Coal Ash Chronicles

This December will be the 4-year anniversary of the tragic coal ash waste impoundment failure at the Kingston Fossil Plant in Harriman, Tennessee when a billion gallons of toxic coal ash flooded the surrounding residential area and water bodies with extremely dangerous levels of arsenic, mercury, and other toxins.

In May of 2010 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced the proposal for the first-ever national rules to ensure the safe disposal and management of coal ash from coal-fired power plants and the structural integrity of coal ash impoundments. At the time of the announcement, Lisa P. Jackson, EPA Administrator, stated, “The time has come for common-sense national protections to ensure the safe disposal of coal ash. We’re proposing strong steps to address the serious risk of groundwater contamination and threats to drinking water and we’re also putting in place stronger safeguards against structural failures of coal ash impoundments. The health and the environment of all communities must be protected.”

The coal ash waste impoundment at Dynegy Energy’s Havana Power Plant on the Illinois River is larger than the ash impoundment that failed in 2008 at the TVA’s Kingston Fossil Plant.

From the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA, the nation’s primary law for regulating solid waste, arose two options for addressing the risks of coal ash management. Simply put, Subtitle C, which creates a comprehensive program of federally enforceable requirements for waste management and disposal, is the option that is clearly more protective of the health and environment of all communities. The other option, Subtitle D does not classify coal ash as hazardous waste, merely sets performance guidelines that are not enforceable by EPA, does not prohibit wet ash storage impoundments, does not require states to comply with minimum national standards for coal ash disposal, does not require utilities to monitor old landfills or waste ponds, does not require states to issue permits, and does not require regulations governing the pre-disposal management of coal ash such as storage, transportation, accidental spills, etc.

After the EPA announced the proposed rules it went out for public comment. Many of you were among the 450,000 people who commented on the proposed rule during the summer of 2010. We’ve been waiting now for two years for a final ruling.

Forty-three percent of the active and retired coal waste landfills are unlined and 53 percent lack leachate collection systems.

In the meantime, this summer EPA released data showing the number of coal ash disposal ponds and landfills is far greater than previously known. The data released by the EPA to Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA) revealed that there are at least 451 more coal ash ponds and 56 additional landfills than previously acknowledged. Forty-six percent of the 1,161 ponds are not lined, which means there is nothing to prevent contaminates from leaching into water supplies. Forty-three percent of the active and retired landfills are unlined and 53 percent lack leachate collection systems.

On October 3, 2012, the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), Environmental Law & Policy Center, Prairie Rivers Network and Illinois-based Citizens Against Ruining the Environment filed a legal complaint with the Illinois Pollution Control Board against Midwest Generation for violations of Illinois state solid waste and groundwater laws at four power-generating facilities in Illinois: the Joliet 29, Powerton, Waukegan and Will County Generating Stations.

Meanwhile, while we’ve been waiting a final ruling, industry has been pushing hard to completely remove EPA’s authority to regulate coal ash altogether. Last summer, legislation introduced by Rep. David B. McKinley (R-WV) to prevent EPA from regulating coal ash was attached to a completely unrelated must-pass transportation bill. Fortunately, that maneuver was thwarted. Then came Senate Bill 3512, the Hoeven-Conrad-Baucus coal ash bill, designed to permanently remove EPA’s authority to regulate coal ash, to eliminate waste ponds, impose regulations on states to issue permits or close leaking and dangerous sites.

Yesterday it was confirmed that the original sponsors of S. 3512 were trying to attach it as an amendment to a military spending bill coming out of the Senate Armed Services Committee. This morning an email arrived from our friends at Earthjustice with news that last night Senator Barbara Boxer, Chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, spoke on the Senate floor about coal ash and it’s dangers, warning that she would remain in the Senate floor for as long as it would take to ensure that a coal ash rider does not get added to the Department of Defense funding bill.

The battle continues, but its encouraging to know that there are leaders with integrity watching out for our families and our future.

Pollution Control Board Finds Industry Mine in Violation of Water Permit

Polluted runoff from Industry Mine.

For eight years, between 2004 and 2011, Springfield Coal Company’s 5,651-acre Industry Mine in McDonough and Schuyler Counties violated its water permit 624 times. Pollutants including sulfates, iron, manganese, pH and total suspended and settled solids were released at 16 of 17 outflow points into tributaries of Grindstone Creek. Grindstone Creek flows into the LaMoine River, which flows into the Illinois River.

Industry Mine

In 2009, the Sierra Club, Prairie Rivers Network (PRN) and Environmental Law & Policy Center (ELPC) notified the state of their intent to sue over 363 permit violations. In response, on February 10, 2010, the Illinois Attorney General’s Office filed a suit before the Pollution Control Board. On the 25^th ELPC filed a motion to intervene on behalf of Sierra Club and PRN. Over the course of the next two years Industry Mine continued to rack up pollution violations, which today amount to 624.

In a ruling released on November 16^th, the Illinois Pollution Control Board found Springfield Coal Company’s Industry Mine in violation of its water permit. Springfield Coal and its predecessor, Freeman United Coal Mining Company, face a maximum penalty of $64 million.

The penalty phase of the lawsuit will take place at a hearing at a future date to be determined. Although the Board rarely imposes the maximum fine, its our opinion that this fine should be substantial enough to send a clear message to Springfield Coal and the industry as a whole that clean water standards in Illinois will be enforced!

Industry Mine
Photo credit: Marianne Morgan/InIllinoisWater.org

The extreme number of pollution violations at Industry Mine is of particular concern because Springfield Coal is also seeking permits to open two new strip mines in west-central Illinois. One, the North Canton Mine strip mine is proposed directly upstream from Canton Lake, Canton’s public water supply for over 20,000 people.

We commend everyone who took part in this important case, which demands the protection public waterways from chronic violators. From the engaged citizens who saw what was going on and knew they had to take action, to the Attorney General’s Office that took up this case, to the Pollution Control Board that did a thorough review of the data, all played an important role in a system that works if we pay attention and stay involved.

Quinn Vetoes Leucadia’s Rate Hike – The End of Springfield’s Coal Plant Bailouts?

Illinoisans gather to urge Gov. Quinn to veto Leucadia. Thank the Governor for his veto!

Friday, August 10th Governor Quinn took bold action to protect Illinois ratepayers from a gas rate hike to subsidize the coal-to-gas plant proposed by New York-based Leucadia National Corporation. The proposal has come under fire from community residents concerned about the millions of pounds of air pollution Leucadia could add to Illinois’ air. Strong opposition has also come from businesses, consumer groups, school advocates, and others who don’t want to be forced to pay, through their gas bills, for Leucadia’s overpriced gas. Leucadia’s gamble could cost Illinois $8.7 billion over the thirty years that ratepayers would be compelled to underwrite it.

Given Leucadia’s exorbitant price and nonexistent plans to deal with their pollution, they have apparently been totally unable to attract financing from private investors. With no confidence from the financial community, Leucadia turned to a political power play in an effort to force Illinois ratepayers to pay for it. Why would Springfield agree? Well, Leucadia may lack appeal as a business proposition, but they do not lack for clout. With high-powered lobbyists, and by waiting until literally final hours of a chaotic legislative session to put their proposal up for a vote (the Senate approved the bill shortly before midnight May 31st), facts mattered little in the General Assembly’s debate.

Thank goodness that facts mattered to Governor Quinn, who did the right thing. Will it be the end of Leucadia’s misadventure? We can only hope – but if history is any guide, we can expect a power play when the General Assembly reconvenes after the election, and an attempt by Leucadia to override Quinn’s veto.

Bad ideas have a way of staying alive in Springfield, but there is reason to hope that the era of sweetheart deals for coal plants may be ending. Power Holdings finally gave up on a similar project this summer after realizing the economics didn’t add up. Tenaska, the leader of the pack of out of state companies looking for a bailout from Illinois ratepayers, failed to get a vote this Spring for its own overpriced long-term contract, and has been coy about plans for the future.

Governor Quinn has long been a champion for creating jobs in clean energy sources and for protecting consumers from rate hikes. Those should be Illinois’ priorities going forward in maximizing the benefits of the clean energy economy for our state. Let’s hope Quinn’s action is a big step in that positive direction.

In the meantime, thanks, Governor for your leadership.

Add your name to our thank-you card to Governor Quinn here.

Southeast Side to Quinn: Veto Leucadia

Cheryl Johnson (far right) rallying against the proposed Leucadia plant on Chicago’s SE side.

My community of Altgelt Gardens is widely known as the “toxic doughnut.” We are surrounded by a ring of toxicity, including 50 documented landfills and 382 industrial facilities. Nearly two dozen of the region’s top polluters are within 8 miles of Altgeld Gardens and other neighborhoods on the Southeast side. Yet, there is legislation sitting on Governor’s Quinn’s passed in the final hours in Springfield creating a coal plant pushed by a New York company that would make matters worse. The Leucadia coal plant is an assault on environmental justice.

My name is Cheryl Johnson and I am a lifelong resident of the Chicago Southeast side community where the Leucadia plant would be built. I am the executive director of People for Community Recovery, an environmental justice organization founded by my mother Hazel Johnson, who is nationally recognized as the “mother of the environmental justice movement.”

My mother started an environmental justice movement here in Southeast Chicago after my father prematurely died of lung cancer. She used industry data and census figures to highlight how poor African-American and Latino neighborhoods throughout the nation are disproportionately affected by air and water pollution. One of her achievements includes getting the Chicago Housing Authority to clean up asbestos on its Altgeld Gardens property and even brought in a young community activist named Barack Obama to help. Perhaps you’ve heard of him?

The air we breathe on the Southeast side is over the legal limits for air pollution. Our neighborhood experiences some of the highest rate of respiratory ailments, cancer and lung disease in the country. More than one out of two children between ages of 6 and 15 years old have asthma on the Southeast side. As if that weren’t enough, Leucadia wants to add another polluting plant to our community.

We are tired of the environmental assault.

The site where Leucadia wants to build their polluting facility is two blocks from Washington High School, where 1,500 students sit and learn every day. The air monitor located on the roof of the school shows the neighborhood’s air already has the state’s highest levels of toxic chromium and cadmium, as well as sulfates, which can trigger asthma attacks. It also has some of the state’s highest levels of lung-damaging soot and brain-damaging lead.

What will the Governor and the state legislators say to the parents of these children who are struggling to breathe because of their severe asthma attacks triggered by the toxic air?

Bringing the dangerous Leucadia to our already struggling community is the worst idea I have ever heard. After Chicago recently made an historic commitment to clean air by retiring two existing coal plants located within the city limits, where is the logic in building a new one that would pollute the air we just cleaned? Would you mop the floor and then walk across it in muddy shoes?

We want jobs and we want industry that don’t pollute our neighborhoods and make our children sick.

Mr. Governor, last summer you approved legislation to create an environmental justice commission intended to address concerns about high asthma and cancer rates in low-income neighborhoods. You said, “Race, income or nationality should not determine the quality of the air one breathes or the water one drinks.”

Stand behind your words. Veto the Leucadia coal plant.

Cheryl Johnson is the Executive Director of People for Community Recovery

Join Cheryl. Tell Governor Quinn to veto Leucadia today!

Key Illinois River Valley Wildlife Corridor Saved from Coal Strip Mining

In a big win for Illinois citizens over corporate mining interests, more than 600 acres of predominantly Illinois River floodplain have been saved from becoming a coal strip mine. On July 19^th, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) denied a surface mining permit for the proposed Banner coal mine, which was slated for land located next to the village of Banner in Fulton County. The permit would have allowed strip mining on a triangle-shaped site adjoining Rice Lake State Fish and Wildlife Area, Illinois Route 24, which is part of the Illinois River Road National Scenic Byway, and Copperas Creek and the Banner Marsh State Fish and Wildlife Areas.

Proposed mine site is the flooded area outlined in red. In the background is the Illinois River.

Both Banner Marsh and Rice Lake, internationally recognized as Globally Important Bird Areas, are home to nesting osprey, a historic bald eagle roost, the federally-threatened Decurrent False Aster and habitat for the state-endangered short-eared owl. The proposed mining would have also threatened residents’ drinking water supplies and the structural integrity of the village of Banner’s sewage treatment plant, located at the apex of the triangle.

In 2007, knowing that the proposed mine was not in the best interest of the residents or the environment, local citizens, including members of Citizens for the Preservation of Banner Township and Save Rice Lake Area Association, and the Sierra Club filed for an administrative review of the mining permit. The Illinois Attorney General and her Environmental Bureau agreed with the concerns and joined these groups in challenging the proposed mine.

“I have to thank IDNR for denying this coal mine,” said Ken Fuller, Mayor of the Village of Banner. “The real person to thank, though, is the Illinois Attorney General who filed in this case on behalf of the environment and the people of Illinois. Banner could have lost its wells and water if the coal mine had happened. I was really scared. My town could have died.”

Impacts on the hydrology of the area, including the bordering Rice Lake State Fish and Wildlife Area, were key issues in citizen concerns and in documents filed by the Illinois Attorney General. Citizens commissioned Geo-Hydro, Inc. to prepare a hydrogeology study of the mine’s impacts because attention to the hydrological impacts in the mine permit application was so lacking.

“It should not have had to take so many years to decide this permit appeal,” commented John Grigsby, a local resident and key petitioner in the appeal. “Thank heavens for Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. Her office comprehended what was at stake with this strip mine permit and took action on behalf of the future of our river floodplain and for the good of the regular citizens like me.”

The Sierra Club hopes that IDNR’s final denial of this permit heralds a new chapter in how our state sites new mines.  We look forward to IDNR heeding concerns raised by ordinary citizens earlier in the review process—before permits are awarded. Our common goal, as illustrated by this permit denial, is to ensure our precious water resources, wildlife and its habitat, and communities are protected.

Illinois’ Coal Education Program Fails to Make the Grade

Illinois grade school teachers are gathered this week, June 19-22, at the Rend Lake Resort near Mt. Vernon, Illinois for the 15th Annual Coal Education Conference sponsored by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. Each year, IDCEO spends up to $70,000 for this all-expense-paid teachers’ retreat. While our children’s teachers deserve to be recognized for their dedication and hard work, this particular retreat is nothing more than a corporate ploy to advance the coal industry’s “clean coal” message through grade school lesson plans at taxpayer expense.

“From the Coal Mines to the Power Lines” classroom curriculum was developed through a partnership with corporate coal interests such as Knight Hawk Mining, Southern Illinois Power Coop and the Illinois Clean Coal Institute, with substantial help from state taxes Illinois citizens pay in utility bills. This educational charade contains scores of lessons carefully crafted by the coal industry, advertising coal as the fuel of the future, while cleverly avoiding any serious discussion of the documented economic, health and environmental effects related to the use of coal.

Children’s pro-coal artwork is used to create a calendar every year. Where’s the renewable energy and energy efficiency calendar?

The curriculum, designed to create a bias toward coal and away from sustainable, clean energy options, teaches our children to doubt that the combustion of fossil fuels has led to a warming climate, despite the fact that 97% of climate experts agree that humans burning fossil fuels is the cause of global warming. It teaches that environmental regulations will significantly raise the cost of producing electricity, when in fact when the full costs of coal are reflected in the market price, the cost of using coal over wind, geothermal, biomass and hydro is considerably higher.

The curriculum has the children creating advertisements for an industry that is responsible for nearly one-third of the carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, for devastating health effects caused by air pollution, and water pollution caused during every phase of coal’s life cycle.

Each of the nation’s 500 coal-fired power plants produces an average 240,000 tons of toxic waste each year. Coal-fired power plants are the number one source of man-made pollutants.

The curriculum fails to teach our children that coal-fired power plants are the number one source of man-made pollutants responsible for over 1,000 heart attacks, hundreds of premature deaths, and thousands of asthma attacks each year in Illinois. Asthma happens to be the number-one illness that causes kids to miss school.

The curriculum fails to teach our children that mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants is so severe that Illinois has adopted a fish consumption advisory that recommends that children and women of childbearing age limit their consumption of wild caught fish because of the risk of developmental problems in children.

Over 140 million tons of coal ash is produced in the United States every every year. Coal ash contains large quantities of toxic metals, including mercury, arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, nickel, and selenium.

The curriculum fails to teach our children about the impacts to Illinois surface waters from coal mining and coal combustion waste. In the last three years 34 coal mines (47%) in Illinois have been out of compliance with their permit for six months or more and 21 coal mines (29%) have been out of compliance with their permit for 12 months or more. At 24 coal combustion waste sites in Illinois, 22 of them have caused groundwater pollution.

Before coal is burned it goes through a washing process, which generates millions of gallons/day of coal slurry that typically contains elevated levels of pollution such as salts and heavy metals that can be harmful to fish, wildlife, livestock and of course humans. Constructed of coarse coal refuse, this impoundment at Shay I, a mine started in the early 1980s under Exxon Mobile, is typical of what a slurry impoundment looks like. Slurry impoundments typically leak toxins into surface and ground water.

Children are the population that is most vulnerable to the effects of coal pollution, now and into the future. Our children deserve to learn all the facts so they can be prepared for making informed decisions about their future energy choices. If our tax dollars are going to teach young people about coal, then let’s tell them the whole truth, not a one-sided, biased and self-serving story contrived for the benefit of Illinois economic interests and the coal industry.

Broad Coalition Urges Illinois House to Reject Tenaska’s Sweetheart Deal

Two dozen health, faith, farm, and environmental advocates joined with us this week to urge the Illinois House to reject a proposal to force Illinois ratepayers to subsidize the coal plant proposed by the Tenaska corporation. Twenty-five organizations signed the letter to Illinois lawmakers, a sign of new and growing opposition due to concerns about pollution from Tenaska’s plant and its very high cost.

“Creating a new electric plant that requires us to mine and burn more Illinois coal in communities already suffering from the effects of mining, while it places a long-term surcharge on the electricity costs for low-income people is not only poor policy, it is unjust,” said Rev. Dr. Clare Butterfield, Executive Director, Faith in Place and the Illinois Interfaith Power & Light Campaign, among the faith leaders joining opposition to Tenaska’s legislation.

Tenaska’s coal plant would emit up to 10 billion pounds of air pollution per year, according to the Illinois EPA. Concerns about the lack of guaranteed controls for most of this pollution has led to staunch opposition from environmental advocates.

“This plant would be an epic mess, one of the top-10 worst greenhouse gas producers in Illinois, the day it opens,” said Henry Henderson, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Midwest Program. “It undercuts all of the climate gains that have been made in the state and helps worsen one of the most vexing problems we all face. For a plant that is unneeded, it represents an especially big price that everyone will have to pay both in their electric bill and the health of the planet.”

In addition to global warming pollution, Tenaska’s plant would also generate increases in emissions that contribute to smog and particulate pollution, which is drawing opposition from public health advocates.

“Illinois added more wind turbines last year than any other state, and they are now providing electric power we need without triggering the asthma attacks, hospitalizations and premature deaths that coal power plant emissions cause. There are cleaner healthier ways to make electricity that don’t put our health in jeopardy and we shouldn’t be forced to subsidize a dangerous source of power we don’t need,” said Brian Urbaszewski, Director of Environmental Health Programs, Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago.

Tenaska has tried to sell lawmakers on its proposal to raise rates on consumers and businesses as support for “clean” coal. However, organizations working to address the devastating impacts coal mining on Illinois waterways and farmland note that there is nothing “clean” about coal mining and waste disposal.

“Here we have a plant being touted as ‘clean coal’ with no one asking what ‘clean’ really means. Is the ‘clean’ part the millions of pounds of dangerous solid waste produced from mining and washing coal for the plant? Could ‘clean’ refer to the wastewater from the mine site and power-generating plant that will be dumped in the Sangamon River, a drinking water supply for downstream communities? Or is it the hundreds of acres of Illinois farmland and streams being destroyed for this industrial facility that make this project so ‘clean’? This is a filthy project at every step: from coal mining to washing to burning to waste disposal,” said Traci Barkley Water Resources Scientist, Prairie Rivers Network.

Others are concerned about the impact of Tenaska’s project on Illinois farmland, and favor programs to utilize farmland to grow Illinois’ economy, rather than mine and dump coal waste on it.

“Instead of raising our electric rates to subsidize coal mining that will destroy Illinois farmland and further destroy Illinois farming communities, legislators should be promoting our local food economy, ” said Debbie Hillman of the Evanston Food Council. “We can create self-sustaining jobs and businesses in rural, urban, and suburban communities across the state if we work with the land and the stewards of the land — Illinois farmers — to sustain ourselves.”

Senate Bill 678, which would force Illinois consumers and businesses to buy all of Tenaska’s output for thirty years at above-market rates, passed the Illinois Senate last fall. The Illinois House is expected to take up the legislation later this month.

“As a student and as a young Chicagoan, I believe that Tenaska’s proposed coal gasification plant overlooks civic responsibility and sets a negative precedent for future generations. The power from the proposed plant can be created in safer, healthier, and more responsible way, and those are the solutions students are eager to support,” said Alicia Klepfler, a student at the University of Chicago and member of its Climate Action Network.

The letter is available here, and was signed by the following organizations:

Active Transportation Alliance
Canton Area Citizens for Environmental Issues
Chicago Youth Climate Coalition
Citizens Against Longwall Mining
Citizens Against Ruining the Environment
Citizens’ Greener Evanston
Eco-Justice Collaborative
Environment Illinois
Evanston Food Council
Faith in Place Highland Farmers Market
Incinerator-Free Lake County & Midwest Sustainability Group
League of Women Voters of Illinois
Little Village Environmental Justice Organization
Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
NEIS
Prairie Rivers Network
Protestants for the Common Good
Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago
Sierra Club
Southeast Environmental Task Force
Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation (SOUL)
Students for Environmental Action at School of the Art Institute Chicago
Truck Farm Chicago
University of Chicago Climate Action Network

Emanuel Delivers on Promise of Clean Energy For Chicago

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has taken two more big steps toward a clean energy future for Chicago. While many leaders talk about the urgency of transitioning to clean energy, Emanuel is acting, and making major changes that will deliver cleaner air and new jobs for Chicago in the near future.

First, Emanuel made a major break with the dirty energy of the past when he announced the closure of Chicago’s two coal-fired power plants, which operate without scrubbers in the Pilsen and Little Village neighborhoods. Residents in neighborhoods at the base of the smokestacks have for years sought to have the plants cleaned up or shut down, but made no progress under Mayor Richard Daley. Despite support from across the city for action against these health threats, Daley never showed interest in solving the problem, and an ordinance that would have required cleanup languished in the the City Council he controlled. Daley did a great deal to make Chicago cleaner and greener, but this is one problem he never took on in his quest to become the greenest city in America.

That all changed with the arrival of Emanuel. Emanuel talked during his campaign about the need to clean or close the coal plants, and upon taking office, set about to do just that. While support grew in the Council for a proposal by Ald. Joe Moore and Ald. Danny Solis to force pollution controls, Emanuel called in the owners of the plants and made it clear that the days of dirty coal in Chicago were numbered. He worked with the community, health, environmental, and labor organizations in the Chicago Clean Power Coalition to set a timetable and conditions for closing the plants, and on February 29th, sealed the deal. Midwest Generation’s Fisk plant, located across from Dvorak Park in Pilsen, will close by the end of this year, and their Crawford plant, in Little Village, will close no later than the end of 2014.

Moving beyond coal is a giant step for public health, but the transition to clean energy must be a two-step. Emanuel knows that clean energy solutions bring not only cleaner air, but also cost savings and the potential for thousands of new jobs. Most would agree with those goals, but current market barriers and economic problems have slowed the development of these technologies of the future. But how can we invest in the future when private capital is restricted by tight credit markets, and public dollars are scarce?

Emanuel seems to have devised a brilliant solution with the Chicago Infrastructure Trust. The Trust, which he launched with former President Clinton in Chicago March 1st, would leverage investment from participating lenders and investors in energy efficiency projects in Chicago. The investors would be paid a return based on the energy savings the public buildings will realize when retrofits are made. Emanuel plans to raise $200 million this way to retrofit public buildings in Chicago. Saving energy will create at least 2000 jobs doing the retrofits, and save an estimated $20 million on government energy bills per year.

The transition from coal to clean energy can be slow when powerful interests fight to protect the status quo. Unfortunately, that’s the role being played currently by the leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives. However, this week in Chicago two great leaps forward by Mayor Emanuel expedited the day when residents will be free of dirty coal power, and benefiting from the smart choices that will take its place.

In helping to announce the new energy efficiency spending, Clinton talked about Emanuel’s penchant for action over words:

“He was always concerned about how you can take an idea that was new and actually make it work. Talk is cheap in politics and business and life. Anybody can say anything. It’s quite another thing to turn your good intentions into real changes.”

These are real changes indeed, and they are real good for Chicago.

Stop the Swap–Go to Bat for the Bats

How ironic that during the Year of the Bat, the Shawnee National Forest would propose a land exchange in which the Forest Service would trade away a 384-acre tract of land with a known endangered bat species to Peabody Coal, Co. for a strip mine! An Indiana bat maternity roost was found on the parcel and the endangered gray bat was also detected there.

A diamond in the rough, the Gallatin County parcel is one of the Shawnee’s best-kept secrets. Located just a few miles south of Shawneetown on the Saline River, it takes only one visit to this beautiful piece of land to know that it is providing critical habitat in a part of the state that has seen more than its fair share of human disturbance.

“The single-most important factor that leads to endangerment and extinction of species– and the one the Forest Service has the greatest influence over—is the alteration and loss of habitats.” US Forest Service, Threatened, Endangered & Sensitive Species Program.

In the proposed exchange the Forest Service would trade a parcel of approximately 384 acres in size for three tracts of ALH land, which adjoin FS land in Pope and Jackson Counties.

The federal parcel is entirely forested with bottomland and upland hardwoods, including swamp chestnut oak, American elm, red maple, sweetgum, maple, ash, tulip tree and the Forest’s largest and highest quality cherrybark oaks. It’s rare to find such a diverse bottomland forest habitat within the Saline River watershed, which is constantly being bombarded with clearing, mining, ditching and draining. Canoeist and anglers enjoy recreating in this section of the Saline River, while hikers, bird watchers and hunters enjoy the beautiful woodland.

The natural wonders alone should be ample reason for the Forest Service to hang on to this parcel, but the discovery of federally-endangered Indiana and gray bats should stop the swap. This past summer, gray bats were detected and one Indiana bat maternity roost was found on the site and 2 more maternity sites were found on FS land very near by. These are the only known Indiana bat maternity roosts known on the eastern half of the Forest.

The proposed land swap is in complete violation of the Endangered Species Act. The Endangered Species Act requires the Forest Service to “use all methods and procedures which are necessary” to preserve endangered species. The Forest Service is required by law to give the highest priority to the protection and recovery of endangered species.

The Shawnee National Forest is seeking scoping comments on this proposal to swap land-for-land with American Land Holdings (ALH), a subsidiary of Peabody Coal, Co. Let your voice  be heard–take action here!

Illinois’ Experience Shows That Mercury Pollution Controls Work

Today’s historic announcement from the Obama Administration that it will require new pollution controls to limit the toxic chemicals coming out of coal plants across America is a huge victory for public health. More than 20 years after Congress required these controls, the President and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson are standing up to the special interests who have blocked action for so long to do the right thing for the health of our children.

The new pollution controls will save an estimated 11,000 lives per year, including 570 annually in Illinois. They will protect children’s developing brains and nervous systems from mercury and other neurotoxins. However, we know big coal and their allies will object, and their defenders in Congress will make all the usual false claims – that if we protect our kids’ health, that the lights will go out, electric bills will skyrocket, and life as we know it will grind to a halt.

Those claims aren’t new – polluters often react to calls to innovate with scare tactics and delay. In the end, of course, pollution controls always turn out to be cheaper than feared, and jobs are created in their design, installation, and operation.

In this case, here in Illinois, we’ve already proven them wrong. Coal plants in Illinois had to cut their mercury pollution by 90% (the same cut EPA is now calling for) back in 2009. Since then, the controls have been installed at plants across Illinois, and they are working as expected, or better, in reducing toxic mercury pollution:

“We’ve had a lot of success in Illinois; we’re very pleased,” said Laurel Kroack, chief of the Illinois EPA’s bureau of air. “A lot of (utilities) thought they would never get to 90 percent, but with a few tweaks, they got beyond it.”

Not only are the pollution controls working, electric rates have stayed the same, and are projected to decline in the near future, not increase. There has been no shortage of power as a result, in fact, Illinois produces more electricity than it consumes. Installing the controls has provided good jobs at a time when we needed them most.

Illinois leaders are welcoming the federal action. Governor Quinn said:

“High levels of mercury pose serious health risks, which is why we must do everything we can to ensure clean, healthy air for generations. I would like to thank President Obama and the USEPA for their mercury and air toxics standards rule.

“In Illinois, we have seen the benefits of enacting stringent requirements for reducing mercury emissions over the last several years. As a result, thousands of pounds of harmful mercury emissions have been kept out of our air. The President’s action will protect millions of Americans from these dangerous emissions just like we have been doing in Illinois.”

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said:

“I commend the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for introducing new standards to reduce levels of dangerous toxins in our air. Limiting emissions of mercury and other pollutants from coal and oil-fired power plants will save thousands of lives, protect public health, and create jobs for Americans. Our experience in Illinois has shown that mercury emissions can be dramatically reduced without any impact on reliability, cost, or quality of service. We must continue to clean our air and clean up this industry across the country, to create opportunities for Americans and allow all Americans to lead healthier lives.”

As the President said, “today is a good day”, and in more ways than one. It’s certainly a good day for the country, but especially for all of us in Illinois who feel like we’re due for being first at something really good for a change.

Join me in thanking President Obama here.