coal ash
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New coal ash hotline and video
The comment period for the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed coal ash safeguards is winding down, with the deadline being next Friday, Nov. 19. (Have you submitted your comment yet?) But just because the deadline is approaching does not mean we’re slowing our action on coal ash. It’s toxic and must be treated as such. That’s […]
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King Coal wins the midterms
In the final year of his remarkable life, Robert C. Byrd, the longest serving senator in US history, did one more remarkable thing. He called for serious dialogue on coal, climate change and the effects of mountaintop removal mining. “To deny the mounting science of climate change is to stick our heads in the sand and say 'deal me out,'” Byrd told his fellow West Virginians late in 2009. And on the EPA’s efforts to rein in the most egregious damage from mountaintop removal, he said, “West Virginians may demonstrate anger towards the EPA…but we risk the very probable consequence of shouting ourselves out of any productive dialogue.” Briefly, there was hope that the mountain state’s elder statesman might pull local politics away from a dead-end logic. Very briefly. Sen. Byrd died in June. By October, the man who would replace him in the Senate thumbed his nose at Byrd’s desire for reasoned discourse and picked up a gun.
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Texas' Fight Against Coal and Coal Ash
This is the latest in our series of community coal ash profiles. This piece was written by Sierra Club Apprentice Sari Ancel. Here’s lovely daydream if you’re from southeast Texas: It’s a warm fall afternoon and you’re out fishing on the banks of the Colorado River, listening to the sounds of birds migrating south. Unfortunately, […]
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One More Thing to Worry About in Middle School – Energy Regulations?
Mary Anne Hitt, the director of the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign, is a new mom and has some words for those trying to greenwash schoolkids and college students: As a new mom, I’m paying more attention these days to how big companies are trying to influence our kids. I just learned that one of […]
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The Aftermath of the TVA Coal Ash Disaster
This is the latest in our series of community coal ash profiles. This was written by Sierra Club Apprentice Philip Hawes. Tennessee’s Emory River has long been treasured for its natural beauty. In 1867, when a young man by the name of John Muir decided to walk from his home in Indiana, all the way […]
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Coping with Coal Ash's Health Effects
This is the latest in our series of community coal ash profiles. This piece was written by Sierra Club Apprentice Lydia Avila. The community of Joliet, Illinois, identifies as many things – Midwestern, humble, and hard-working. Yet they also identify with something much less positive: being collateral damage. According to Joliet residents, they don’t even […]
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Oklahoma Town Fights Coal Ash
This post is the latest in our series of community coal ash profiles. It was written by Sierra Club Apprentice Flavia de la Fuente. When a company named Making Money, Having Fun LLC (how’s that for Orwellian?) applied for a permit for a commercial disposal facility to dump coal ash (along with waste oil and […]
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Industry wraps coal ash regulation fight in the mantle of civil rights
Some opponents of stronger coal ash regulation are trying to make their case in the language of civil rights. But their argument doesn't fly.
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A Big Coal Ash Problem At Little Blue
This post is the latest in our series of coal ash community profiles. Our work on coal ash unfortunately becomes timely yet again, as news came out this week of a breach at a coal ash impoundment in North Carolina. This week’s profile was written by Sierra Club Apprentice Andrea Sanchez. There is nothing little […]
