment of private citizens.
Hundreds of people ...read full post

Comments (0) | September 23, 2009
West Virginia Activists Lock Down to Coal Mining Trucks

On top of West Virginia's Kayford Mountain, eight environmental activists with the groups Mountain Justice and Climate Ground Zero locked themselves to huge coal mining trucks over Memorial Day weekend to prevent further destruction of Kayford Mountain for coal.
Using bicycle locks, chains and cables, the activists placed themselves underneath the 16-foot high tires of trucks that are used to haul away the blasted remains of America's oldest mountains. Even the slightest movement of the trucks would have meant instant death for the activists, who calmly sat until arrested by police. The action was one of three non-violent, peaceful protests against mountaintop removal coal mining that followed the Mountain Justice Summer Camp.
Coal companies, using explosive ...read full post

Comments (0) | June 3, 2009
Sen. Inhofe Walks Out on Senate TVA Disaster Hearings

Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, who has stated that global warming is the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," walked out in the middle of Senate hearings today on the worst man-made environmental disaster in US history, TVA's colossal coal ash catastrophe near Kingston, TN.
Jan. 8 hearings of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee were called to allow TVA Chairman Tom Kilgore, local Roane County emergency officials and environmental experts an opportunity to shed light on the causes of the Kingston impoundment failure, which dumped over one billion gallons of coal ash containing over one million pounds of arsenic and other dangerous heavy metals into tributaries of the Tennessee River.
Sen. ...read full post

Comments (0) | January 20, 2009
TVA Doublespeak Translated: We Must Stress The Fish

If you have been closely following the two spills of coal waste by the Tennessee Valley Authority in Tennessee and Alabama, you may have noticed an inordinate amount of Orwellian language and doublespeak coming from the mouths of certain politicians and TVA officials.
TVA seems determined to bury the public in confusing technical jargon and jibberish. A review of TVA's latest water testing data on the Emory River reveals 21 pages of raw technical data that doesn't answer the basic question that everyone in Kingston wants to know: Is my family going to get sick or get cancer and die if we drink our tap water?
The TVA data does include information such as "Elevated detection limits due to high analyte concentration." TVA has a nice color map showing the locations for all their water samples, but they neglect to include some basic information - such as the direction of the river flow and the ...read full post

Comments (0) | January 16, 2009
Tennessee's Toxic Nightmare: Arsenic Levels 35 to 300 Times EPA Standard for Drinking Water

Just-released independent water sampling data from the Tennessee coal ash disaster has shown alarmingly high levels of arsenic and seven other heavy metals, including cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury and thallium.
"I've never seen levels this high," said Dr. Shea Tuberty, Assistant Professor of Biology at the Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry Lab at Appalachian State University. "These levels would knock out fish reproduction ... the ecosystems around Kingston and Harriman are going to be in trouble ... maybe for generations."
"Although these results are preliminary, we want to release them because of the public health concern and because we believe the TVA [Tennessee Valley Authority] and EPA aren't being candid,"...read full post

Comments (2) | January 2, 2009