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Letters-to-the editor tips
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CHARLESTON, WV — “When we last left West Virginia Republication Rep. David McKinley, he was using his stacked discussion panel to pretend there’s no scientific consensus about man-made global warming. Well this week, Rep. McKinley is bringing back a somewhat reworked version of his coal-ash legislation (see the bill here and a summary here). He says in a prepared statement:
Coal ash is widely reused in construction products such as cement, concrete, wallboard, and roofing materials. This bill will preserve this beneficial reuse and help keep electricity costs low for American businesses and families. It provides a workable alternative to EPA’s 2010 proposal to regulate coal ash as a hazardous waste, which put hundreds of thousands of jobs in jeopardy and threatened to drive up electricity and construction costs.“
— Ken Ward Jr., Charleston Gazette
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CHARLESTON, WV — “It’s earnings time, and the latest report out in the coal industry is from Alpha Natural Resources, which reported this morning:
Alpha recorded a net loss of $111 million, or $0.50 per diluted share, during the first quarter of 2013, compared with a net loss of $29 million, or $0.13 per diluted share, during the first quarter of 2012. The year-over-year increase in Alpha’s net loss is primarily attributable to lower per ton realizations on metallurgical and Eastern thermal coal and lower shipment volumes of Eastern and Western thermal coal, partly offset by lower cost of coal sales per ton, and lower SG&A and DD&A expenses.
Excluding the items described in our “Reconciliation of Adjusted Net Loss to Net Loss,” the adjusted net loss was $104 million, or $0.47 per diluted share, compared with an adjusted net loss of $58 million, or $0.27 per diluted share, in the first quarter of 2012.”
— Ken Ward Jr., The Charleston Gazette
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 —Officials in Marceline, Missouri say they’ll have to cut city services to pay for their contract with the Prairie State Energy Campus. (Photo by J. Stephen Conn via Creative Commons) MARISSA, IL — “As the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigates Peabody Energy Corporation’s role in the Prairie State Energy Campus, it remains unclear what exactly the commission is investigating or whether the utilities in eight states that are co-owners of the project have also received subpoenas.
…Sandy Buchanan is executive director of Ohio Citizen Action, which tracks news about the plant on the website PrairieStateCoalPlant.org. She said the SEC investigation shows that ‘chickens are coming home to roost.’
‘The SEC takes investigations very seriously – they don’t issue subpoenas lightly – so one would assume they think there’s some very important information they have to glean about the project,’ she said. ‘The main thing is this plant has become so expensive, if you didn’t have this captive market of municipalities with contracts and a captive coal mine only selling to one plant, the market wouldn’t support this plant, it wouldn’t support anything about this plant.’
‘The only reason it’s surviving so far is they have these municipalities on the hook.’
— Kari Lyderson, Midwest Energy News
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WASHINGTON D.C. — “Emissionsof sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) from the electric power sector in 2012 declined to their lowest level since the passage of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. The decline in emissions is due primarily to an increasing number of coal-fired units retrofitted with flue-gas desulfurization (FGD), or scrubbers, to coal plants switching to lower sulfur coal, and to selective catalytic reduction (SCRs), selective noncatalytic reduction (SNCR), or low NOx burners to limit NOx emissions. In recent years the decreased use of coal for electric power generation because of cheaper natural gas has also played a significant role in the SO2 and NOx emissions declines.”
— U.S. Energy Information Administration
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 President Barack Obama receives the oath of office from Chief Justice John Roberts. CHARLESTON, WV — “…There’s been a lot of commentary in the last few days and weeks about what President Obama could, should, or might — or might not — do about climate change. I linked previously to Jeff Goodell’s Rolling Stone piece, but there were others out there, including this from Andrew Revkin at Dot Earth, this from Tom Zeller at The Huffington Post, and this from Suzanne Goldenberg at The Guardian.
Obviously, a lot of questions might be answered once we see what kind of appointments President Obama makes to replace top administration officials who are leaving, including EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Energy Secretary Steven Chu. For broader coal issues — especially mine safety — we should also watch to see who replaces Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, whose term has been a great disappointment on workplace safety, despite a rather fluffy outgoing interview with The Nation magazine.”
— Ken Ward Jr., The Charleston Gazette
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 Seven protesters locked to a 500-pound tree inside Arch Coal’s headquarters in Creve Coeur, Mo. CHARLESTON, WV — “Seven people, including at least one West Virginian, locked themselves to a 500-pound potted tree inside Arch Coal’s headquarters in Creve Coeur, Mo. on Tuesday in a protest against strip mining.
A larger group performed songs and dances in the building’s lobby, according to the protesters, who are affiliated with the groups Radical Action for Mountain Peoples’ Survival, Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment, and Mountain Justice.
‘We’re here to halt Arch’s operations for as long as we can. These coal corporations do not answer to communities, they only consume them. We’re here to resist their unchecked power,’ Margaret Fetzer, one of the protesters, said in a news release.”
— Paul J. Nyden, The Charleston Gazette
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CHARLESTON, WV — “Earlier this week, the National Journal published a piece called The Shift Of King Coal: The coal industry still dominates in Appalachia, and that’s bad news for the Democratic party. Here’s how it started out:
When West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller formally announced his decision to quit the Senate on Friday, he opened the next chapter in one of the few true historic shifts taking place in American politics. Even before his announcement, Republicans were eyeing his seat as a prime pickup opportunity, a reflection of the ascendance of the Republican Party in Appalachia, a shift in which working-class white voters who have reliably cast ballots for Democratic politicians for the better part of a century are moving inexorably, and perhaps permanently, toward the Republican Party.
That’s because in Appalachia, coal is still king.
The piece reminded me of the one that the Wall Street Journal published way back in June 2001, in which it explained George W. Bush’s victory in West Virginia with this similar, one-issue narrative.”
— Ken Ward Jr., Charleston Gazette
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 Rev. Robin Blakeman CHARLESTON, WV — “Dear West Virginia Coal Association representatives and affiliated elected officials:
We, undersigned faith community members and leaders, call upon you to stop using misleading and incendiary language concerning a ‘war on coal.’ The damage caused in our communities from this rhetoric includes: neighbor pitted against neighbor, families divided, coal trucks trying to run people off the road, and threats upon the lives and property of some individuals.
Let’s face facts: There is no ‘war on coal.’ The coal industry is undergoing an economic downturn due largely to competition from the gas industry. Jobs are being lost due to decades long labor reduction strategies. This ‘war on coal’ war cry has, however, rallied mining employees and their families to a dangerous frenzy. By using this rhetoric, you are following the divisive strategy that the coal industry has used for over a century. It is an archaic and outdated tactic. It is also immoral.”
— Rev. Robin Blakeman, editorial The Charleston Gazette
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COLUMBUS — “American Municipal Power-Ohio has been given another 18 months to make a decision on its proposed power plant in Meigs County, WOUB reports.
The Ohio Power Siting Board in 2008 approved its plans to build a coal-fired power plant in southeast Ohio. A five-year time limit was placed on that approval.
AMP-Ohio backtracked and began planning for a natural gas generating plant, and now has until September 2014 to continue preparing for its ‘natural gas combine cycle facility.’”
The Ohio Environmental Council and the Sierra Club oppose the extension, saying the board can’t allow the move from a coal project to a natural gas project, WOUB reports.
— Evan Weese, Business First
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 Earthjustice attorney Lisa Evans WASHINGTON D.C. — “A congressional effort to rein in federal regulation of coal ash could result in little or no regulation at all, a new report from the Congressional Research Service warns.
The bills, H.R. 2273 and S. 3512, would set up a plan for states to regulate coal ash like landfill waste — pre-empting an Environmental Protection Agency proposal to designate the often toxic combustion byproducts as hazardous waste. But the proposals’ vague language would make it difficult to tell if states are correctly implementing their own programs, says the report, which the green group Earthjustice made public Monday.
Among other fuzziness, the bills leave unclear ‘key issues such as how, when or to which facilities the [state] permit program would apply,’ the report says. ‘That level of uncertainty defeats the purpose of a permit program,’ it adds.”
— Erica Martinson, Politico
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CHARLESTON, WV — “We’ve had a couple of posts over the last few weeks (see here and here) about the recent activities of former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship. Well, it seems Blankenship has also launched his own website, DonBlankenship.com.
The site makes for some interesting reading, proclaiming Blankenship an ‘American Competitionist’ and offering what it calls ‘Factual discussions on America’ like this:
Most every country in the world, in one way or another, benefits from a strong, healthy America. All Americans, and in fact all the world, are stakeholders in our country. It is America, and Americans, that have led the world’s progress in the improvement of people’s quality of life…
…Blankenship describes his coal industry career this way:
In 1982, I came to work for Massey Coal Company and was there until December 2010. Again, I received every promotion available to me during those years. I learned about, and struggled against, the ignorance and evilness of the United Mine Workers, much of the media, the ‘greeniacs,’ and much of corporate America.”
— Ken Ward Jr., Charleston Gazette
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 Dr. Avner Vengosh, Professor of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Duke University, author of a new coal ash study. WASHINGTON D.C. — “Sunday’s Washington Post included the following update from environmental reporter Juliet Eilperin on the important issue of regulating the handling and disposal of toxic coal ash from our nation’s power plants:
In Maryland’s Zekiah Swamp, one of the Chesapeake Bay’s most important tributaries, 8.4 million tons of coal ash in pits from former operations of the Morgantown power plant are leaking into groundwater. Residents on the Moapa River Reservation north of Las Vegas blame a spike in respiratory illnesses on the uncovered ash ponds and ash dump from a generating station nearby.
The ash left after burning coal includes toxic elements such as arsenic, lead, cadmium, selenium and mercury. Produced by 431 coal-fired power plants, which supply 36 percent of the nation’s electricity, coal ash piles up at the staggering rate of 140 million tons a year
More than 40 percent of it is recycled to help make concrete, gypsum wallboard and pavement. But utilities store the rest in landfills, ponds or mines, and evidence has been growing in recent years that leakage is a problem.
‘The time has come for common-sense national protections to assure safe disposal of these materials,’ Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa P. Jackson said. That was in 2010.
…Study author Avner Vengosh, professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment, said:
We are saving the sky by putting in more scrubbers to remove particulates from power plant emissions. But these contaminants don’t just disappear. As our study shows, they remain in high concentrations in the solid waste residue and wastewater the coal-fired power plants produce. Yet there are no systematic monitoring or regulations to reduce water-quality impacts from coal ash ponds because coal ash is not considered as hazardous waste.
— Ken Ward Jr., Charleston Gazette
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CHARLESTON, WV — “The folks at the Columbia Journalism Review had another interesting piece yesterday about how the politics of coal has been covered in the media, this one focusing on our neighboring state of Virginia (they previously looked at Ohio coverage). Looking at the latest CJR piece got me thinking about the latest commentary from Hoppy Kercheval over at West Virginia MetroNews.
Hoppy did a takeoff on GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s remark — ‘… I like coal … ’ — in the first presidential debate, writing:
‘Coal claims President Obama and his EPA have waged a ‘war on coal’ over the last four years. One can disagree with the analogy, but it’s clear the President’s all-of-the-above strategy plays favorites–green energy and natural gas over coal.
The drop in natural gas prices, slack demand and the toughened regulatory approach by the EPA are the trifecta that have triggered industry layoffs and pessimism about the future.’
My first thought was to be thankful that Hoppy appeared to have toned down his typical breathless rhetoric about the coal industry and President Obama, and acknowledged that there are a variety of factors at work in coal’s current decline: Low-priced natural gas, for example, and slack demand.”
— Ken Ward Jr., Charleston Gazette
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 Larry Gibson stands near the mountaintop removal site on Kayford Mountain in West Virginia. KAYFORD, WV — “Larry Gibson’s parents never worried about finding him, when, as a boy, he wandered out into the forest. All they had to do was spot the hawk that followed him from the air. That’s how close Gibson was to the West Virginia mountains.
He pined for those mountains after his family joined the exodus from Appalachia, moving to where the jobs were, into Ohio and Pennsylvania, in the 1950s. But finally, in the 1990s, he was able to move back to a small cabin on the land owned by his family for generations.
By that time, the nearby town of Kayford was nearly gone. And the hills where he once roamed trembled under gigantic bulldozers and leviathan drag lines that were pushing back the woods, reaching down into the earth, and tearing out the coal.
Mountaintop removal mining tore something out of him, too, but he found a way to fight back. And in the process, Larry Gibson became something unexpected, a unique species of Appalachian Lorax, a small man in bib overalls who could elevate your vision with a few dozen words.
Gibson died Sunday following a heart attack at his home on Kayford Mountain in West Virginia’s Raleigh County. He was 66 years old.”
— Bill Kovarik, Earth Island Institute
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 The W.H. Sammis coal-burning power plant NEW YORK, NY — “In its heyday, the giant W.H. Sammis power station was a workhorse, cranking out electricity around the clock. But FirstEnergy Corp. FE -0.82% now plans to idle the coal-fired power plant on the Ohio River and run it only when there is exceptional need for electricity.
Sammis is one of a growing number of coal-fired plants that were built to run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but now may run only occasionally because of soft demand for electricity and competition from gas-fired plants that are cheaper to run and cleaner to operate.
Coal has been losing ground to natural gas ever since a boost in shale-gas production sent the price of natural gas tumbling four years ago. But now the natural-gas price advantage is beginning to affect the coal units that seemed most protected from the shift. Many of these plants have the latest environmental upgrades and are often close to coal deposits.
The reason: With natural gas priced below $3 per million British thermal units, down from about $8 in 2008, many gas-fueled plants can make electricity for about two cents a kilowatt hour, less than half what it costs to run many coal units, said Julien Demoulin-Smith, director of utilities research at UBS Securities LLC in New York.”
— Rebecca Smith, Wall Street Journal
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Letters supporting the Fracking Emergency Medical Right to Know Act 9,241 neighbors have sent handwritten letters and made personal phone calls urging state legislators to support the Fracking Emergency Medical Right to Know Act as of June 10, 2013.
Ohio coal-fired power plants
Resources on proposed Cleveland incinerator
AEP’s Muskingum River Power Plant
Letters to American Electric Power 989 neighbors have sent handwritten letters urging AEP to retire its Muskingum River coal plant as of July 15, 2011.
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Letters to Kokosing Asphalt 8,709 neighbors have sent handwritten letters and petitions urging Kokosing Asphalt to be a good neighbor as of February 25, 2011.
Letters to Rumpke 9,205 neighbors have sent handwritten letters and petitions urging Rumpke to be a good neighbor as of April 15, 2011.
Letters to FirstEnergy 3,914 neighbors have sent handwritten letters and petitions urging FirstEnergy to retire their four Lake Erie coal plants as of July 15, 2011.
Mountaintop removal coal mining
Letters to Senator Sherrod Brown and Senator Rob Portman 6,615 members have sent handwritten letters and petitions to Senator Brown urging him to support US EPA rules that will protect our health from polluting coal plants as of January 24, 2012.
3,751 members have petitioned Senator Portman urging him to support US EPA rules that will protect our health from polluting coal plants as of January 24, 2012.
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