West Virginia Highlands Voice

http://www.frackcheckwv.net/2012/02/02/money-needed-to-maintain-the-roads-for-heavy-trucks/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+frackcheckwv+%28Frack+Check+WV+%29

by Duane Nichols on February 2, 2012

The state Division of Highways is monitoring road damage resulting from gas drilling operations to ensure companies make repairs. Increased traffic on state and county roads is due to the Marcellus shale development activities, in addition to coal and logging trucks.  The operations require huge, heavy vehicles carrying water, sand and equipment. District 6 engineer and acting manager Dan Sikora said that roads in the Northern Panhandle weren’t designed for such heavy traffic, and some smaller back roads “are just gone.” Often, when a drilling job was completed, “there wouldn’t be anything left,” he said. “It’s bad. It just got ahead of us. Nobody saw this coming.”

Read more….

http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/2012/01/18/breaking-patriot-agrees-to-huge-selenium-cleanup/

Breaking: Patriot agrees to huge selenium cleanup
January 18, 2012 by Ken Ward Jr.

Photo by Vivian Stockman, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition

In federal court down in Huntington, attorneys for the Sierra Club and other groups have just filed copies of a major lawsuit settlement that insiders are saying could require Patriot Coal to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to treat selenium pollution from three of the company’s major mountaintop removal mining complexes here in West Virginia.
The deal will require Patriot to build and operate new treatment systems for 43 water discharge outfalls on 10 different permits — far more than 14 outlets covered in a previous deal with Alpha Natural Resources or the five outfalls included in a settlement with Arch Coal

Read more…

Read press release

Read final settlement

http://www.linktv.org/video/6258/fracking-hell-the-untold-story?ef

Researchers have developed what they claim is a new way to reduce the amount of bats killed by flying into wind turbines.

By Donald S. Garvin, Jr., Legislative Coordinator, West Virginia Environmental Council

After more than three years of false starts, the West Virginia Legislature last month finally passed a bill regulating the drilling of Marcellus shale gas wells in West Virginia.

The final version of the legislation – HB 401 – virtually assures that streams will be muddied and private water wells and springs that provide drinking water in rural areas will be contaminated by horizontal drilling operations.

HB 401 was passed on Dec. 14, 2011, and signed by Governor Earl Ray Tomblin on Dec. 22, 2011, following a four-day “Extraordinary” Session called by the Governor.

The Governor “called” the special session after the Legislature’s Select Committee on Marcellus Shale Drilling reported out a bill at the end of the November Legislative Interim meetings.

The bill considered by the Legislature in the special session was a version of the Select Committee bill that was “tweaked” by the Governor to remove some of the industry’s objections to the bill. The Governor then lobbied leadership in both the House and Senate to accept his version of the bill.

While the final bill approved by the Legislature was weaker in several important ways from the Select Committee bill, it also contains some minimum provisions that will help protect the environment and surface owners from horizontal drilling operations.

So, what’s in the bill finally passed by the Legislature? Here’s a partial summary:

? Inspectors: The only sections of the new legislation that apply to the drilling of all oil and gas wells are the sections on DEP oil and gas inspectors. The Oil and Gas Inspector’s Examining Board (which was virtually controlled by the industry) is eliminated, and replaced with a system of civil service employees, similar to how other DEP inspectors are hired.

New inspectors must still have at least two years’ work experience in the oil and gas industry, provided that one year of the experience requirement may be satisfied by a relevant college degree or actual relevant environmental experience. This keeps the fox in charge of the hen house.

Salary levels for oil and gas inspectors are set at not less than $35,000 per year, and not less than $40,000 per year for supervising oil and gas inspectors.

The new permit fees for drilling horizontal wells will enable the Office of Oil and Gas to hire approximately 17 additional employees, including 9 new inspectors, basically doubling the current staff size.

• New Article §22-6A — Natural Gas Horizontal Well Control Act: The bill establishes a new code section that applies “to any natural gas well . . . drilled using a horizontal drilling method, and which disturbs three acres or more of surface, excluding pipelines, gathering lines and roads, or utilizes more than two hundred ten thousand gallons of water in any thirty day period.”

The bill grandfathers in existing or pending horizontal well drilling permits. It does not apply to horizontal wells that disturb less acreage or use less water. It also does not apply to vertical Marcellus shale gas wells that might disturb three acres or more of surface or utilize more than two hundred ten thousand gallons of water.

• Legislative Findings: The “legislative findings” section of the new Act sets the tone for the permissive nature of the new legislation. For example, it states that the DEP Secretary “should have broad authority to condition” drilling permits in order to protect the safety of persons, prevent damage to publicly owned lands or resources, and to otherwise protect the environment. But it also states that the Secretary “should also have broad authority to waive certain minimum requirements” of the bill. The bill provides that the Secretary must submit annually a written report to the Legislature detailing the number of waivers granted. Similar permissive language exists throughout the bill, saying the “the Secretary may”, instead of “the Secretary shall.”

• Authority to Regulate and Propose Rules: The bill gives the DEP authority to propose necessary legislative rules to implement the provisions of the bill, and states that the Secretary “has sole and exclusive authority to regulate the permitting, location, spacing, drilling, fracturing, stimulation, well completion activities, operation, any and all other drilling and production processes, plugging and reclamation of oil and gas wells and production operations within the state.” This language is obviously aimed at preventing local authorities from attempting to regulate drilling operations. The bill also requires the Secretary to make a monthly written report to the Governor on how long it takes to issue drilling permits (an obvious industry provision).

• Drilling Permit Applications: Among other things, the bill requires every permit application to include: an erosion and sediment control plan certified by a registered professional engineer; a site construction plan certified by a registered professional engineer; and a well site safety plan (with a copy provided to the emergency planning district in which the well work will occur at least seven days before commencement of well work).

In addition, “if the drilling, fracturing or stimulating of the horizontal well requires the use of water obtained by withdrawals from waters of this state in amounts that exceed two hundred ten thousand gallons during any thirty day period,” the permit application must include a water management plan. The water management plan provisions are basically the same as those spelled out in DEP’s Emergency Rule. The provisions in the bill do NOT require an operator to obtain an actual water withdrawal permit.

• Ability to Deny or Condition Permits: The bill says, “The permit may not be issued, or may be conditioned” if the Secretary determines that: the proposed well work will constitute a hazard to the safety of persons; the plan for soil erosion and sediment control is not adequate; damage would occur to publicly owned lands or resources; or the proposed well work fails to protect fresh water sources or supplies.

• Public Notice and Comment Period: The bill provides for public notice and a 30-day public comment period for each horizontal well drilling permit application. The Governor had removed this provision from the bill, but it was restored by a Senate amendment. However, the provision in the Select Committee bill to allow the Secretary of DEP to hold a public hearing on permit applications was removed from the bill. The bill also requires the DEP to develop a public web site containing detailed information on horizontal well drilling permits.

• Drilling Permit Fees: The bill sets drilling application permit fees at $10,000 for the initial horizontal well drilled at a location and $5,000 for each additional horizontal well drilled on a single well pad at the same location.

• Performance Bonds: The bill establishes a $50,000 individual well bond to accompany the drilling permit. Unfortunately, it still provides for a $250,000 “blanket” bond to cover a producer’s wells, which is totally inadequate to provide for reclamation of all those wells in the event a producer abandons its operations.

• Drill Cuttings and Drilling Pits: For horizontal wells, drill cuttings, drilling mud, and drilling pits must be disposed of in an approved solid waste facility and can no longer be buried on site without the landowner’s permission. This does not apply to conventional shallow wells, and does not address the legacy pollution problems caused by leaking pits that are allowed to be buried on site.

? Well Location Restrictions:

Horizontal wells may not be drilled within two hundred fifty feet from any existing water well or developed spring used for human or domestic animal consumption. The center of well pads may not be located within six hundred twenty-five feet of an occupied dwelling or a building two thousand five hundred square feet or larger used to house or shelter dairy cattle or poultry husbandry. These limitations may be waived by written consent of the surface owner, and the Secretary may grant the operator a variance to these provisions. No well pad may be prepared or well drilled within one hundred feet measured horizontally from any perennial stream, natural or artificial lake, pond or reservoir, or a wetland, or within three hundred feet of a naturally reproducing trout stream. No well pad may be located within one thousand feet of a surface or ground water intake of a public water supply.

Almost all of the distance restrictions provided in this bill are weaker than those provided in the Select Committee bill. Because the distances are weakened and exclude pipelines and well roads from these setbacks, the bill virtually assures that streams will be muddied and private water wells and springs that provide drinking water in rural areas will be contaminated by horizontal drilling operations.

The bill removed an entire amendment from the Select Committee bill that provided the Secretary the additional authority to deny or condition drilling permits based on a variety of other circumstances.

• Noise, Light, Dust and VolatileOrganic Compounds Amendment: The bill includes a House amendment requiring DEP to study the impacts of noise, light, dust and volatile organic compounds generated by the drilling of horizontal wells as they relate to the well location restrictions from occupied houses, and gives DEP the to propose additional legislative rules based on the study.

• Casing and Cement Standards: While the bill contains some minimum casing and cementing standards, it removes more than 20 pages of standards included in the Select Committee bill, and authorizes DEP to promulgate additional standards by rule.

• Drilling in Karst: The bill provides that the Secretary “may require additional safeguards to protect” karst geological formations and the groundwater in those formations.

The bill requires the Secretary, in consultation with the state geologist, to propose emergency and legislative rules to establish designated geographic regions of the state that include “naturally occurring karst terrain” and to establish standards for drilling horizontal wells in those regions. The bill requires that such rules require “at a minimum” that operators perform pre-drilling testing “to identify the location of caves and other voids, faults and relevant features in the strata and the location of surface features prevalent in naturally occurring karst terrain such as sink holes”, and “may include baseline water testing within an established distance from a drilling site.” The bill’s language specifically states that nothing in the bill “allows the department to prevent drilling in naturally occurring karst terrain.”

• Air Quality Regulation: The bill removed the provisions in the Select Committee bill requiring DEP to regulate air emissions at drilling sites and other natural gas operations. Instead, the bill requires DEP to study air quality issues, including possible health impacts, and to promulgate legislative rules if “necessary.”

• Impoundment and Pit Study: The bill requires DEP to conduct a study of impoundment and pit safety, including the presence of radioactivity from naturally occurring radioactive materials, and to promulgate legislative rules if “necessary.”

There are many other provisions of this complex legislation, including important provisions for surface owners, which I have not detailed here. There were also many provisions that WVEC and our expanded coalition of organizations concerned about Marcellus shale drilling felt should be included in the bill, but were not.

Lawmakers in both the House and Senate called the bill “a good first step,” but acknowledged that there is more work to do.

Whether or not legislators will “have the stomach” to revisit the bill in the upcoming legislative session is, of course, the big question.

KEEP ME IN THE DARK

By Cynthia D. Ellis

Sam, the fellow who cuts my hair wants one. He wants the solar soccer ball that I pointed out to him. Sam came here to the U.S. from Syria and returns annually when possible. After one trip he mentioned the limited opportunities for villagers in his home area due to lack of reliable sources of light. Remembering that, I noticed a prototype soccer ball with a flexible solar panel. Kicking the ball enough times during the day could allow the kicker to attach the ball’s panel to a small light or even a laptop computer.

West Virginians don’t want lights. That is, they don’t want certain ones. Poll results—released by the Department of Highways in December—showed that a large majority of respondents do not want a display of animated lights on the New River Gorge Bridge. Most of these voters felt the proposed light system, and accompanying new overlook, were not worthy of the expense. One commenter, responding to a blog on the issue, said, “Why does it need lights? We all know where it is.” Secondly, poll takers expressed concern for the area’s natural beauty. In a separate but similar newspaper poll from Fairmont, 40% of participants wanted to protect the natural beauty of the New River and the Gorge. This notion of protection and preservation apparently extends even to the beauties of this area in the unlit night.

The idea of fighting light pollution and preserving dark skies is one that continues to gain attention. Earlier in The Highlands Voice, in 2008, Hugh Rogers wrote of the International Dark-Sky Association http://www.darksky.org/ and of the assorted drawbacks of excessive lighting. Hugh noted that these include the wasting of electricity, the damage to human health, the bogus safety element, the disruption of habitats and lives of creatures, and the elimination of the pleasures of night sky viewing. These issues and more are being taken up by individuals and groups all over the country and the world. Many locations have become Dark Sky Communities, with pledges and actions to remedy light pollution. In the UK, excessive light can be designated a “Statutory Nuisance.” In this country, plans are being made for the annual observance of Earth Hour www.earthhour.org at 8:30 pm on Saturday, March 31, 2012.

Such measures are in response to continuing indications of the importance of regular passages of daylight and dark to living organisms. Hugh mentioned the deprivation of melatonin which could be linked to breast cancer; some studies also show links, from lack of a full complement of darkness, to seasonal affective disorder, bipolar disorder, and depression. In animals, dark skies help in processes of social behavior, foraging, and breeding.

“Lights kill birds” are words that have been in headlines in recent months. Sometimes the bird deaths happen in ways that are not obvious. Most well known now are the incidences in which migratory birds become confused and trapped in the illuminated dome-like phenomenon associated with some lighted structures on some foggy nights. Less publicized are the effects of excessive lighting on insects, which serve as prey and offer sustenance for birds [and bats, lizards, and frogs]. Dead insects found beneath a single porch light can serve as an illustration of the number of deaths involved when the array of lights is greater.

Peregrine Falcons have been introduced into the New River Gorge canyon. It would be ironic if lights here caused them trouble or harm, because a number of the young birds were transported from bridges in the region of the Chesapeake Bay. The theory was that the birds would have a greater chance for survival in the quieter, darker hills of West Virginia.

Powering up the proposed lights could be controversial too. Alternate energy could have been, but was not part of the proposal. There seemed to have been no thought given to using solar, wind, or even hamster generators [to use one of our editor's examples].

There is some irony in a statement from the Middle East too, where soccer balls could provide a little light. My friend Sam’s family wishes to have lights, to read and study, and to be freer from the limits of natural dark. But one Dark Sky story reports that American soldiers in Afghanistan enjoy the novelty of a full canopy of starry skies there, something few see at home. Perhaps this points to the need for balance without excess and, at the least, preservation for some places.

So, after the poll, the WV DOH officials almost, but not quite declared the project dead. However, this publicity could enliven some other efforts. Groups and individuals, interested in saving the Bridge area and other places may be inspired to begin their education on the value of Dark Skies. Fayetteville, Oakhill, and elsewhere could investigate Dark Sky designations and Lights Out programs http://lightsout.audubon.org/ .

At any rate, many of us will continue to resist the efforts to banish the dark, with its attendant moon and stars, especially in the mountains, and will instead, cherish it.wherever and whenever we can.

By Cindy Rank

We ended the 2011 year with positive news about the outcome of one of our lawsuits against mining companies to force the cleanup of pollution being discharged from a variety of minesites. [See front page December 2011 Voice story about the FOLA/Consol agreement.]

It seems only fitting that we begin the new year with another upbeat story focused on another similarly positive agreement, this time with Alpha Natural Resources (the company that bought Massey Energy not so many months ago).

The Alpha Consent Decree was filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia in Huntington WV on December 12, 2011.

The earlier FOLA agreement required treating pollution from mines in the Twentymile Creek area of the Gauley River. This more recent agreement with Alpha Natural Resources requires the company to clean up discharges at some 14 outlets at three large mining complexes along mountain ridges in Logan, Boone, Kanawha and Fayette Counties of West Virginia. The discharges impact major tributaries that are part of the Coal, Kanawha and Gauley River watersheds.

In this latter settlement selenium is the culprit and Alpha will pay some $4.5 million in penalties as well as design and install treatment systems that will likely cost another $50 million.

The agreement sets forth specific requirements, timeframes and schedules for Alpha to come into compliance with state and federal Clean Water and Surface Mine Acts. Compliance monitoring and reporting with be overseen by Special Masters (an Engineering Master to monitor the design and construction of treatment systems, and a Biology/Aquatic Ecology Master to monitor the quality and stream life of the receiving streams), reviewed by our competent legal team and finally enforceable by the court itself.

Since the litigation was brought pursuant to citizen suit provisions of federal law, the U.S. government will have an opportunity to review the settlement before its terms take effect. Some $450,000.00 of penalties will go to the federal government and some $4,050,000.00 will go to the West Virginia Land Trust (WVLT) for a Supplemental Environmental Project to restore riparian areas and preserve land within the watersheds impacted.

The WVLT is already working in close partnership with the West Virginia College of Law’s Center for Energy and Sustainable Development(CESD) under a previous Supplemental Environmental Project (SEP) brought about in a separate Civil Action to develop a Riparian Area Preservation Project in the Coal, Elk and Gauley River watersheds.

The two organizations are working collaboratively to identify properties with ecological significance, including riparian areas, in the watersheds affected by the discharges at issue and to preserve these lands by accepting donated conservation easements or through the purchase of easements or land in fee.

Under the terms of this current SEP project, the West Virginia Land Trust will continue this work, add the Kanawha River Watershed to the scope of activity, and at the same time, increase its organizational infrastructure to strengthen its ability to work statewide and significantly increase the number of acres that can be preserved annually.

POSTSCRIPT

And, in case readers think I’ve gone all soft and gooey eyed with the coming of the new year, allow me a few words of negativity.

Over the past thirty plus years I’ve been to most of the minesites and visited the area streams that are frequently involved in our legal challenges, and I can’t end this article without offering two final gestures.

1) A grateful nod to our legal team headed by the folks at Appalachian Mountain Advocates (previously known as the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment) and Public Justice and others who continue to assist us through the legal and technical morass of mine permits. And to members of WV Highlands Conservancy and our ever faithful co-plaintiffs the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Coal River Mountain Watch and the Sierra Club, many of whom face challenges of a more personal and debilitating nature every day of living near today’s monster strip mines.

And 2) a moment of sober sadness which washes over me every time I sit with my topo maps and Gazetteer to make sense of the senselessness represented by the multitude of permits that should never have been granted in the first place.

As for the water pollution, we’ve been down this path with Acid Mine Drainage in the not so distant past and it’s painful to argue against permits that will inevitably result in further pollution of our irreplaceable headwater streams (not to mention the destruction of thousands of acres of hardwood forests and the people and generations old communities that once populated the hills and hollows) only to see those permits granted one after the other. The long term costs will be astronomical.

To see on the WV Department of Environmental Protection’s GIS mapping website the mass of permits that almost seamlessly blanket a wide swath of West Virginia from Mingo and McDowell Counties to Webster, Clay and Nicholas further north.

The picture is even more frightening than the one we carried to Judge Haden back in 1998.

Happy New Year.

By Beth Little

At a special Pocahontas County Commission meeting on November 17, someone accused the county commission or the hydrogeologist (it wasn’t clear who was being accused) of using scare tactics. The hydrogeologist was Paul Rubin, who gave a presentation on the dangers of drilling and fracking in karst, which is the limestone cave geology underlying much of Pocahontas County.

Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake, said, “Natural gas prices, if they went through the roof, because they couldn’t extract shale gas in this country, then 70% of American homes on natural gas heat will be cold; 35% of American homes, businesses and factories that use electricity from natural gas will be dark; and crops that require natural gas fertilizer will not be grown.” (Talk about scare tactics!) McClendon refers to opponents of fracking as environmental zealots or “fractivists.”

This is a tactic to support the argument about continuing the advancement of drilling for natural gas with “fracking” (horizontal hydraulic fracturing) in the Marcellus shale and other shale plays around the country. The argument goes on with assertions that shale gas is cheap and abundant, and the Pickens plan calls for the mass conversion of power plants and truck fleets to natural gas. T Boone Pickens is on TV frequently touting this plan, and the rest of the time he is in Congressional offices lobbying Congress to support it. The idea is that since shale gas is a domestic resource, we will be able to free ourselves from dependence on foreign oil and the threat of international terrorism. (More scare tactics)

But here are some background facts that put this argument in question.

At present, natural gas is trading at about $4 per thousand cubic feet. That is cheap. Arthur Berman, a Houston-based Geoscientist who is a consultant to the gas industry, says that a well head price of over $7 per thousand cubic feet is needed for shale gas drillers to make a profit. The price in 2005 to 2008, when the Marcellus shale gas play took off, peaked at over $12, but the drilling frenzy has created an oversupply, and the price has gone through the floor.

So why are operators continuing to drill? The traditional approach to low prices for the industry has been to shut in wells. But the new technology is expensive, and operators have had to borrow heavily. With all the hype, Wall Street has been happy to comply, but shale wells are depleting so quickly that wells have to be drilled continuously to maintain cash flow. Given the very heavy debt burdens of many shale gas operators, drilling is the only way to meet debt service. Financial analysts and journalists began referring to this in late 2009 early 2010 as a drilling treadmill they couldn’t get off.

The quick depletion of shale wells refers to the fact that the supply of shale gas drops steeply after the first year or two of production. Even refracking the wells doesn’t help much. Tax revenues also drop. An excellent example of this can be seen by examining the audited accounts of the the city of Fort Worth, which is in the Barnett shale play. In 2008 the city received approximately 50 million in revenues from gas. This dropped precipitously in 2009 to about 19 million.

There is also a question about the claims of abundance, since shale gas is replacing the production of conventional natural gas, which is declining sharply, but that would take more space, and this is already long. (All this data comes from industry or government sources, which I will be glad to provide if anyone contacts me – blittle@citynet.net).

Meanwhile, gas industry lobbyists have been going to Washington and asking to convert six LNG (liquid natural gas) import terminals (see map) to export terminals, and they have received the first permit for an export terminal at Sabine Pass, Louisiana. In the past, the US has been a net importer of natural gas. (Some of the land for the import terminals was acquired by eminent domain, which is legal for importing LNG, but not for exporting, so there is a legal question here that may be challenged).

The move to exportation is because of the price in Asian markets. Natural gas in Asia is indexed to the price of crude oil. While gas trades here for around $4, it’s trading at $12 to $15 in Asia. So operators can extract, pipe, refine and ship to Asia for about $9, and sell their product for a very nice profit. The Oil & Gas Financial Journal says, “The Chinese are willing to pay a premium to secure North American resources necessary to feed the growing Asian economy.” If you have kept up with shale plays at all in the news you’ll note that quite a number of joint ventures have been done with the Chinese, the Indians, the Australians and others (see map again).

Let’s say shale operators convince Congress to legislate the Pickens plan, and we begin mass conversion of power plants and truck fleets to natural gas. We now become much more dependent on natural gas because we think, because we have been told, it is a cheap and abundant source of energy. In the meantime, gas operators begin to export American natural gas to Asian countries to grow their economy. So the gas industry is now being paid handsomely for that gas, much more than can be paid in America. So the domestic prices are inevitably going to rise, and operators will be making money hand over fist.

But what about the American consumer, who, thanks to the genius of Congress, has converted your electricity to be dependent on natural gas. Plastics manufacturers are right now ramping up production because they claim natural gas is a cheap and abundant source, so they are going to use it as feed stock for plastics and bring jobs back to the US. (How many of you caught the story about how WV legislators are upset that Chesapeake signed a contract to pipe gas to Louisiana instead of a cracker plant in WV)? Truck fleets will be dependent on natural gas to supply inventory around the country, only now, natural gas prices have gone through the roof due to exportation and Asian demand.

So Aubrey McClendon’s prediction may come true BECAUSE of the shale boom.

Nobody knows for sure what could happen with shale gas drilling – how much water will be contaminated or whether our homes will be cold and dark – because the future is always uncertain. But the shaky financial picture on top of the frantic rush to drill raises the question: Is this really the highest and best use of our beautiful West Virginia land (and water and air)?

Link to map of foreign Investments

Note: This article previously appeared in Mountain State Sierran.

By Daniel J. Weiss and Jackie Weidman

We are a week away from the December 16th deadline for the Obama Administration to issue its final toxic air pollution reduction rules for coal fired power plants. This comes more than two decades after President George H.W. Bush signed this public health protection into law as part of the Clean Air Act of 1990.

There is escalating pressure from dirty utilities and coal companies to weaken or delay the pollution reduction standards even though they support from other companies. Six coalitions representing 125,000 businesses, ranging from Fortune 500 companies to small businesses, sent a letter to President Obama strongly supporting a timely promulgation and implementation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s rules. Led by Ceres and the Small Business Majority, urge that caving to the polluters’ demands would jeopardize much needed jobs and postpone innovation and investment. These diverse businesses emphasize that “the Clean Air Act yields substantial benefits to the economy and to business, and that these benefits consistently outweigh the costs of pollution reductions.”

These pollution reductions are long overdue. The dirtiest power plants in the U.S. account for a disproportionately large amount of toxic pollutants, according to an analysis by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) released on December 7th. The report concludes that coal fired power plants in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky and Texas have the most toxic emissions.

Ilan Levin, associate director of Environmental Integrity Project, said

“The only thing more shocking than the large amounts of toxic chemicals released into the air each year . is the fact that these emissions have been allowed for so many years. There is no reason for Americans to continue to live with unnecessary risks to their health and to the environment. “

These rules will remove millions of pounds of mercury, lead, arsenic and other dangerous pollutants from coal plants, preventing 17,000 premature deaths annually. Although EPA estimates that it will cost utilities $10.9 billion to clean up, it will save at least $59 billion in fewer premature deaths, lower health care costs, and fewer absences from work or school. Despite these benefits, the companies most affected by the rules- with the dirtiest power plants – and their allies are launching a serious rear guard action to weaken or delay these reductions.

Anti-pollution control forces have encouraged their allies to advocate on their behalf. For instance, an editorial by Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal from December 6th misleadingly diminished EPA’s benefit projections for the rules.

Siding with dirty utilities, the editorial inaccurately interpreted the EPA’s Regulatory Impact Analysis from March by claiming that societal benefits from mercury reductions “max out at $6.1 million.” These numbers isolate a specific section of the analysis rather than looking at the entire benefit-cost projections. The figure by the Journal only refers to benefits from “exposure among recreation freshwater anglers.” In other words, the figure applies to recreational anglers, and clearly represents a very small portion of the overall health benefits.

On the contrary, EPA projects:

“Annual monetized benefits of $58 to 140 billion (3 percent discount rate) or $52 to 130 billion (7 percent discount rate) are expected for the proposed Toxics rule in 2016.”

Benefits detailed in the report are due to decreased health costs from current health ailments the public currently faces because of mercury pollution. They include neurological problems, cardiovascular impacts, chromosomal damage, and immunologic effects, among others.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology just released a report on December 5th, which is the latest in a long line of energy assessments that determine the air toxics rule will have little or no impact on reliability. Study co-director Richard Schmalensee, said that, most importantly, the U.S. power grid is definitely not “on the brink of widespread failure.” Furthermore, the study shows that our electric grid “could handle expected influx of electric cars and wind and solar generation.”

Kentucky Power announced on December 6th a $1 billion pollution control retrofit for one of its generation units of the Big Sandy Power Plant. Greg Pauley, president and chief operation officer of Kentucky Power stated the improvement, aligned with EPA rules, is “in the best interested of [its] communities overall, and will permit job retention, [and] a significant contribution to the tax base.”

Those who blame EPA regulations for coal plant closures both ignore unassociated reasons for shutting down, and exaggerate the impact closures will have on the U.S. electric grid.

The plants that are scheduled to retire account for just 5 percent of total coal-fired generation from 2010, and have lower than average capacity factor compared to all coal plants.

Source: the Analysis Group Fall 2011 Update

Unused capacity in natural gas plants is likely to offset coal plant closures as wholesale electricity prices from gas plants are decreasing, the U.S. Energy Information Administration concluded last year.

Constellation Energy is an example of a utility that succeeded in economically retrofitting its facilities to reduce toxic pollution. Its Brandon Shores plant spewed the most hazardous materials of any U.S. power plant back in 2008. But Constellation invested in clean pollution control to create one of the cleanest coal-burning power plants in the country. It met the Maryland pollution-control deadline “without a hiccup in delivering electricity.”

Paul Allen, Constellation’s chief environmental officer, assures other utilities that “it’s entirely possible to comply with these rules and remain a profitable company.” Active construction took just 26 months, employing 1,400 skilled construction workers. Constellation emphasizes that reliability was not compromised while constructing retrofits and that other utilities can do the same through proper planning and scheduling maintenance during non-peak hours.

Constellation is urging the White House to reject pleas from dirty utilities who claim they can’t do the same by the 2015 deadline for air toxics reductions.

All of these analyses from different sources have one finding in common: they agree that cleaning up the nation’s dirtiest coal plants can be accomplished without threatening electricity reliability. As the December 16 deadline approaches, there is a growing body of evidence that protecting our children’s health from mercury and other toxic pollutants from dirty power plants is possible without turning the lights off.

- Daniel J. Weiss is a Senior Fellow and the Director of Climate Strategy and Jackie Weidman is a Special Assistant at the Center for American Progress.

Editor’s Note:

In December, 2011, the United States Environmental Protection Agency made final rules controlling emissions of mercury and other toxic substances from coal fired power plants.

Since then, the news reports have largely repeated industry arguments that these rules will result in lost jobs, higher rates for electricity, closure of power plants, the end of the world as we know it, etc.

Largely missing from the coverage has been the other side of the argument.

Regulation is about cost shifting. As practiced up to now, before the new rules, the cost of electricity has been its dollars and cents cost to the consumers plus several thousands deaths a year of anonymous people who had the bad luck to live downwind from wherever the coal was being burned (Coal, of course, has other costs such as lost mountains, dead and injured miners, foul water, etc. but the focus of these rules is mercury and other toxics.)

The regulations shift these costs. Instead of part of the cost of electricity being borne by these anonymous people downwind, that cost will be borne by the power companies and, to some extent, the customers who use the electricity. Instead of thousands of people paying for the electricity with their health, the power companies will have to spend their money to remove mercury and other toxic substances.

The omission from most press coverage of the new regulations has been the benefit to those downwind of mercury emitting power plants. The stories have focused on the burden to the power companies as the costs have been shifted from the breathers to the companies. A more balanced approach would include not only the burden shifted onto the companies but also the burden lifted from those who have been subsidizing electricity production by giving up their health.

This story offers some of that balance. It is from a blog entry that appears at

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/12/08/385329/epamercury-rules/. To see the entry as well as discussion it produced, stop by that site.