ValleyWatch

May 18, 2012- by John Blair, valleywatch.net editor

Coverage of the bizarre economics surrounding the Indiana Gasification project in Rockport has been genuinely lacking. However, yesterday WFIE, the leading news station in Evansville when it comes to numbers of viewers decided to tackle the issue.

Relatively new reporter, Nick LaGrange gave the below report on last night’s news.

This picture was taken at approximately 1 PM on March 31, 2012 and shows the Evansville Ohio River industrial corridor on a day when pollution levels reached more than 43% higher than the health based standard for fine particles. Photo: John Blair.

March 31, 2012-by John Blair, valleywatch.net editor

Although no warnings were issued, which is par for Evansville, fine particle pollution reached dangerous levels today just as people decided to get out and enjoy an otherwise marvelous day.

Our local pollution agency has a history of ignoring warning signs and failing to issue proper warnings, especially when they occur on the weekend since those whose job is supposed to protect us from this sort of pollution do not want their weekends interrupted by having to work to get that word out.

At 10 AM on March 31, the level of fine particles measured at Evansville’s official monitor registered a whopping 49.91 micrograms/cubic meter or 43% higher than the health based standard that is considered “unhealthy” for sensitive individuals. That category includes people with respiratory problems like asthma or COPD, children and the elderly.

As the picture above, taken fromMarina Pointe of the River industrial corridor shows, high levels of fine particles degrade visibility as well as health. These pictures taken around 1 PM (there was no data yet available when this was published for that hour).

In the past, community officials have oft been reticent to widely report such excursions of the health based standard lest it be a detriment to attracting additional polluting industry to the region.

People can check the level of their community in Indiana by going here or across the US by following this link.

March 6, 2012-by John Russell in the Indianapolis Star

Duke's Edwardsport new coal plant has been fraught with problems due to inept management of the construction. However, it has managed to finish the project although at nearly three times the original estimate Duke presented Hoosier politicians in 2004 when they said its would cost $1.2 billion and include carbon capture and sequestration. Had they included that the project would have ended up costing Duke's Indiana ratepayers a whopping $4.5 billion. Duke has fought to keep much of the information about the plant from the public eye and a hearing was held today in Indianapolis on whether to make many of those documents public. The indiana Utility Regulatory Commission has given Duke just about everything they have asked for to date, even as scandal has surrounded the overly friendly connection between Duke and the IURC. Valley Watch has been an intervener and opponent of the construction of the facility since its inception. Photo © 2012 John Blair.

What critics call one of the most controversial and cloaked cases ever heard by an Indiana regulatory agency might soon get a little more sunlight.

On Tuesday, the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission will consider whether to unseal hundreds of additional documents in the massive investigation into possible wrongdoing at Duke Energy Corp.’s $3.3 billion power plant in Edwardsport.

Depending on its decision, the agency could give a fuller picture of the engineering and construction problems at the plant, as well as the huge cost overruns that could push up monthly bills for hundreds of thousands of Indiana customers.

• MORE COVERAGE: Blog: Prying open the Duke Energy scandal.

Such a move also could shed light on whether the giant utility hid vital information from regulators, one of the major allegations lodged against Duke.

For years, key aspects of the Edwardsport project have been shrouded in secrecy. The engineering plans and inspection reports have been under tight wraps at the IURC, kept away from the public by state laws designed to protect company trade secrets.

On a larger scale, the working relationship between Duke and Indiana regulators also has been a tightly guarded secret. Despite laws meant to keep the process mostly open to the public, the two sides for years operated behind the scenes, holding secret meetings and trading private emails with sensitive information.

Much of that activity was exposed by The Indianapolis Star over the past 18 months, resulting in the indictment of former IURC Chairman David Lott Hardy, firings, resignations, an FBI investigation, an ethics reprimand and growing public scrutiny.

But the issue of secrecy continues to dog the project.

For three months, the IURC has heard testimony about allegations that Duke committed fraud, hid information and mismanaged the project. It also looked at broader questions of whether Indiana needs the additional electricity that would be generated by the plant — and the reasonableness of continuing with the project.

A large portion of the hearing, however, took place in a closed hearing room. Hundreds of exhibits were submitted under seal of confidentiality or with severe redactions. All lawyers and many of the parties were required to sign lengthy confidentiality agreements.

Duke says it has been as transparent as possible, given its obligations to protect its trade secrets and those of its businesspartners.

Now the question is whether the secrecy will diminish.

In a 98-page spreadsheet recently filed with the IURC, Duke is petitioning to keep more than 400 exhibits confidential. Those include internal emails, memos, letters, forecasts, reviews and reports on the Edwardsport project.

Duke says many of the confidential exhibits contain pricing information, operational details and other trade secrets. Opening them to the public could harm Duke’s competitive position and its business relationships, the utility has said.

The “proprietary information needs to be protected from public disclosure,” Duke Vice President Michael Womack said in a filing with the IURC.

Duke said it already has turned over more than 200,000 pages of documents to the other parties, including the Office of Utility Consumer Counselor, major industrial customers and Citizens Action Coalition. Go to the Original

A new report places the blame on misguided strategies of environmental funders.

March 1, 2012 – By Peter Montague in Alternet. Editor’s Note-Valley Watch has received funding from a major foundation only one time. In 2003, we received a $60,000, two year grant from the San Francisco based, Goldman Foundation to do coal work in the tri-state. Valley Watch does accept private donations from organizations and individuals who support our stated purpose which is “to protect the public health and environment of the lower Ohio River Valley.”

A searing new report says the environmental movement is not winning and lays the blame squarely on the failed policies of environmental funders. The movement hasn’t won any “significant policy changes at the federal level in the United States since the 1980s” because funders have favored top-down elite strategies and have neglected to support a robust grassroots infrastructure. Environmental funders spent a whopping $10 billion between 2000 and 2009 but achieved relatively little because they failed to underwrite grassroots groups that are essential for any large-scale change, the report says. Released in late February by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, Cultivating the Grassroots was written by Sarah Hansen, who served as executive director of the Environmental Grantmakers Association from 1998 to 2005.

Environmental funders mainly support large, professionalized environmental organizations instead of the scrappy community-based groups that are most heavily impacted by environmental harms. Organizations with annual budgets greater than $5 million make up only 2 percent of all environmental groups, yet receive more than half of all environmental grants and donations.

The "Watch" in Valley Watch is often manifest by the regular aerial photography flights that Valley Watch president, John Blair takes as he pursues his award winning photography career. "Our logo is the Valley Watch 'hawk ' and we try to watch the valley from above as often as we can," says Blair of the melding of his profession and activism. This picture, for instance shows the Horseshoe Bend of the Ohio River at Evansville.

The report makes the simple but profound argument that the current environmental funding strategy is not working and that, without targeting philanthropy at communities most impacted by environmental harms, the movement will continue to fail. “Our funding strategy is misaligned with the great perils our planet and environment face,” Hansen writes.

“Environmental activists and funders all share a gnawing sense that something has to change. No sensible environmental activist would argue that we, as a field, have done what is needed to respond to environmental degradation,” Hansen said in an interview.

Instead of funding community-based groups to generate ideas, strategies and political support for transformative change, environmental donors have thrown their weight behind narrow lobbying campaigns in Washington, D.C. — for example, the failed inside-the-beltway campaign in 2009-2010 to pass “cap and trade” legislation to curb global warming. For their part, mainstream environmental groups hang pleas for environmental change on the apolitical hook of rational appeals, expecting that decision-makers confronted with powerful evidence will do the right thing. But this strategy has not worked because “a vocal, organized, sustained grassroots base is vital to achieving sustained change,” the report asserts. Continue reading →

February 15, 2012-by John Downey in the Charlotte Business Journal

Duke Energy has agreed with the China Huaneng Group on a study to determine if the Chinese company’s carbon-capture technology can be installed on Duke’s Gibson Steam Station in Indiana.

Duke's Gibson power plant is the second largest coal burner in the nation producing a whopping 3,339 megawatts of electricity at any given time. It is also one of the world's largest polluters. One interesting aspect of the Gibson Station being used for this experiment is that it sits just a couple miles from the epicenter of a 2008 Wabash Fault earthquake that shook much of the midwest. What the fault means for the veracity of the study is uncertain at this time. Photo© John Blair

Duke makes clear that it is not committing to install the technology.

This is just a feasibility study. But it acknowledges that it could eventually lead to using Huaneng’s process to trap carbon at Gibson or other U.S. plants.

Once trapped, the gas can be sequestered to prevent it from adding to greenhouse gas emissions.

Earthquakes, even as close as two miles are not something that concerns Duke Energy. Illustration by John Blair from Google Earth image.

“Basically, this is the next step in our relationship with Huaneng,” says Duke spokesman Tom Shiel. Continue reading →