Monday, February 14, 2011

Tell Obama and the EPA We Need Clean Air Regulations to Protect Us From Coal Fired Power Plants


Sierra Club - Explore, enjoy and protect the planet

Coal asthma


Tell Obama and the EPA We Need Clean Air Regulations to Protect Our Communities From Power plants
Did you catch President Obama's State of the Union address?

The President discussed a bold plan that stresses American innovation to create clean energy jobs and put Americans back to work. We're excited about the President's forward vision - but Republicans are already looking to roll back environmental protections that will hurt our economy and make our families sick.  

I wish I were exaggerating, but just yesterday Newt Gingrich announced that the EPA should be abolished.1 Really.

Sign our petition to demand Obama stand up for our health against Republican attacks! 

The Sierra Club is launching a massive grassroots blizzard with powerful activities all across the country aimed at reminding the new Congress and Obama Administration that they need to keep standing up for the health and protection of our families, not Big Oil and Coal polluters.

Our first step is to to hand-deliver 100,000 signatures to the White House to stress that the nation's physical and economic well-being depends on passing and enforcing strong environmental standards to protect our health and our economy. Together, we can turn back the tide!
Please add your name to the petition to protect our health from pollution!
Big Coal and Big Oil are working with their allies in Congress to eviscerate our health safeguards - this  is a real and urgent threat to each and every one of us.  As EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has pointed out, making polluters clean up their act during the past 40 years not only saved millions of American lives, but also has added trillions of dollars to our economy.2  
Yet Rep. Carter (R-TX) has already gotten the demolition ball rolling by attempting to use an obscure procedure called the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to shutdown the EPA's finalized standards to control extremely toxic air emissions from cement plants. 
This one obscure rule alone is a big deal for the health of everyone you care about. Cement plants are the third largest emitter of dangerous, mercury pollution.  The new EPA standards will prevent up to 2,500 premature deaths a year along with 130,000 days of work missed due to pollution related health problems. Imagine cutting more rules like this.  It's a stark choice.  We know Carter and his friends have decided to stand with corporate greed. Let's make sure that Obama stands with us. 
Next year's State of the Union can be the story of how we beat back polluters to defend our health.

Tell Your Legislator to Support HB 237 to Protect Our Communites and Rivers From Coal Ash



Debra Walker and Granddaughter Lilly Want You to Protect Them From Coal Ash



Right now coal ash is inadequately regulated in the state of KY. Many of the coal ash containments around our state are leaking toxic chemicals into our water.
In fact, residents living near the containments are at an increased risk of cancer and respiratory illnesses.
State Representative Joni Jenkins of Louisville has introduced a bill, HB237, to increase safety standards at KY coal ash containments but the bill is unlikely to get a hearing.
Representative Jenkins' bill would require power plants to have emergency plans in place in case of a coal ash spill like the one in Kingston, TN in 2008 that sent 1.1 billion gallons of coal ash sludge barrelling through the community, destroying homes and covering 300 acres.
The bill would also require new coal ash containments to put in place state of the art liners to prevent any more toxic chemicals from seeping into our water. 
Thanks for all you do to protect Kentucky's environment!

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Hexavalent chromium in Louisville KY tap water

Coal ash waste contains hexavalent chromium
February 1, 2011
Washington, D.C. —
Just weeks after recent headlines about hexavalent chromium, a cancer-causing toxic chemical, contaminated drinking water systems around the U.S., a new report shows that scores of leaking coal ash sites across the country are additional documented sites for such contamination.
Hexavalent chromium first made headlines after Erin Brockovich sued Pacific Gas & Electric because of poisoned drinking water from hexavalent chromium. Now, new information indicates that the chemical leaks readily from leaking coal ash dump sites maintained for coal-fired power plants.
Public interest law firm Earthjustice, Physicians for Social Responsibility and Environmental Integrity Project are pushing for federally-enforceable safeguards from coal ash as this new information is released. Also, in a signal that the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee recognizes the hazards of hexavalent chromium exposure, they have called on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson to testify tomorrow on a hearing about the chemical.
"Communities near coal ash sites must add hexavalent chromium to the list of toxic chemicals that threaten their health and families," said Lisa Evans, senior administrative counsel at Earthjustice. "It is now abundantly clear that the EPA must control coal ash disposal to prevent the poisoning of our drinking water with hexavalent chromium."
Coal ash, the leftover waste from power plants, contains arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury, selenium and many other chemicals that can cause cancer and damage the nervous system and organs, especially in children. Hexavalent chromium is a highly toxic carcinogen when inhaled, and recent studies from the National Toxicology Program indicate that when leaked into drinking water, it also can cause cancer.
"The cancer risk from hexavalent chromium is one more serious threat to health from coal ash," said Barbara Gottlieb, Deputy Director for Environment & Health at Physicians for Social Responsibility. "To protect the public from carcinogens and other dangerous substances, the EPA needs to regulate coal ash as a hazardous waste."
"The pollution from coal ash sites is making people sick," said Dalal Aboulhosn who works on coal ash for the Sierra Club. "As we’ve seen time and again, big polluters can’t be trusted to police themselves. We need the EPA to hold them accountable."
"Studies by the EPA, the state of California, and the Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry show that ingesting minute amounts of hexavalent chromium increases the risk of cancer," said Eric Schaeffer, executive director for Environmental Integrity Project. "Coal ash dumps have contaminated groundwater with much higher concentrations of this deadly carcinogen, according to the industry's own monitoring data. The Obama Administration should keep its promise to respect science and protect the public’s health, by putting strict standards in place to keep this contamination from spreading even further."
Among the findings from the new report:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found that the type of chromium that leaches from coal ash sites is nearly always of the hexavalent variety, which is the most toxic form of chromium.
The threat of hexavalent chromium drinking water contamination is present at hundreds of unlined coal ash sites across the country.
At least 28 coal ash sites in 17 states have already released chromium to groundwater at levels exceeding by thousands of times a proposed drinking water goal for hexavalent chromium.
Power plants dump more than 10 million pounds of chromium and chromium compounds into mostly unlined or inadequately lined coal ash landfills, ponds and fill sites each year. The electric power industry is the largest single source of chromium and chromium compounds released to the environment.
The U.S. Department of Energy and electric utility industry have known for years about the aggressive leaking of hexavalent chromium from coal ash.
Hexavalent chromium contamination from coal ash is clearly a grave threat. Yet the U.S. EPA, which is currently in the process of deciding whether or not to regulate coal ash as a hazardous waste, has completely ignored the cancer risk from chromium in groundwater.
View the entire findings in the full report: EPA's Blind Spot: Hexavalent Chromium in Coal Ash
Factsheet about the report: Hexavalent Chromium in Coal Ash
Contact:Lisa Evans, Earthjustice, (781) 631-4119Barbara Gottlieb, Physicians for Social Responsibility, (202) 587-5225Patrick Mitchell, Environmental Integrity Project, (703) 276 3266Virginia Cramer, Sierra Club, (804) 519-8449
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