James Fallows Promotes Clean Coal in the Atlantic

The Atlantic, hardly a bastion of conservative thought, has published a piece by James Fallows in which he argues that power from coal will be needed for years to come, particularly in the developing world, and alternative energy sources are not going to take its place.  Therefore, it's better to figure out a way to use it cleanly than to try to quit using it. Read the article here.

You don't have to believe that global warming is an imminent threat, or believe the prognostications of Michael Mann, the discredited originator of the hockey stick graph, to appreciate  the courage that Mr. Fallows demonstrates in facing the fact that the need for energy is going to require us to burn fossil fuels for quite a while longer.

How to Change the Global Energy Conversation

Mike Shellenberger and Ted Norhaus of the Breakthrough Institute make a convincing case in the Wall Street Journal that the way to reduce carbon emissions is to make alternative energy cheaper, not to make fossil fuels more expensive. They explain their thinking here and  here.

West Virginai Ban on Consumer Electronics in Landfills Begins January 1

The Legislature adopted Senate Bill 398 last year, banning  many consumer electronics devices from state landfills beginning January 1, 2011. Old TVs, computer monitors and other large items can no longer just be set out with the trash. This summary comes from the WV Solid Waste Management Board:

During the 2010 legislative session, Senate Bill 398 passed into law. The bill bans certain electronics from West Virginia landfills. The bill requires the WV Solid Waste Management Board to design a program for the proper handling of covered electronic devices (CEDs). The Secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is required to promulgate rules for the implementation of the enforcement of the program.


CEDs include televisions, computers or video display devices with a screen that is greater than four inches measured diagonally. "Covered electronic device" does not include a video display device that is part of a motor vehicle, or that is contained within a household appliance or commercial, industrial or medical equipment.

Here is a blog from the National Center for Electronics Recycling on the ban.

Toxic Emissions Decrease Significantly in West Virginia

Good news.  EPA has published this year's report of toxics emitted by industry and reports that once again, toxic emissions are down in West Virginia.  Here is the story by Ken Ward in the Charleston Gazette.

Follansbee School Air Safe

Sometimes good news like this from EPA doesn't get reported

PHILADELPHIA (Dec. 23, 2010) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency made available today its final report on monitoring for air toxics near the Follansbee Middle School and Jefferson Primary School in Follansbee, W. Va. The report, posted on the agency’s website at http://www.epa.gov/schoolair/schools.html, concludes that outdoor levels of manganese near the schools were below levels that would raise health concerns. However, the agency will conduct more monitoring next spring for pollutants commonly associated with coke oven plants, since one is operating in the vicinity of the schools.


EPA’s monitoring of outdoor air found several pollutants common in coke oven emissions, including benzene, arsenic and benzo(a)pyrene. The additional monitoring will help EPA gain a better understanding of the levels of pollutants in the air and whether there are potential health concerns associated with the mixture of pollutants. The need for follow-up air monitoring is also based on the knowledge that one of the main sources of air toxics in the area was not operating at normal production levels during the original monitoring. The facility is now operating at normal production.

As part of EPA’s Schools Air Toxics Monitoring initiative, outdoor air was monitored at 63 schools in 22 states. The study was designed to help EPA and state environmental agencies understand whether long-term exposure to air toxics poses health concerns for children and staff at the schools.

EPA selected the Follansbee schools because of their proximity to air toxics sources, and based on computer models that indicated these toxics may be present at elevated levels in the outdoor air. To see a listing of all of the schools monitored in this initiative: http://www.epa.gov/schoolair/schools.html.

DEP, DNR to Recycle Christmas Trees

The DEP and DNR will once again be recycling Christmas trees by sinking them in lakes to provide fish habitat. 

In an effort to keep discarded Christmas trees out of landfills and off the sides of roads, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and the state Division of Natural Resources are sponsoring their sixth annual tree recycling event in 2011.

On Jan. 8, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., the DEP’s Rehabilitation Environmental Action Plan (REAP) will accept used live Christmas trees at the Capitol Market in downtown Charleston. The DNR will use the collected trees to create fish habitats at the bottom of lakes and streams throughout West Virginia.

REAP’s Sandy Rogers said the recycling event gets bigger every year in terms of the number of trees collected after the holidays. Last year, close to 450 trees were dropped off at the Capitol Market.

Those who donate trees will receive a free gift and can register for more prizes, including West Virginia skiing trips. For more information, contact Rogers at 304-926- 0499, ext. 1004 or email Sandra.D.Rogers@wv.gov.

Light Emitting Diodes Are Hazardous Wastes When Disposed?

Researchers at the University of California subjected ground up LEDs to a TCLP test (a standard test for determining whether a waste is hazardous) and found that the red LEDs failed.  When subjected to a more rigorous testing, the other colors of LEDs failed  as well.  Incandescent lights are looking better and better.

WV Environmental Quality Board To Decide Hearing Key Water Quality Question

An appeal before the West Virginia Environmental Quality Board will address a key issue in water quality standards.  Environmentalists, including the Sierra Club, have appealed a permit issued to Patriot Coal, alleging that the State did not apply recent EPA guidance on discharges from mining sites.  Since April of this year, EPA has been requiring coal mining operations in the Central Appalachians to abide by a guidance that greatly limits the conductivity of water running off mining sites.  The basis for EPA's guidance is West Virginia's narrative water quality standards, which are the non-numeric limits in the standards, at Section 3.  These are the general, and vague, requirements of the standards, and include the requirement that (among other things) no one may impair the biological integrity of state waters.

The WV DEP responded with its own interpretation of its narrative standards. Presumably it should be given greater weight than EPA's guidance, since West Virginia is responsible for its own NPDES permit program under the Clean Water Act.

The following report came from the Charleston Gazette:

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Environmentalists and state regulators faced off Tuesday in the start of a major permit appeal hearing that puts the spotlight squarely on West Virginia's opposition to a federal crackdown aimed at reducing strip-mine pollution across the Appalachian coalfields.

Department of Environmental Protection officials sought an 11th-hour ruling Monday night to block any mention in the hearing of tougher new water quality guidelines issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency earlier this year.

State Environmental Quality Board members turned down that request, and citizen group lawyers told the board the case is all about DEP's rejection of the EPA guidelines and a growing body of science they are based upon.

"DEP refuses to follow the law and the science when it issues permits for surface coal mines," said Joe Lovett, director of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment. "The permit at issue here is a prime example of DEP's recalcitrance."

Lovett's organization is working with the Sierra Club to appeal a DEP-issued permit for Scott Depot-based International Coal Group to expand a mining operation along Scotts Run near Cassville in Monongalia County.

ICG subsidiary Patriot Mining's New Hill West Mine would cover about 225 acres, and discharge pollution under a modification to an existing Clean Water Act permit that covers five other adjacent mine sites. In its appeal, the Sierra Club argued that DEP wrongly did not perform detailed studies of the mine's potential water quality impacts, and ignored the need for specific water discharge limits for electrical conductivity, total dissolved solids and sulfates.

Bob McLusky, a Jackson Kelley lawyer representing the company, argued that Patriot Mining's permit -- currently suspended by the board pending the appeal -- is "small potatoes" and not the Sierra Club's real target.

"They're not in this because of 225 acres," McLusky said. "They see this as a referendum on mining. Patriot sees itself caught up in a much larger issue."

Board members set aside four full days this week for the hearing. Expert witnesses for the Sierra Club will include biologists Margaret Palmer of the University of Maryland and Emily Bernhardt of Duke University, two of the authors of a study earlier this year in the prestigious journal Science, which concluded mountaintop removal's damaging impacts are "pervasive and irreversible."

Palmer testified Tuesday afternoon that peer-reviewed scientific literature clearly shows adverse water quality impacts downstream from coal-mining operations.

"There have been a lot of studies that have shown a pretty clear relationship between mining and stream impairment," Palmer told board members. "There are a lot of papers."

Since soon after taking office, the Obama administration has been citing that scientific consensus in putting strip-mining permits under much greater scrutiny. EPA has issued new guidance and a landmark science paper detailing how increased conductivity from mining pollution is harming aquatic life.

Environmental scientist Evan Hansen of the Morgantown firm Downstream Strategies, another expert for the Sierra Club, testified Tuesday morning that Scotts Run already shows signs of aquatic life impairment from sulfates and increased conductivity.

The situation could be made even worse, Hansen said, by Patriot Mining's plan to dispose of coal ash from the Morgantown Energy Associates power plant as part of the site's reclamation plan. Hansen conceded that coal ash's alkalinity can be of some help in reducing acid mine drainage from past and current mining in the area, but testified that DEP has not considered the potential long-term implications, such as more concentrated selenium runoff from the mine.

In part, the permit appeal focuses attention on a legal dispute over West Virginia's "narrative" water quality standard.

Unlike "numeric" water quality rules, the narrative standard itself does not specifically include numeric limits on allowable pollution. Instead, the narrative standard simply outlaws any condition that "adversely alters the integrity" of state waters or causes a "significant adverse impact to the chemical, physical, hydrologic, or biological components of aquatic ecosystems."

As part of its mountaintop removal crackdown, EPA issued guidance intended to better define the narrative standard by putting numbers on what constitutes significant adverse impacts on

DEP lawyer Jennifer Hughes argued that her agency has issued its own guidance for the state's narrative standard and that therefore the EPA's guidelines are not legally relevant here. Hughes repeatedly objected to questions and testimony about the EPA guidelines.

"Science informs policy decisions, it doesn't dictate them," Hughes said. "It is the DEP's responsibility to make those policy decisions."

Hughes said that the EPA is seeking to force "unobtainable limits" on West Virginia's mining industry, and McLusky repeated the coal lobby's belief that EPA is putting the health of aquatic insects over the economy of the region.

But Palmer testified that DEP's own water quality guidance does not properly take into account the important functions of aquatic insects that provide food and energy that is vital to the overall health of streams, fish and birds. Changing the number and type of insects can have broader impacts, she said.

"When you shift the makeup of a community, that can cause many changes in ecological processes," Palmer told the board.

EPA Asks For More Time To Reconsider Boiler MACT

It appears that EPA has taken seriously the concerns of industry that the boiler MACT (Maximum Available Control Technology required for hazardous air pollutants), which would impose stringent air emission controls on industrial boilers, would have a significant effect on boiler operators.  EPA is asking for more time to reconsider its proposed rule in light of the comments it has received.  Here's EPA's press release.

WASHINGTON – In a motion filed today in the federal District Court for the District of Columbia, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is seeking an extension in the current court-ordered schedule for issuing rules that would reduce harmful air emissions from large and small boilers and solid waste incinerators. The additional time is needed for the agency to re-propose the rules based on a full assessment of information received since the rules were proposed. The rules would cut emissions of harmful pollutants, including mercury and soot, which cause a range of health effects – from developmental disabilities in children to cancer, heart disease and premature death.

"After receiving additional data through the extensive public comment period, EPA is requesting more time to develop these important rules," said Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. "We want to ensure these rules are practical to implement and protect all Americans from dangerous pollutants such as mercury and soot, which affect kids' development, aggravate asthma and cause heart attacks."

In order to meet a court order requiring the EPA to issue final rules in January 2011, the agency proposed standards in April 2010. While EPA requested and received some information from industry before the proposal, the comments EPA received following the proposal shed new light on a number of key areas, including the scope and coverage of the rules and the way to categorize the various boiler-types. Industry groups and others offered this information during the public comment period after EPA proposed the rule. After reviewing the data and the more than 4,800 public comments, the agency believes it is appropriate to issue a revised proposal that reflects the new data and allows for additional public comment. This approach is essential to meeting the agency’s legal obligations under the Clean Air Act and, as a result, provides the surest path to protecting human health and the environment.

EPA has estimated that there are more than 200,000 boilers operating in industrial facilities, commercial buildings, hotels and universities located in highly populated areas and communities across the country. EPA has estimated that for every $5 spent on reducing these pollutants, the public will see $12 in health and other benefits.



EPA is under a current court order to issue final rules on January 16, 2011 and is seeking in its motion to the court to extend the schedule to finalize the rules by April 2012.



More information: http://www.epa.gov/airquality/combustion

US Supreme Court to Hear Climate Change Nuisance Case

Bishop Hill reports that the US  Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether  emitters of greenhouse gases can be sued under a common law nuisance theory.  The Bishop refers to the SCOTUS law blog, which he evidently believes is the Supreme Court's official blog, but it appears to be the Akin Gump law firm's Supreme Court blog (which is very good and worth perusing).  I can't find that entry on the Akin Gump site, so I am reproducing below what the Bishop quoted:

Via the blog of the Supreme Court of the United States comes the news that the court will hear the appeal by five businesses that have been sued under the law of common nuisance for emitting carbon.


five entities that were claimed to be the largest sources of greenhouse gases — four electric power companies and the Tennessee Valley Authority — were sued by eight states, New York City, and three land conservation groups. Their lawsuits were filed under the federal common law of nuisance, a judge-made theory. The Second Circuit agreed that the lawsuit could proceed on that theory. The case, however, has not yet gone to trial.
When the electric generating companies appealed to the Supreme Court, the Justice Department, speaking for TVA, urged the Supreme Court to send the case back to the Circuit Court for another look instead of ruling on it now. The Department argued that the EPA was now moving on several fronts to regulate greenhouses gases under the Clean Air Act, so this activity might displace any claims made under common-law theories. The Court, however, chose on Monday to take on the case itself at this point, presumably with the aim of deciding whether such a nuisance lawsuit may now go forward as a way of attacking global warming.

This is, of course, the lawsuit brought by several northeastern states against TVA and other power generators alleging that they should be held accountable for the emission of greenhouse gases that allegedly contribute to climate change.    This is one report, of the Supreme Court's action yesterday, and I'm sure there are others. It is worth noting that the Second Circuit's decision conflicts with the Fourth Circuit's decison in a case brought by North Carolina that such emissions are not public nusiances. Here is the New York Times take on  that case.