Coal

Written by Kyle Ash, crossposted from Greenpeace USA.

Most people who went to school in the United States know of Scholastic books. You might not have heard until last week that they were pushing coal industry propaganda on 4^th-graders. We teamed up with Center for Commercial-Free Childhood, Rethinking Schools, and Friends of the Earth in asking Scholastic to reconsider a contract with the American Coal Foundation (ACF).

Materials provided in the United States of Energy teach children the benefits of coal-fired power but conveniently fail to point out any of its foibles. A few include blowing tops off thousands of mountains, spreading 110 million tons of toxic ash around the country every year, and there's that climate change thing.

(Photo credit)

I can't really say it any better than the description of ACF on Kentucky's educational network television website: “ACF’s objective is to educate the public about the advantages and potential of coal: It’s abundant; it’s affordable; it’s American; and with the commercialization of innovative new technologies, it can be used in an environmentally acceptable manner.” ACF manages to get its url onto the websites of departments of eduction, where teachers can pull down lesson plans such as one in which children mine chocolate chips out of cookies.

While we expect the coal industry to lie that coal can be affordable and environmentally acceptable, should we have really expected Scholastic to become the coal industry's hired clown? It turns out this isn't the first time that Scholastic has shown poor judgment. Last year, for instance, the US Chamber of Commerce borrowed Scholastic's goodwill to cajole middle-schoolers into supporting polluters rather than federal pollution limits to protect children.

Scholastic has produced good materials. I myself recall being excited in 1^st grade about the Scholastic book fair. And the realm of influence of Scholastic expands far beyond the borders of elementary school playgrounds in the United States. Greenpeace has been engaged with Scholastic before, pushing the company to use recycled paper when printing chronicles of Harry Potter. They even published a book in which Greenpeace was a main character.

On Friday Scholastic admitted that they 'were not vigilant enough as to the effect of sponsorship…', and over the weekend pulled the ACF materials off its website. We've won this battle, but not before thousands of schools received the materials. Scholastic needs to do more than avoid contracts with polluter lobbyists in the future. Scholastic needs to recall United States of Energy and publicly explain how its internal review will result in a better, brighter company. As a for-profit company with direct access to children's minds, mistakes like this ACF incident mean Scholastic has to work hard to regain credibility.

Note: if your interested in what we do here at Greenpeace, check out our Global Warming and Climate Change page as an example.

Crossposted from Greenpeace USA.

In the midst of attacks from Congress on virtually all things environmental, EPA has announced a rule to reduce emissions of mercury and other toxic air pollution. The two-decade history of this long-developing rule is a frustrating anecdote of the success of the anti-public health coal lobby.

Coal industry has contributed heavily to the campaign coffers of our lawmakers. Senator Inhofe (R-OK), America's most iconic politician against environmental logic, introduced the speciously entitled CARE Act. When it comes to public health, the bill is better called the 'Don't Give a Damn Act.' CARE would strip EPA's ability to protect people against airborne toxics. American Electric Power is clearly supportive of Inhofe's stalling bill. Other companies willing to pay evil lobbyists, but not to pay to invest in pro-public pollution technology, include Southern Energy and Duke Energy.

To their disappointment, this rule requires polluters reduce emissions of heavy metals, toxic gases, and other dangerous pollutants. Let's be clear, these companies have a choice.

'Mad hatter's disease,' named after a symptom of mercury exposure, wreaks havoc on the central nervous system and eventually the entire body. Also called Minimata disease, named after the river and community who suffered from wanton mercury pollution by industry in Japan, chronic mercury poisoning has been studied for several decades now.

Mercury contributes to thousands of deaths annually and may adversely affect the development of over 400,000 babies per year. Mercury exposure is serious problem for the lungs, brain, heart, stomach, kidneys, and the immune system. About 90% of human exposure is through the diet. Because of 'bioaccumulation' (mercury collects over time in organisms' bodies, including human bodies) and 'biomagnification' (concentration increases as animals eat other animals) we are most exposed through eating animal products. Newborn babies are most vulnerable, since they act as a mercury filter in the womb, and are exposed again through their mother's milk. Umbilical cord blood is a filter for a number of hazardous pollutants that include mercury. The only safe level of mercury exposure is zero.

Polluters have been spreading mercury around the country. Taller smokestacks never help. Much airborne mercury often falls back to the ground and waterways within only 100 or so miles, but since it doesn't breakdown it is re-emitted into the air, floats down streams, or is carried around by animals who ingest it. In 2008 about half the area of all rivers and lakes were under water contamination advisories, 80% of which was due to mercury pollution.

Most coal-fired power plant owners have not yet opted to install easily available technology that could reduce up to 90% of their mercury emissions. The majority of mercury poisoning is linked to burning coal. Some of this is transboundary pollution from burning coal in other countries. Fortunately, the US administration is constructively engaged in international discussions to reduce transboundary airborne mercury pollution. A positive outcome at the next international meetings surely depends on a strong rule. This rule is supposed to be finalized by November, whereas the next round of international mercury talks is the first week of the same month.

This new EPA rule would reduce our exposure to many of the most toxic substances humans have ever encountered (and created). Everyone knows arsenic is poisonous. Notwithstanding Frank Capra's masterpiece adaptation of Arsenic and Old Lace, we cannot blame widespread arsenic contamination on Cary Grant's well-meaning aunts. The main culprit is coal, always dirty and filthy.

Massey CEO Don Blankenship, West Virginia's strip mining overlord, faces two lawsuits that hold him personally responsible for the Upper Big Branch coal mining disaster which killed 29 men.  A Judge in west Virginia ruled that two separate lawsuits, brought by two women widowed by Massey's UBB mine, will not be dismissed as Blankenship had hoped.

Blankenship is accused of being  “willfully negligent” in his direction of the company subsidiaries operating the mine, which violated a host of federal and state safety regulations prior to the explosion.

For more see the Bloomberg News article by Chris Stratton and Margaret Cronin Fisk.
 

For information on the coal industry's backroom lobbying to prevent the classification of coal ash as "hazardous," check out the recent DeSmogBlog/PolluterWatch report, Coal Fired Utilities to American Public: Kiss My Ash [pdf].  Also refer to the new Greenpeace map of high-hazard coal ash locations.

The Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to decide whether or not to federally regulate coal ash, wrapping up the public comment period that began in late June.  Coal ash, a residual product from burning coal, contains known neurotoxins and carcinogens, such as arsenic, lead, and mercury.  The substance is also notably radioactive.

Coal ash is less regulated than household garbage, and there's enough of the sludge to flow through Niagara Falls for over three days straight.

While Little Blue Run pond may give the impression of a quaint place to go for a swim, it is anything but.  Owned by FirstEnergy, Little Blue Run is a coal ash impoundment right near the converging border of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio (check this map).  The waste stored in Little Blue Run is produced seven miles away at FirstEnergy's Bruce Mansfield Power Station. 

If the dam holding the pond's material were to break, 50,000 people in Ohio would be in immediate danger of a toxic flood.  As if this dramatic threat is not stressful enough, people in the area also live with the lingering concerns of water contamination and ailments from dry ash circulated by the wind.

Lisa Jackson and the EPA seem to have no doubt about the dangers of coal ash.  The agency found there is at least a 1 in 50 chance of developing cancer when living close enough to ash ponds, and recognizes that ponds like Little Blue Run have arsenic levels 900 times that of what is considered "safe". 

It is time for the EPA to see its job through, ending the needless poisoning of Americans unfortunate enough to live too close to the toxic messes Big Coal leaves behind.

Photo Credit: Duke University