Unique “Peoples’ Public Hearing” planned for Vectren Customers to candidly address Vectren’s top managment

Posted on December 8, 2011 by John Blair

Valley Watch Press Release-

Hearing designed for Vectren Management to hear customer grievances

What can only be described as “unique,” Valley Watch is proud to announce that it will host a People’s Public Hearing on Vectren’s service, rates and policies on Monday night, December 12, beginning at 6 PM at the Veterans Coliseum in downtown Evansville.  

“What makes this unique is that we have commitments from both Vectren CEO, Carl Chapman and Corporate Legal Counsel, Ron Christian to be there to listen to what Vectren’s customers think about their corporation and its products and services,” said John Blair, Valley Watch president and moderator of the hearing. “We think this is a tremendous opportunity for Vectren’s customers to speak directly to Vectren’s corporate leadership about how they run their business as well as the hardships their customers must bear having to pay the highest electric rates in the entire state.” 

Co-sponsoring the, one of a kind, event is the Vanderburgh County Veterans’ Council who is furnishing the venue for the hearing. Stephen Melcher, Commander of the Council sees a need for having such an opportunity, “It is important that Vectren hear what their customers think about their rates and service. Veterans, like other Americans have had to deal with this economic crisis by making decisions about whether to pay a mortgage, buy food for their children, or medicine already. Now they are being asked to pay even more to keep their homes heated and cooled by a company that in 2010 had at least five of its employees making more than a million dollars.”

Formatted for maximum citizen participation, Vectren will be given a time slot of ten minutes twice during the event to speak to citizen concerns and to make their case for the current proposed rate increase but the remaining time, from 6 PM to 9 PM will be devoted to allowing their customers to speak candidly about their feelings regarding the company and the way it does business. Each speaker will be given up to five minutes to state their concerns. 

According to Blair, this will be an exercise in civility and will not allow uncivil commenters to launch into tirades. “Frankly we were surprised that Vectren’s top management agreed to being part of such a robust event and we commend them for it. While we encourage people to let Vectren know what hardship their practices cause, we have great respect that these corporate officials are willing to listen to candid complaints about their company.”

Outside the main hearing room, Vectren will have customer service staff on hand to help customers with issues that might have mutual resolution.

Valley Watch has as it stated purpose to “protect the public health and environment of the lower Ohio Rive Valley. “We feel that dialogue and citizen participation are vital to the political and mental health of the region and we have a long history of promotion greater citizen participation in our democracy.”

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FitzGerald’s troubling resignation; environmentalist chides Beshear

Posted on December 6, 2011 by John Blair

December 6, 2011-Lexington Herald leader Editorial

Gov. Steve Beshear should take to heart the words of environmentalist Tom FitzGerald, who resigned from two state boards last week to protest the administration’s environmental and energy policies.

Kentucky Resources Council exec, Tom FitzGerald. Photo © 2008 John Blair

In 27 years as director of the Kentucky Resources Council, FitzGerald has worked with industry, the legislature, local governments and gubernatorial administrations on countless controversies and kept a working relationship, not to mention their (sometimes grudging) respect.

So, when FitzGerald says he “cannot in good conscience” continue to serve as a Beshear appointee, it’s an extraordinary statement that something is wrong.

In his letter to Beshear, FitzGerald cited “serial” budget cuts to environmental protection and the unexplained firing last week of Carl Campbell as commissioner of natural resources.

Environmental protection has been compromised by a 26-percent reduction in General Fund support during Beshear’s four years, FitzGerald wrote. The latest 2-percent cut came last week.

FitzGerald chides Beshear for giving no priority to protecting programs that safeguard air, land and water, the “building blocks” of a healthy state and economy.

Also, “indefensible,” he says, “only one of those programs (Title V air permits) collects from regulated sources the fees necessary to offset the cost of regulation, leaving the taxpayers to subsidize other pollution control programs. ”

To that we’d add, a big “Amen.” Continue reading →

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Energy Drinks Send Thousands to the ER Each Year. ER Visits From Drinking Energy Drinks Jump Tenfold Since 2005, Report Says

Posted on November 22, 2011 by John Blair

November 22, 2011 by Brenda Goodman in WebMD Health News

Nov. 22, 2011 — There’s been a big spike in the number of people who need emergency medical attention after they guzzle popular caffeinated energy drinks, according to a new government report.

The report shows a more than a tenfold increase in the number of emergency room visits tied to the use of these drinks between 2005 and 2009.

In 2005, 1,128 ER visits were associated with the use of energy drinks compared to 13,114 in 2009. That number peaked in 2008 with more than 16,000 ER visits linked to energy drinks.

Beverage manufacturers fired back at the statistics, charging that they are misleading since they are being taken out of context.

Energy Drinks can lead to acute medical problems in those who consume them. Some like Red Bull® and 5 Hour Energy® are widely promoted as performance enhancers for everything from work habits to sex to athletics. Some like Four Loko have a mixture of caffeine and alcohol which can be particularly dangerous if abused. Photo © 2011 John Blair

“Of the more than 123 million visits made to emergency room facilities each year, less than one one-hundredth of one percent involved people who consumed energy drinks according to this report,” says the American Beverage Association in a statement.

“Even so, this report shares no information about the overall health of those who allegedly consumed energy drinks, or even what symptoms brought them to the ER in the first place,” the statement says.

Energy Drinks and the ER

While 44% of cases involved energy drinks in combination with alcohol or otherdrugs, the report shows most people who wound up in the ER told doctors they had downed only energy drinks.

“There’s been quite a bit of attention paid to those energy drinks that have alcohol with them. What we found was that there are actually more visits for those energy drinks that don’t have alcohol,” says Albert Woodward, PhD, director of the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in Rockville, Md. DAWN reports, such as this one, are published periodically by the network.

“People may think that the alcohol-caffeine drinks are dangerous, but they may not have any idea that the caffeine-only drinks are also potentially problematic,” Woodward says. Continue reading →

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Politics and Clean Air-New York Times Editorial

Posted on November 21, 2011 by John Blair

November 21, 2011-Editorial in the New York Times

President Obama’s decision in September to scuttle stricter national standards for smog may well go down as the worst environmental decision of his administration — unless, of course, even more damaging retreats lie ahead. The decision was a setback for public health, a victory for industry, which had lobbied strongly against the standards, and a public embarrassment for the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, who had proposed them.

The White House insisted that the decision had been made on the merits and that the standards would throw people out of work by burdening industry with costly new rules at a time of economic uncertainty. It also insisted that industry pressure and politics did not play a role. Finally, it argued, the rules could be revisited and strengthened in two years (after the election), when new science would be available.

This page was not impressed by those arguments then and is no less skeptical of them now in light of John M. Broder’s exhaustive account in The Times on Thursday of the steps that led up to the decision. The article paints a picture of an aggressive campaign by industry lobbyists and heavyweight trade groups like the American Petroleum Institute that began soon after it became clear that Ms. Jackson was determined to tighten the rules governing allowable ozone levels across the country. Continue reading →

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The Story of Broke

Posted on November 15, 2011 by John Blair

November 15, 2011-by The Story of Stuff Project

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The United States isn’t broke; we’re the richest country on the planet and a country in which the richest among us are doing exceptionally well. But the truth is, our economy is broken, producing more pollution, greenhouse gasses and garbage than any other country. In these and so many other ways, it just isn’t working. But rather than invest in something better, we continue to keep this ‘dinosaur economy’ on life support with hundreds of billions of dollars of our tax money. The Story of Broke calls for a shift in government spending toward investments in clean, green solutions—renewable energy, safer chemicals and materials, zero waste and more—that can deliver jobs AND a healthier environment. It’s time to rebuild the American Dream; but this time, let’s build it better.

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“Nuclear power is a hell of a way to boil water”

Posted on November 7, 2011 by John Blair

November 7. 2011-by Linda Greene in the Bloomington Alternative

Photograph by Heide Smith. Dr. Helen Caldicott foresaw the Fukushima nuclear disaster in her 2006 book Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer. The cofounder of Physicians for Social Responsibility now calls it "by orders of magnitude many times worse than Chernobyl."

According to the scientific secretary for the European Committee on Radiation Risks (ECRR), when senior employee of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission the late Professor John Goffman resigned from his post, he said, “The nuclear industry is waging a war against humanity.”

Pediatrician Helen Caldicott, one of the world’s most important authorities on the health effects of ionizing radiation and the world’s leading spokesperson for the antinuclear movement, would agree. Caldicott is also the cofounder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize and the 2003 winner of the Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize. She recently established the Nuclear Policy Research Institute.

In her 2006 book Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer, Caldicott points out that people living near nuclear facilities undergo ongoing exposure to radiation routinely released into the air, water and soil during normal operations. Minor “accidents” are commonplace at nuclear reactors. People living in areas near the sites of nuclear accidents, including Fukushima, Japan, are at greater risk.

The health effects of radiation are well known: cancer and birth defects are part of the spectrum. “No dose of radiation is safe,” Caldicott notes, “and all radiation is cumulative” in the body.

It took Caldicott less than a week to determine the extent of the March 11 nuclear disaster in Fukushima: “Japan is,” she said in a March 18 news conference, “by orders of magnitude many times worse than Chernobyl,” until this March the worst nuclear power disaster in the history of the world. And she isn’t alone in this assessment. Continue reading →

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Are we doomed yet? Greenhouse Gas emissions set record in 2010

Posted on November 4, 2011 by John Blair

November 4, 2011, The Mark

 

Humanity set a new standard in greenhouse gas emissions in 2010, increasing the amount of carbon dioxide gas produced on the planet by a whopping six per cent over the year before. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, we released 9.13 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2010 – that’s 512 million more tons of carbon than we did in 2009, and the biggest jump ever recorded. It’s also more than than any one country can produce in an entire year, with the exception of the U.S., China, and India. It also surpasses the “worst-case scenario” total envisioned by climatologists just four short years ago. Go us! Half of the new emissions came from the U.S. and China, while the rest of the world covered the other 250 million or so new metric tons. Canada was also found to be the ninth-leading emitter in the world, as it was responsible for 141 million metric tons of emissions in 2010. The top 10 emitters are:

  1. China (2.248 billion metric tons)
  2. United States (1.498 billion metric tons)
  3. India (564 million metric tons)
  4. Russia (461 million metric tons)
  5. Japan (310 million metric tons)
  6. Germany (208 million metric tons)
  7. Iran (157 million metric tons)
  8. South Korea (154 million metric tons)
  9. Canada (141 million metric tons)
  10. Saudi Arabia (135 million metric tons)
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River sunburst improves attitude

Posted on October 23, 2011 by John Blair

October 2011

There are a few things that make me pause and give thanks for the natural world I am fortunate enough to reside in. Rainbows, waterfalls, the beautiful Ohio River but none exemplifies that thankfulness like a sunburst over the Ohio River near my home in Evansville, IN. Photo © 2011 John Blair  shot with an IPhone 4S.

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Duke, Daniels conversations on Edwardsport remain “trade secrets”

Posted on October 20, 2011 by John Blair

October 20, 2011, by John Russell in the Indianapolis Star.

The nearly finished Edwardsport new coal plant remains a scandal although much oif the vital information regarding the corruption that has surrounded the plant for the last two years remains secretive due to the collaboration of Duke Energy, the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission and the Daniels Administration. Photo© 2011 John Blair.

Want to read Duke Energy Corp.’s report to its board of directors about spiraling costs at its scandal-plagued $2.9 billion Edwardsport power plant?

It won’t be easy, even if you squint hard and hold the papers up to the light.

The five-page report from March 2010, on file with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, is almost completely blacked out. “Privileged and Confidential,” the report says. “Not for Public Access.”

Or maybe you’re curious about what Duke Chairman James Rogers discussed with Gov. Mitch Daniels as the utility was preparing to ask Indiana regulators to pass along hundreds of millions of dollars in cost overruns to customers.

A summary of the meeting, written by a Duke vice president, also is completely redacted.

Then there’s a wide range of testimony and exhibits from an outside expert that purport to outline how Duke concealed vital material from regulators about the plant’s financial risks. That information, also on file at the IURC, is hidden from the public. “Confidential. Pages 16-99 redacted,” the document says.

Duke, already under a cloud of suspicion over its conduct with the IURC, has so far kept secret the most telling details of the plant’s history. Now it will be up to the IURC, in hearings next week, to determine whether Duke should swallow nearly $1 billion in cost overruns, or pass part of them along to its 780,000 Indiana customers in the form of higher electricity bills.

Some open-government advocates say it’s time to shine a bright light on the entire matter. Continue reading →

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The LST 325 dominates Evansville’s up riverfront.

Posted on October 18, 2011 by John Blair

The LST, or Landing Ship Tank that transported soldiers to Europe during World War 2 is similar to those built in Evansville throughout the war. The LST 325 was found in Greece and brought back to the US to commemorate the valiant struggles of the men who rode their way to war on the ships. It has become a major tourist attraction for both vets of WW2 as well as historians. Shot with and IPhone 4S-Photo © 2011 John Blair

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Ohio coal to liquid plant bites the dust

Posted on October 15, 2011 by John Blair

October 15, 2011-by John Blair, valley watch.net editor 

Once touted as the economic savior of the little town of Wellsville, Ohio as early as 2006, Baard Energy was issued an air pollution and construction permit in the Fall of 2008 to build a 50,000 barrel per day coal to diesel fuel facility by the Ohio EPA.

Baard Energy claimed the plant at that time would cost $4-5.5 billion and be financed  by a combination of “debt and equity” according to the proposed plant’s management team. However, it was pointed out by Valley Watch and others at the time that Baard has way to small an organization to acquire such debt since it was a company with less than a dozen employees.

On Friday, it was official disclosed that a settlement had been reached that requires Baard to use another feedstock besides coal if it wants to go forth in the future.

“Coal to liquids technology has always been dirty and expensive—and today’s announcement makes it clear that it remains a bad bet,” said NRDC senior attorney Shannon Fisk. “Four years into this mess, the Baard facility has not been able to sort out its pollution permits or financing because making liquid fuel out of coal simply doesn’t work economically or environmentally. The public subsidies its developers sought shouldn’t pay for pollution. We have better choices.” Continue reading →

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Even on a clear day, the Evansville horizon has significant pollution

Posted on October 11, 2011 by John Blair

October 11, 2011-by John Blair, valleywatch.net editor

A  brownish pall seems omnipresent even on a clear day in Evansville, IN, a community with few of its own major pollution sources but is surrounded by numerous coal fired power plants that ship their power far from where it is produced.

Fine particles that emanate from the numerous power plants as they release large volumes of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide form to engulf the region and impact the health of residents both young and old.

Not all but most  regional “leaders” seem to dismiss the threat this pollution causes for their constituents and work to be able to actually increase the tremendous amount of pollution our dominant “export” industry is responsible for causing.

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South Bend Trib-Shine a light on this rate increase

Posted on October 9, 2011 by John Blair

October 9, 2011-Editorial in the South Bend Tribune

Editor's note: I&M/AEP's contention that they are raising rates to comply with new EPA rules is misleading if not an outright lie. They are adding scrubbers and other controls to plants like the 2600 megawatt uncontrolled Rockport (IN) power plant as a result of a legal settlement from a lawsuit from EPA, Valley Watch and others in 1999. That 2008 settlement gave AEP/I&M a full ten years to comply. Now, of course they are asking ratepayers to fund the settlement but trying to gain political advantage by blaming EPA for a suit they agreed to settle more than three years ago This power plant emits nearly 3/4 of a ton of mercury each year and is one of the largest CO2 emitters in the nation. Photo ©2009 John Blair.

If you are among Indiana Michigan Power’s 458,000 customers in Indiana, you already may be worrying about how you’ll pay your bill if the utility makes its case for a 22.7 percent increase in residential rates.

You also may be concerned about the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission’s decision-making.

The agency, of course, isn’t the same one that earned the ire of the governor and ratepayers last year because of its cozy relationship with Duke Energy. Gov. Mitch Daniels fired then IURC chairman David Lott Hardy. A former IURC lawyer who ran straight from the agency for a position at Duke also was among those who lost their jobs in the wake of the scandal.

Allegations that Duke exerted undue influence on the regulators, however, have left many Hoosiers suspicious about how the state’s utility board weighs consumer interests against those of the giant monopolies with their hosts of lawyers and lobbyists.

Electric customers all across the nation for years have heard warnings that energy costs would rise as coal-fired plants are refitted or retired and more expensive options brought into the mix.

Now comes I&M with rates it says currently are among the lowest in the state and country.

Company officials say, after decades of relatively flat rates, now’s the time I&M must hike revenues to meet the growing environmental mandates. The proposal before the IURC hits residential users hardest — an average of $20 a month. Continue reading →

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Red Paint protest disrupts Northern Arizona University jobs fair

Posted on October 7, 2011 by John Blair

October 7, 2011-by Eric Betz in the Arizona Daily Sun 

A man walked into an NAU jobs fair at around 1 p.m. on Thursday and threw what appeared to be a cup of red paint at a Peabody Energy Corporation display booth, according to witnesses.

Shortly after that, another man walked in and released balloons that read things like “murderers,” the witness said.

One of the men jumped on a bike and rode away, the other changed clothes and took off running south.

It’s possible a third suspect was filming the incident, according to NAU spokesperson Tom Bauer.

The suspects were described as white males between 22 and 25 years of age. It’s unknown if they are students.

“Northern Arizona University strongly condemns this despicable act,” NAU President John Haeger said in a statement. “This behavior disrupted an event that benefits students by connecting them with potential employers. We will pursue the individuals involved and file charges against them.”

Peabody Energy Corporation is the largest private coal company in the world. The corporation settled a lawsuit in August that accused it of conspiring with others to cheat the Navajo Nation out of hundreds of millions of dollars in coal royalties.

Eric Betz can be reached at ebetz@azdailysun.com or 556-2250.

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Enjoy this new “coal” energy drink

Posted on October 7, 2011 by John Blair

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