NEBRASKA'S JUDGE STRIKES DOWN LEGISLATURE'S MOVE ALLOWING KEYSTONE XL ROUT District Court Judge Stephanie F. Stacey blocked Gov Dave Heineman (R) and other defendants "from taking any action on the governor's January 22, 2013 approval of the Keystone Pipeline XL route", such as allowing land to be acquired by eminent domain for the project. -Wash Post, February 19, 2014 - 4:29pm
Bed of Dan River is Poisoned by Coal Ash for 70 Miles: Turtles Emerging & Dying
The bed of the Dan River is covered with toxic coal ash for 70 miles, killing hibernating turtles. The scale of this horrific, preventable catastrophe is now becoming evident.
Hibernating turtles are crawling out of the poisoned bed of the Dan River and Dying on the river banks.
As arsenic laced coal ash continues to pour into the Dan River from the Duke Energy waste dump, turtles are crawling out of the poisoned river bed and dying on the banks. Duke Energy has been ordered to stop polluting the Dan River but a second pipe continues to discharge suffocating coal ash into the water following the massive failure of the first pipe under the waste pond. The river bottom is poisoned by toxic ash all the way from the waste dump in Eden to Kerr Lake 70 miles downstream. Federal officials say that the coal ash is suffocating animals that live in the riverbed.
Water treatment authorities say that they have successfully treated and filtered the river water to remove toxins and that Danville's water is safe to drink. However, arsenic levels in the river continue to exceed federal safe limits. Heavy rains will wash the toxic waste further down the river over the coming weeks spreading the contamination over an increasingly large area.
Federal officials said Tuesday that toxic coal ash has coated the bottom of a North Carolina river as many as 70 miles downstream of a Duke Energy dump where a massive spill occurred two weeks ago. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service advised that a massive pile of coal ash about 75 feet long and as much as 5 feet deep has been detected on the bottom of the Dan River near the site of the Feb. 2 spill. Deposits varying from 5 inches deep to less than 1 inch coated the river bottom across the state line into Virginia and to Kerr Lake, a major reservoir. ...
The Dan River system in North Carolina and Virginia is home to two federally listed endangered species, the Roanoke logperch fish and the James spinymussel. The river also has another freshwater mussel, the green floater, which is currently being evaluated for protection under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
Officials said the coal ash is burying aquatic animals and their food. The ash, generated when coal is burned to generate electricity, could also clog gill tissues in fish and mussels.
A second pipe under the huge waste pit has large gaps between sections where the toxic ash continues to drain into the Dan River. All of this mess could have been avoided had Duke Energy responded to environmental organizations' lawsuits by properly disposal of the waste in dry, lined waste disposal facilities with impervious covers. Instead, Duke stonewalled and gave large sums of money to the Republican Party in North Carolina to get preferential treatment.
State regulators expressed concern five days ago that the second pipe could fail, triggering a new spill. The water coming out of that pipe contains poisonous arsenic at 14 times the level considered safe for human contact, according to test results released by the state Tuesday.
“We are ordering Duke Energy to eliminate this unauthorized discharge immediately,” said Tom Reeder, director of the N.C. Division of Water Resources.
Video taken last week by a robot sent inside the 36-inch-wide concrete pipe showed wide gaps between seams through which groundwater is gushing in, likely from the toxic dump above.
South Carolina's conservative Republican government has forced power companies to clean up their coal ash waste ponds, but North Carolina has not, apparently because of the close ties between Governor McCrory and Duke Energy. McCrory has refused to make public the amount of Duke Energy stock he owns, but as a former CEO and employee for 28 years it would likely be worth many millions if it were typical for a CEO of a large corporation. Records that have been made public show that Duke Energy has made large investments into the North Carolina Republican Party and the Governor.
The United States Attorney, eastern North Carolina district has launched an investigation into possible criminal acts by Duke Energy and the government of North Carolina.
As Coal Ash Controversy Intensified, Duke Gave Another $437,000 to Help GOP Causes in 2013; Group Calls on McCrory to Disclose Duke’s Donations to Renew NC
New research by the election reform group Democracy North Carolina indicates that as Duke Energy faced increased pressure from environmental groups over its coal ash pollution, the company stepped up its political operation and donated more than $400,000 during 2013 to Republican committees and lawmakers, including the campaign committee of Gov. Pat McCrory, a former Duke executive. The 2013 donations totaled $437,000 and include: (1) donations from Duke Energy’s PAC to NC Republican politicians and party committees and (2) donations from the corporation to two GOP national “soft-money” committees that support NC legislative and gubernatorial candidates. By contrast, during 2013 the Duke PAC and corporation gave about half that amount – $227,000 – to Democratic NC politicians, party committees and the comparable national Democratic soft money group.
Throughout 2013, environmental groups criticized Gov. McCrory’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) for allowing Duke Energy to continue its pollution and for entering into a settlement agreement to block the groups from suing Duke under the Clean Water Act. This week, the federal government issued a subpoena to examine DENR ’s records to determine if a crime had been committed. “Political corruption needs to be a part of the investigation,” said Bob Hall, executive director of Democracy North Carolina. “What we know about the cozy relationship between McCrory and Duke is disturbing and what we don’t know needs to come out into the open.”
In a previous report, Hall called the settlement agreement between Duke and DENR “a sweetheart deal anchored with $1 million in campaign contributions.”
The report detailed how McCrory’s 2008 and 2012 gubernatorial campaigns benefited from Duke Energy contributions totaling $1.1 million through the end of 2012. The two gubernatorial campaigns received $332,836 in direct campaign donations linked to Duke. They also received a big boost from $761,800 that Duke and Progress Energy donated to the Republican Governors Association which spent more than $10 millions to bolster McCrory’s two campaigns.
Progress NC, a nonprofit advocacy group, and the Associated Press also examined campaign records and found $1.1 million in direct and indirect support for McCrory from Duke Energy during 2008 - 2012. “In addition to the $1.1 million that helped McCrory, we now know that Duke has spent more than $400,000 to help the governor and other Republican politicians during 2013,” Hall said. “One thing we don’t know is how much Duke or its subsidiaries gave to Renew North Carolina, the pro-McCrory shadow campaign committee that does not disclose its donors. Duke and McCrory should release that information to the public now,” he said.
The Renew North Carolina Foundation was launched by several McCrory campaign insiders to promote his agenda. It began raising funds with Gov. McCory’s help and has already paid for ads touting him and his achievements. “People are tired of big money buying special treatment. Duke’s use of campaign donations to buy protection from regulators needs to be fully examined,” Hall said.
Here is a summary of Democracy North Carolina’s research detailing the $437,000 donated by Duke and its subsidiaries during 2013. In several cases, the dates of a donation and an action related to coal ash have an eerie coincidence, but Hall was reluctant to draw a precise quid pro quo related to any single donation. “The whole mess should be probed,” he said.
? On January 18, 2013, the Pat McCrory Committee logged in a $4,000 donation from Duke Energy’s PAC. Less than two weeks earlier, on January 8, the Southern Environmental Law Center announced it was filing a lawsuit to stop Duke’s coal ash pollution.
?On April 24, 2013, the Republican Governors Association received $100,000 from the company – less than a month after SELC notified Duke and North Carolina regulators that it would file a lawsuit under the Clean Water Act to stop Duke’s coal ash pollution of Mountain Island Lake, a vital source of drinking water for the greater Charlotte area.
? On September 17, 2013, the Republican Governors Association received $175,000 from the company, bringing the total to $275,000 for 2013. SELC and conservation groups filed suit on September 12 against the coal ash pollution of Sutton Lake near Wilmington and on August 29, SELC moved to block the NC Department of Natural Resources’ ability to craft a second weak agreement with Duke that would allow the company to continue its coal ash pollution.
? On September 20, 2013, the Republican State Leadership Committee received $50,000 from Duke Energy. RSLC is a 527 “soft money” committee that has spent millions on ads to elect GOP lawmakers in North Carolina, on consultants for the NC GOP’s 2011 redistricting plan, and on the re-election of NC Supreme Court Justice Paul Newby in 2012.
? During 2013, Duke Energy’s PAC sent $100,000 in campaign contributions to three dozen North Carolina Republican legislators and Council of State members, plus $8,000 to the Republican Party and Committee to Elect Republican Women. That total of $108,000 is four times the $27,000 that the PAC gave to 11 NC Democratic officials during 2013; it gave nothing to state Democratic Party committees during the year.
? All totaled, Duke gave $325,000 to the two national Republican groups, $4,000 to McCrory, and $108,000 to other GOP state politicians and party committees for a total of $437,000 in 2013. During the year, Duke gave about half that amount to the Democratic Governors Association ($200,000) and to NC politicians ($27,000) – or a total of $227,000. No donations from Duke were found to a 527 Democratic committee similar to the Republican State Leadership Committee. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/02/19/1278762/-Bed-of-Dan-River-is-Poisoned-by-Coal-Ash-for-70-Miles-Turtles-Emerging-Dying
Anti-Keystone XL protesters in Manchester, Texas (Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Brossa, CC 2.0)
Ever since President Obama announced that the Keystone XL pipeline would be in the national interest only if it “does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution,” the project has been scrutinized primarily on those terms. But there are other concerns to factor into an analysis of the project’s costs and benefits, particularly the local effects on communities along the pipeline route, from the tar sands in Alberta to refineries in Texas.
“I believe the health impacts of tar sands oil are being ignored,” Senator Barbara Boxer warned at a press conference Wednesday, where she and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse called on the Obama administration to conduct a thorough review of potential public health implications of extracting, transporting and refining oil from the tar sands before making a decision about the pipeline. Although the State Department finalized the environmental assessment of the project last month, Boxer said the report “was woefully inadequate when it came to exploring human impacts of the pipeline.” (The State Department had not responded to a request for comment at press time.)
Those impacts include rising cancer rates in places like Fort Chipewyan, a First Nations community downstream from a major tar sands site in Alberta; air pollutants and carcinogens in neighborhoods where refineries will process the oil, like Port Arthur and Manchester in Texas; immediate safety risks from transporting corrosive crude; and mountains of pet coke, an oil sands’ byproduct, which are growing throughout the Midwest. Much of this risk would be born—and is already being born—by poor people of color. Port Arthur, for example, has a 26 percent poverty rate, compared to 17 percent in the rest of Texas; three-quarters of the residents are of color. Manchester, a predominantly Latino community, is already one of the most polluted neighborhoods in the country.
“Health miseries follow tar sands—from extraction to transport to refining to waste disposal,” said Boxer. “Children and families in the US have a right to know now—before any decision to approve the Keystone tar sands pipeline—how it would affect their health.”
The State Department has been criticized .. http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/193731.pdf .. before by lawmakers and the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to properly assess the health threats posed by KXL. “We’re at a point where health issues are often glossed over,” said Danielle Droitsch, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council and co-author of a report .. http://www.nrdc.org/energy/files/tar-sands-health-effects-IB.pdf .. on the health effects of tar sands crude. Part of the problem is that there isn’t a substantial body of research into whether oil from the tar sands impacts health differently than traditional crude. “At a minimum we’re going to have to study this a little bit further. Frankly, there’s enough out there to suggest this stuff is actually worse, and that what we really need to do is transition away to cleaner sources,” Droitsch said.
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The public health blindspot extends beyond KXL. The Obama administration has embraced the North American oil and gas boom without really acknowledging that extracting and refining more fossil fuels at home means increasing the immediate health risks associated. Like Keystone, an “all of the above” energy strategy should be examined for its potential climate impact, which is itself a public health threat. But there are also questions to address about environmental justice and accountability for the petrochemical corporations powering the domestic boom. Many communities—in southern Louisiana, for example—have been sacrificed for the oil economy already. Whether more are ruined is a matter of deliberate policy making, not an inevitability.
Democrats in the House are also hammering the State Department for deficiencies in its environmental review. On Tuesday, Representative Raúl Grijalva asked the Government Accountability Office to audit the conflict-of-interest procedures the State Department used when it selected a contractor to conduct the Environmental Impact Statement. Several reports suggest that Environmental Resources Management, the London-based company hired to do the study, failed to disclose relationships with TransCanada and other corporations that would benefits from tar sands development.“If this is going to be a scientific basis for a decision on the pipeline…then the credibility of that information must be without any doubt. And at this point, that doubt exists,” Grijalva said at a press conference on Tuesday. The GAO told reporters it had not yet decided whether to conduct the review, but Grijalva said he’d been told the office would pursue an inquiry.
The State Department’s inspector general announced Wednesday .. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/27/us/politics/no-conflict-of-interest-found-in-favorable-review-of-keystone-pipeline.html?_r=0 .. that its own review found no violations, but Grijalva still wants a third-party review. “The inspector general was only asked to examine whether the State Department followed its own flawed process for selecting a third-party contractor. The fact that the answer is ‘yes’ doesn’t address any outstanding concerns about the integrity of ERM’s work, the State Department’s in-house ability to evaluate its quality, or whether the process itself needs to be reformed,” Grijalva said in a statement.
Read Next: Young activists are risking arrest as they protest against Keystone XL.
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