This internet photo shows a Fatima fertilizer plant as it exists in Pakistan. Today, indiana Governor, Mike Pence stopped plans by Posey County economic development officials to build what they called a $2 billion plant to make fertilizer. Valley Watch objected to the siting of the facility as being in too close proximity to another explosive plant, the second largest ethanol plant in the US, operated by Aventine Renewable Energy.

Valley Watch applauds the decision by Indiana Governor Mike Pence to stop State financial support to the Pakistani company who was trying to build a giant fertilizer plant in Posey County. Governor Pence wisely discerned that the widely reported connection between the company and the manufacture of Improvised Explosive Devices in Afghanistan was more than Hoosier veterans should have to put up with just for some promised jobs.

Valley Watch had previously called for a “moratorium” on the construction of new Indiana fertilizer manufacturers until adequate safety assessments could be in place to determine the feasibility of locating such facilities so near to other facilities that have severe explosive potential. In the case of Posey County, it was proposed that Fatima be placed adjacent to the second largest ethanol plant in the US. The combined plants’  potential for a major catastrophe needed better assessment that the diligence given by local economic development officials who seemed nearly overwhelmed by their support for Fatima.

Valley Watch suggests that in the future, decisions like this should be given more public scrutiny and transparency before dangerous and essentially unvetted proposals are given the green light. Citizens of southwest Indiana deserve more from self appointed economic development regimes.

The Fatima proposal would have been build just east of Aventine’s second largest ethanol plant in the US as shown here in this file photo from 2011. © John Blair

The fate of the Indiana Gasification project is now apparently in the hands of the Indiana Supreme Court where Leucadia Project Manager is friendly with at least one of the Justices. See: http://www.in.gov/judiciary/citc/files/massa-lubbers.pdf
Photo © 2013 John Blair

April 30, 2013-Statement of Mark Lubbers, Indiana project director for Leucadia’s Indiana Gasification proposal

If the Supreme Court takes the case, the Ct of Appeals decision is immediately vacated, so the IURC approval is again live.  The Ct of Appeals opinion was not unanimous and we have asked the court to side with Chief Judge Robb’s dissent, which said that the Court could have upheld the IURC approval and dealt separately with the definition problem.  Since then, of course, the parties have dealt with that admittedly inartful definition language by deleting the offending 37 words from the definition of Retail End Use Customer; so the problem identified by the Ct of Appeals no longer exists.

If the Supreme Court takes the case, we think we have a good chance of winning.

If the Supreme Court does not take the case, the project is dead.  The legislature and the governor knew this when they opted for the language in the law just-passed.  There was an alternative way for the IURC to have a “final look” at the project to consider if the contract was still good for ratepayers given supposed changes in the energy market.  That alternative was rejected in favor of adopting new standards that the legislature and the governor knew would kill the project.  (Because it would require a different contract and two years of review that the project cannot sustain.) The decision to take this path was a conscious decision to kill the project.

Since this conscious decision was made, the judgment of the state is very clear: neither the legislature nor the governor support the contract or the project.  Therefore, the claim made by legislative leadership and the governor that everything is fine if the Supreme Court sides with us is a false promise; no one would invest  $750 million where such clear opposition from the government is evident.  The institutions that provide the capital to build a plant of this size will not do business in a state that is so cavalier about the $20+ million dollars we have already invested.

We will finish the judicial review that has been going on now since December 2011.  We will file today a motion for the Court to schedule oral argument.  We will work hard for a win if the Supreme Court takes the case.  If we win, however, only a clear reversal of position by the Governor would enable the project to go forward.

What happened in the legislature tonight was something extraordinary. Citizens came together to turn legislative direction, 180º on the Rockport Gasification fiasco.

Think about it. Vectren, the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, Farm Bureau all came together with environmentalists and consumers to stop something ridiculous form going any further.

For Valley Watch, like both the Marble Hill Nuclear Plant and Peabody’s Thoroughbred coal plant in Muhlenberg Couty, KY, this fight has been seven long years.

Frankly, I was expecting much closer votes in both chambers but was really surprised at the House vote of 70-28.  But Suzanne Crouch successfully carried the bill with grace and intelligence, informing legislators clearly and accurately about its contents at a late hour.

Valley Watch has worked closely with Vectren on this fight, so has the Hoosier Chapter of the Sierra Club for which I serve as Energy Chair. Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign came in at just the right moment and provided a huge level of grassroots support, generating phone calls and letters to legislators throughout the session. Instrumental in this effort was a dedicated Rockport group called Spencer County Citizens for Quality of Life. The unbelievably talented staff at the Citizens Action Coalition performed numerous services as professionally as any lobbyist there. So did Sierra’s lobbyist Mark St. John.

However, the issue is not finished. There is still the matter of the Supreme Court appeal and what they decide will determine the outcome. If the IURC does review the contract with the instructions from the legislature to insure savings during the term of the contract, Leucadia says they will walk away. But, they seem to never give up their quest to socialize their risk at the expense of consumers.

Already Rockport, Indiana sees annual toxic emissions of more than 30 million pounds from AK Steel and AEP’s Rockport plant. Now, Governor Mitch Daniels and others want to see those emissions increase while also increasing winter heating expenses for Hoosiers through the construction of the proposed Indiana Gasification facility. Photo © 2011 John Blair

Valley Watch has been an intervenor in the IURC proceeding and we are appellants now before the Supreme Court. We certainly will not back down now. We also intend to fight the plant’s proposed loan guarantee by the Federal Government. In fact, we have been doing that since 2009.

Not only is this proposal a financial disaster, it is also a terrible environmental justice issue since Rockport is already one of the most polluted towns on earth according to EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory. Their pollution and health burden is already too high. The loan guarantee coupled with forcing Hoosier consumers to purchase their product is far removed from anything considered “Free Enterprise.”

We feel that we will prevail for no other reason than it just makes sense to let this thing go. But we have multiple issues with which to continue our fight should Leucadia decide to stay the course.

Pioneering environmental activist Tim DeChristopher was released from jail on Sunday—one day before Earth Day—after serving two years for disrupting an “illegal” Bush administration auction of oil and gas exploitation rights of pristine public lands in southeastern Utah.

Tim DeChristopher, one of America’s young environmental heroes served two years in jail for throwing a monkey wrench in the bidding process for rights to lease oil lands from the Bureau of Land Management, part of the Department of the Interior. His detention was little more than being a political prisoner in his own country.

After being released, DeChristopher said Monday in an exclusive interview withDemocracy Now! that in retrospect he was “even more glad that [he] did it.”

DeChristopher’s example of civil disobedience helped catalyze a movement that, up until that point, relied predominantly on the Big Green groups that resided “in the Washington bubble,” as he told Democracy Now!. Citing examples such as Occupy Wall Street and the Tar Sands Blockade, DeChristopher added that the climate movement “has made a lot of progress in the past four years.”

“He thought the movement already had the numbers it needed to succeed, if people would step up and act—with the belief that their actions would propel more people into motion and build the movement’s numbers,” writes YES Magazine’sMelanie Jan Martin.

Below is DeChristopher’s interview with Democracy Now!

DeChristopher “was and is a complete inspiration to all of us. His courage permeated everyone’s thinking,” added 350.org founder Bill McKibben.

On December 19, 2008, DeChristopher—in a last minute decision—took part in a Bureau of Land Management auction of leases to drill on public lands. Brandishing the Bidder 70 paddle, he amassed rights to a total of 22,500 acres at at the price of $1.8 million, effectively safeguarding parcels surrounding Utah’s Arches and Canyonlands National Parks from drilling.

Though the incoming Obama administration invalidated the auction two months later and despite DeChristopher raising the requisite funds to actually purchase the land parcels, officials continued with his prosecution of and in July of 2011 he was sentenced to two years in federal prison.

Prior to his sentencing, DeChristopher read a 35-minute closing statement to the court: “You can steer my commitment to a healthy and just world if you agree with it, but you can’t kill it. This is not going away. At this point of unimaginable threats on the horizon, this is what hope looks like. In these times of a morally bankrupt government that has sold out its principles, this is what patriotism looks like. With countless lives on the line, this is what love looks like, and it will only grow.”

To celebrate both DeChristopher’s release and the 43rd annual Earth Day, Peaceful Uprising, the climate justice group he co-founded , has organized nationwide community screenings of the documentary feature “Bidder 70” which chronicles how DeChristopher’s example of civil disobedience inspired a resurgence in the climate justice movement.

Following the film, DeChristopher will take part in an hour long Q & A that will be streamed live to over 50 different venues.

You can see times and locations of the Earth Day screenings here.

For Immediate Release: April 19, 2013, 12:OO PM Contact: John Blair @ 812-464-5663

Valley Watch calls for immediate moratorium and re-assessment of siting criteria for locating fertilizer plants in SW Indiana

While our sympathies go out to the victims of the tragedy in the town of West, Texas on Wednesday night, that tragedy underscores the necessity for siting giant industrial scale fertilizer manufacturing plants in the safest, most common sense fashion, away from other explosive hazards and concentrations of people, be they workers or residents.

In southwest Indiana, two $1 billion + ammonium nitrate plants are proposed, one in Rockport, and one in Mt. Vernon. In both cases, economic development officials have proposed sites that are immediately adjacent to plants that could exacerbate not only the destruction but also the human injuries and loos of life should an “industrial accident” like that this week occur in either location.

In Rockport, where IDEM has already issued a “draft” air and construction permit for a plant that is proposed to make 3,600 tons per day of ammonium nitrate, the risk is huge should something go wrong since it is proposed to be built adjacent to the controversial Indiana Gasification facility that is designed to manufacture synthetic “natural gas” from coal.

In Mt. Vernon, the risk of an accident increases greatly due to its proposed location adjacent to one the largest ethanol plants in the world, producing 110,000,000 gallons annually at full capacity.

Both of these facilities are dangerous on their own but the combination of ammonium nitrate and other explosive materials like ethanol and syngas increases the risk dramatically.

By scale alone, the proposals for southwest Indiana are giant compared to the plant that blew up in Texas on Wednesday. Ohio Valley Resources’ Rockport draft permit calls for ammonium nitrate manufacture of 3,600 tons per day, compared to the West plant of 4,771 tons per year.

Valley Watch’s purpose is “to protect the public health and environment of the lower Ohio River valley.” In that capacity, we are calling today for an immediate “moratorium and site re-assessment” on environmental permits and State and local tax and other incentives for both of these proposed plants. In the case of the Rockport proposal, IDEM has already issued a draft air permit and is scheduled to hold a public hearing on it on the Evening of May 15 at South Spencer High School.

At Mt. Vernon, the state has already issued some kind of tax exempt bonding authority amounting to $1.2 billion which we understand is currently “on hold” at the direction of Indiana Governor, Mike Pence who has serious questions about the owners of that proposal, a Pakistani company named Fatima, as they relate to the supply of ammonium nitrate used in the manufacture of Improvised Explosive Devices, IEDs by the Taliban against American troops in Afghanistan.

We will be seeking meetings with government officials including the Governor, public safety, environmental and local government executives to ask, indeed, demand that an moratorium and site safety assessment be made prior to allowing the location of these time bombs to be constructed. We hope that others will join our call for this moratorium and demand that public safety take precedent over the prospect of perceived economic growth of the region and if these must be built that they choose sites that take public safety as their first consideration. -30-

The West, Texas plant that blew up is minuscule compared to the proposals for two new ammonium nitrate plants in SW Indiana. Image: Google Earth

In the last few months, economic development officials in southwest Indiana have courted two giant, billion plus fertilizer plants. One is proposed west of Evansville at the Southwind Maritime Center in Mt. Vernon and the other is proposed for Rockport about twenty five miles east of Evansville. The size of the plant that blew up on April 17 pales in comparison to the two proposed.

Both of these communities are among the most toxic polluted towns in America already according to the US EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory.

But that is only where this story begins.

The aftermath of a huge blast from a relatively small fertilizer plant in West, Texas. What if that plant had been located next to one of America’s largest ethanol plants?

In Mt. Vernon the proposal calls for the plant to be developed adjacent to one of the largest ethanol refineries in the nation. At Rockport, the proposal calls for the plant to be located adjacent to another proposal called Indiana Gasification, which is designed to convert coal to various explosive materials, primarily synthetic natural gas.

Had the much smaller plant in West, Texas been located so close to another time bomb like a huge ethanol plant or a syngas plant, who knows how much damage would occur?

It is apparent to anyone who cares about safety that it is not a good idea to locate such a plant immediately next to a facility that is already a giant explosion and fire hazard but that matters little to SW indiana economic development officials or their counterparts in Indiana’s Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) since already IDEM has issued a Draft Air and Construction permit for the Rockport plant which goes by the name-Ohio Valley Resources Limited Liability Corporation.

In fact, a public hearing is slated for that permit on May 15, in the little town of Rockport at South Spencer High School. IDEM always issues permits they get to the draft stage but still locals will have an opportunity to voice their concerns.

In the thirty-two years Valley Watch has watched these things, we do not recall a single permit that has been denied. On occasion IDEM will be forced by citizens to add new conditions to a permit but they do not deny them as long as applicants dot their “i”s and cross their “t”s.

The Mt. Vernon proposal has some issues of its own. Not only is it proposed to be built next to an explosive ethanol plant, it is also being proposed by a Pakistani company that has been implicated in the supply of explosive ammonium nitrate to the Afghani Taliban for use in the manufacture of Improvised Explosive Devices used against American troops in the war in Afghanistan.

Interestingly, an Indiana agency named the Indiana Finance Authority has ties to both these endeavors. The IFA signed a thirty year contract with Indiana Gasification to buy most of the production of that plant and in turn will force Hoosier consumers to purchase that gas at a significant premium over the price of natural gas to heat their homes.

In the Mt. Vernon case, IFA authorized $1.2 Billion in tax exempt bonds for the Fatima Corporation to use for capital expenditures to build their plant at the Southwind port.

In both case, there was no public involvement allowed in the drafting of either the bond issue or the contract, although the contract was later approved by the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission which did allow for public input which is now the subject of an Supreme Court proceeding.

Valley Watch wil hold a press conference to discuss future actions it intends to take on April 18 and we will report on that on this web site.

Full Moon Silhouettes from Mark Gee on Vimeo.

Full Moon Silhouettes is a real time video of the moon rising over the Mount Victoria Lookout in Wellington, New Zealand. People had gathered up there this night to get the best view possible of the moon rising. I captured the video from 2.1km away on the other side of the city. It’s something that I’ve been wanting to photograph for a long time now, and a lot of planning and failed attempts had taken place. Finally, during moon rise on the 28th January 2013, everything fell into place and I got my footage.
The video is as it came off the memory card and there has been no manipulation whatsoever. Technically it was quite a challenge to get the final result. I shot it on a Canon ID MkIV in video mode with a Canon EF 500mm f/4L and a Canon 2x extender II, giving me the equivalent focal length of 1300mm.
Music – Tenderness by Dan Phillipson : premiumbeat.com/royalty_free_music/songs/tenderness

markg.com.au
facebook.com/markgphoto
markg.com.au/2013/01/full-moon-silhouettes/

An Indiana University law professor is questioning the constitutionality of Indiana’s so-called Ag-Gag bill, a measure supporters claim will protect farmers from exploitation by activist groups.

Senate Bill 373 will be heard next on the floor of the Indiana House after passing a committee with a major amendment last Thursday. The amendment by the House sponsor, Representative Bill Friend, makes it a Class A misdemeanor to photograph at a farm or business without written permission from the owner.

IU law professor Seth Lahn said he believes the bill violates the First Amendment.

“Whether you come at it from a position of food safety or working conditions or animal cruelty – it gets into a number of areas that, I think, the courts have always recognized – and common sense tells you, is an issue the public has an interest in hearing about.”

Illustration © 2011 John Blair

Lahn noted that there already are legal ways to get at prohibited conduct: charges of trespassing, fraud, and destruction of property. Friend’s amendment also added a new crime to the bill: lying on a job application with the intent of harming a business. No public comment was allowed on the amendment before the bill passed out of committee 9 to 3 on a party-line vote.

The state director of Indiana’s chapter of The Humane Society, Erin Huang, said she worries about what’s happening behind the scenes that brought this bill about.

“You know, big ag is trying to push this, and push a bill that would keep people from knowing what’s happening with their food production,” she said. “Just goes to show how much they have to hide. ”

National GOP strategist Mary Matalin, in an unlikely pairing with the animal-rights group PETA, released a video message directed at Hoosier lawmakers. She said that this time she agrees with her husband, Democratic party strategist James Carville.

“I’m sending you this video appeal because you have before you a bill that would criminalize filming on factory farms and in slaughterhouses,” Matalin said. “My husband James and I may be polar opposites on most political issues, but on this one we’re together: we are asking you to please vote against these ag-gag bills. ”

In the video, Matalin said that instead of fixing the problems, big agriculture interests are trying to blame the messenger. She listed farm-animal abuse cases in West Virginia and Iowa where undercover PETA videotapes helped prosecutors convict those responsible.

LG&E’s Trimble power plant dominates the region with its giant stacks and resulting pollution. In this picture the existing coal ash ponds are in the foreground. Now, it is hard to say just where all the ash will go for the power plant. Photo © John Blair

March 21, 2013-by Erica Petersen, WFPL News 89.3 FM

The Kentucky Division of Waste Management has denied a pending permit for a coal ash landfill in Trimble County.

The proposed landfill would have been 218 acres, near Louisville Gas and Electric’s Trimble County Power Station. It was meant to store the coal ash produced by the plant, but ever since it was first proposed, the project has encountered numerous problems.

First, residents near the site protested. They worried their family homesteads would be ruined by air and water pollution. Next, a cave was discovered on site. Kentucky has fairly strict cave protection laws, so the Division of Waste Management began evaluating whether LG&E would be required to preserve it. More recently, historian Alicestyne Turley testified that the cave served a historical purpose, as well as an environmental one: she found compelling evidence that the cave had played a role in the Underground Railroad.

Now, the permit has been denied, and LG&E goes back to the drawing board. The Trimble County Power Station is a fairly new power plant (the first unit was built in 1990), and will burn coal for the foreseeable future. The two coal ash storage ponds on site are near capacity, so the company will have to figure out where to put the future coal ash that’s generated. LG&E spokeswoman Chris Whelan says the company will pursue another landfill on site, but in a place where it won’t harm the cave.

“We feel like the Cave Protection Act was designed to protect cave-dependent species and none have been identified at this particular site,” she said. The new plan will cost anywhere from $85 million to $115 million more, over the life of the landfill. “That is more money for the customers, and that’s why we had pursued the option with the karst-like feature on it,” Whelan said. “We were trying to pursue the least-cost option.”

Whelan didn’t know where on the company’s property the new landfill might be, or how it would affect the neighbors. A year ago, Trimble County resident Kelley Leach raised concerns about the proximity of the landfill to his home…and at the time, one alternative the company was considering was trucking the coal ash to the landfills at either of LG&E’s Louisville power plants–Mill Creek or Cane Run.

Kelley Leach says he doesn’t necessarily want to see that happen, out of concern for the neighbors of Louisville’s plants. Those living near Cane Run and Mill Creek say coal ash has contaminated their homes, and they fear the ash is also leaking heavy metals into the groundwater.

But Leach also doesn’t want to see similar problems plague his family and neighbors.

“Somewhere, somebody’s going to lose,” he said. “That’s the sad part about it, is somewhere somebody’s going to lose. We never think about these things until they happen to yourself.”

Carbon pollution is not only disrupting our lives, it’s hitting our wallets. Comedian and musician Reggie Watts shows how, laying out the billion-dollar connection between fossil-fuel energy and dirty weather events like Superstorm Sandy caused by carbon pollution.

We’ve all been paying the bill for years, but now it’s got to stop and you can help. Share this with your friends and tell our leaders it’s time to put a price on carbon and make the polluters pay.