ValleyWatch

February 12, 2016 – by Mary Dieter in the Indiana Business Journal

The school counselor told her it would shave just a few points off her child’s IQ.

That’s what a mother said in an interview in Flint, Michigan, where residents drank lead-poisoned water for 18 months before their indifferent government belatedly took steps to stop it.

© 2010 Illustration by John Blair

Just a few IQ points for a kid who already is starting life more than a few steps behind, living in a city of 99,000 where median household income is half that of the United States, 42 percent of residents live in poverty, and 57 percent are black.

Just a few IQ points. As stomach-churning as that is, it’s not the whole story. Lead poisoning can cause failure to thrive, behavioral issues, high blood pressure, joint pain, kidney damage, memory loss, mood disorders, and possibly miscarriages and criminal behavior.

The Michigan governor, his environmental agency and the regional office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency systematically covered up and profoundly let down Flint residents, more determined to save money than save futures, more concerned about deflecting blame than preventing damage. The Region 5 EPA administrator and Michigan’s top environmental official have resigned. Gov. Rick Snyder should, too, but he has merely apologized. Their actions are far too little, far too late, for the Flint families who might be irreversibly harmed by their alleged leaders’ apathy and ineptitude.

When horrible things happen to somebody else, we tend to take smug solace in thinking, “It can’t happen here.”

Only I have zero faith that something like the Flint disaster can’t happen in Indiana, where every action by the current governor and his predecessor has been weighed against political consequences, where the slightest possible imposition on business (read: contributors) immediately renders worthless any environmental-protection proposal. Govs. Mitch Daniels and Mike Pence have fought environmental protections at every turn and weakened the state’s ability to go after polluters.

The state—whose water was deemed by a 2014 study as more polluted by industrial chemicals than that of any other state—recently joined a lawsuit challenging federal authority to protect some streams and wetlands under the Clean Water Act. Meanwhile, Pence has criticized President Obama’s Clean Power Plan—a response to climate change—but is making no visible headway toward deciding if the state should write its own plan. He asked environmental groups early on for their ideas, but discussions since have gone behind closed doors, leaving common citizens out of a matter that deeply affects them. Continue reading →

January 27, 2016 – By Jasmine Watts in Great lakes Echo. Editor’s Note: Evansville has had its own lead problem and although not as ubiquitous and pervasive as the problem in Flint, it was every bit as much of a threat to human development for those who were forced to live in lead tainted neighborhoods. Sadly, that problem, once discovered, took more than twenty years to correct due to the lack of official leadership concern in Evansville as well as bureaucrat morass and delay. How many of us actually know if we have lead solder or lead piping for our service lines? The use of faucet filters is always a wise investment.

600 Employees facing termination

January 7, 2016 – by John Blair, valleywatch.net editor

Alcoa’s sprawling 900 + sure facility in Warrick County, just east of Newburgh has been the largest aluminum smelter in the nation for several years as others have been forced to close due to economic issues with the price of aluminum. Now, like the others, a substantial portion of the Warrick plant will shut down in 2016. © 2016 BlairPhotoEVV

Alcoa, the largest primary aluminum producer in the nation announced today that it is permanently shutting down smelter operation at its Warrick facility which was the largest smelter left operating in the United States. In their announcement, they also said that about 600 employees would lose their jobs.

Alcoa has operated the smelter since 1960 and employs just under 2,000 people in total at the Warrick County facility located just east of Newburgh, IN.

Alcoa claims their decision was based strictly on market issues which have forced the price of aluminum to historic lows due to international competition.

Alcoa did say that their power plants and rolling mills will remain open and it is only the smelter part of the business that will be shuttered permanently.

Their claim that they will keep open their power plants is curious since the primary need for the electric power is smelting. If the smelters are closed, and they keep the power plants operating, it can be assumed that they will operate their power plants as so called “merchants” selling their power on the open market. But that market is not good these days as renewable energy and natural gas have caused the retirement of numerous coal fired power plants across the country,

It should be noted that the power plants operate mainly to supply energy for the smelting process and with that shutting down the demand for power will diminish considerably. Currently, the power plants that carry a nameplate capacity of 800 megawatts in total do not sell power on the open market.

However, the Warrick Unit 4 is “jointly owned with Vectren with each owning 135 MW. At this time, it is unclear how all the power will be divided although Vectren has no plans to give up their portion. If Alcoa’s part of Warrick 4 is sufficient to operate the remaining operations at the plant, then it could well be that Units 1, 2 and 3 will be permanently shuttered. This is especially so since there are a number of environmental issues those 1960’s plants must contend with, including Carbon Dioxide as it pertain to climate change. Continue reading →

December 22, 2015 – by Cole Mellino in EcoWatch

Simple observation in the Valley Watch garden over the last few years bears out the severe reduce ion in honey bees in this region. This bee was an early explorer several years ago in the garden e=collecting pollen from a crocus in February. © BlairPhotoEVV

A team of researchers at the University of Vermont (UVM) created the first national study, which mapped wild bee populations. Their findings, which were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, confirm that native pollinators are in major decline in crucial agricultural regions of the U.S. They estimate that between 2008 and 2013, wild bee abundance declined in 23 percent of the contiguous U.S.

“If losses of these crucial pollinators continue, the new nationwide assessment indicates that farmers will face increasing costs—and that the problem may even destabilize the nation’s crop production,” the researchers said.

The study found that 39 percent of U.S. croplands that depend on pollinators face a “threatening mismatch between rising demand for pollination and a falling supply of wild bees.” They propose setting aside 7 million acres of land for pollinators over the next five years.

They identified 139 counties where this “mismatch” is most striking. These counties included agricultural regions of California such as the Central Valley, Pacific Northwest, upper Midwest and Great Plains, west Texas and the southern Mississippi River valley. Crops such as pumpkins, watermelons, pears, peaches, plums, apples and blueberries are most at risk because they are most dependent on pollination.

“Until this study, we didn’t have a national mapped picture about the status of wild bees and their impacts on pollination,” Koh, a researcher at UVM’s Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, said—even though each year more than $3 billion of the U.S. agricultural economy depends on the pollination services of native pollinators like wild bees.

The researchers cite “numerous threats” to wild bees, including pesticide use, climate change, disease and habitat loss.  Continue reading →

December 17, 2015 – by Heidi Ledford in Nature

4.0.4

Most cases of cancer result from avoidable factors such as toxic chemicals and radiation, contends a study published online in Nature on 16 December (S. Wu et al. Naturehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature16166; 2015). The paper attempts to rebut an argument that arose early this year, when a report in Science concluded that differences in inherent cellular processes are the chief reason that some tissues become cancerous more frequently than others (C. Tomasetti and B. Vogelstein Science 347, 78–81; 2015).

The work led to assertions that certain forms of cancer are mainly the result of “bad luck”, and suggested that these types would be relatively resistant to prevention efforts. “There’s no question what’s at stake here,” says John Potter of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, who studies causes of cancer. “This informs whether or not we expend energy on prevention.”

In their Science paper, mathematician Cristian Tomasetti and cancer researcher Bert Vogelstein at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, calculated the relationship between the number of stem-cell divisions and the risk of developing cancer in various tissues. Every instance of cell division comes with a risk that DNA will be incorrectly copied, leading to mutations — some of which could contribute to cancer. The duo’s analysis found a correlation: the more stem-cell divisions that occur in a given tissue over a lifetime, the more likely it is to become cancerous. Continue reading →

December 16, 2015 – by John Blair, valleywatch.net editor

Record breaking temperatures across the eastern half of the USA have provided more opportunities for being outdoors than normal this time of the year. But that also includes pests like those in the mosquito family and other insects. Perhaps the agreement reached last week in Paris will at least quell the advance of climate change, at least hopefully.

December 2, 2015 – Contact: Nicole Casal Moore at University of Michigan News. Editor’s Note: Valley Watch has opposed the use of Carbon Capture and Sequestration for mainly economic and efficiency reasons for more than a decade. 

Photo © 2013 John Blair

Serious flaws have been found in a decade’s worth of studies about the best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stabilize the climate.

The findings, from the University of Michigan, are released as world leaders at COP21 attempt to negotiate the globe’s first internationally binding climate agreement.

The U-M researchers have found that most economic analysis of carbon capture and storage, or CCS, technology for coal-fired power plants severely underestimates the technique’s costs and overestimates its energy efficiency. CCS involves sucking carbon out of coal-fired power plants’ flue gases, compressing it and then injecting it deep underground.

The new analysis puts the cost of reducing carbon emissions with CCS-equipped coal plants higher than any previous study—and most importantly, higher than wind and comparable to solar power. It’s the first study to confront the so-called “energy loop” inherent in the CCS process.

Beyond a one-time “energy penalty” these plants pay because they have to burn more coal to power devices that capture carbon, the researchers say the disadvantage compounds until fuel costs leap to four times today’s accepted estimates.

“The conclusion is that renewables will be a cheaper alternative to reducing carbon emissions from coal, at least in the United States and likely globally,” said Steve Skerlos, U-M professor of mechanical engineering, and civil and environmental engineering.

“To us, this means policymakers need to stop wasting time hoping for technological silver bullets to sustain the status quo in the electric sector and quickly accelerate the transition from coal to renewables, or possibly, natural gas power plants with CCS.”
Continue reading →

November 20, 2015 – YouTube video from Funny or Die

November 16, 2015 – by Daphne Chen in the Deseret News. Editor’s note: For those who follow such mundane things as air pollution data, it is clear that the many days in Evansville and surrounding environs, reach levels referred to in this new study. Unfortunately, government officials at every level, local, state and national dismiss poor air quality in the region as just  cost of doing business. 

If you have heart disease, yellow may not be your friend.

Patients with heart disease have an increased risk of having a serious heart attack even during moderate air quality days, according to findings released last week by Intermountain Heart Institute.

Kent Meredith, a cardiologist with Intermountain Medical Center in Murray and one of the researchers on the study, said the risk begins when the level of fine particulate matter — what scientists call PM2.5 — reaches 25 micrograms per cubic meter of air.

That falls in the range of a yellow air quality day — what the Utah Department of Environmental Quality labels “moderate” air quality.

“Patients who have known heart disease are going to be more vulnerable on those days when you see the air pollution spike,” Meredith said. “Those are days when they probably ought to adjust their activities.”

The study involved analyzing two decades of data from more than 16,000 Intermountain Healthcare heart patients along the Wasatch Front, cross-referencing it with 20 years of local air quality data.

“It’s a very complete, very big study in terms of the number of patients, which allows us to look for even small effects,” Meredith said.

Researchers found that for every 10 micrograms per cubic meter increase in PM2.5 levels, a patient’s risk for serious heart attack rose by 15 percent.

The study suggests that people with coronary artery disease should limit their outdoor exposure on many yellow days and all orange and red days. Continue reading →

October 29, 2015 – by the Indiana Law Blog. Editor’s note: We would almost certainly expect that Vectren will appeal this decision for either a rehearing before the same Court of Appeals or seek review by the Indiana Supreme Court.

In Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, Inc., Sierra Club, Inc., and Valley Watch, Inc. v. Southern Indiana Gas and Electric Co. d/b/a Vectren Energy Delivery of Indiana, Inc., Ind. Utility Regulatory , a 34-page opinion, Judge Bradford writes:

On January 17, 2014, Appellee-Petitioner Southern Indiana Gas and Electric Company d/b/a Vectren Energy Delivery of Indiana (“Vectren”), a public utility company which provides electricity to southern Indiana residents, filed a petition with Appellee the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (“the Commission” or “IURC”) for approval of projects to modify their current coal-powered generating stations so as to meet new EPA standards. The petition also requested financial incentives and reimbursement from ratepayers for costs associated with the projects. Appellants-Intervenors Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, Inc., (“CAC”) Sierra Club, Inc., and Valley Watch, Inc. (collectively “Appellants”) intervened in the action and, in addition to the Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor1 (“OUCC”), opposed Vectren’s petition. Appellants argued that retiring some or all of Vectren’s current coal-powered generators and replacing them with new natural gas-powered generators was a more cost-effective plan than Vectren’s proposal to install emission controls on its current generators. Ultimately, the OUCC ceased its opposition to Vectren’s proposal prior to the Commission’s decision.The Commission found that Vectren’s proposal was reasonable and necessary, approved the proposal, and granted Vectren’s request for reimbursement of project costs. On appeal, Appellants argue that the Commission failed to make necessary findings on (1) facts material to its determination of the issues and (2) statutory factors required to be addressed prior to authorizing the use of clean coal technology. In response, Vectren claims that Appellants’ appeal is moot and that the Commission made all necessary findings. We find that the Commission erred in failing to make findings on the factors listed in Indiana Code section 8-1-8.7-3 and, accordingly, we remand with instructions. * * *

We find that (1) the Appellants’ claims are not moot, (2) the Commission did not err in failing to consider the necessity of Culley unit 2 or the reasonableness of Vectren’s delay in filing its petition, and (3) regarding the soda ash and hydrated lime injection systems, the Commission erred by failing to make findings on the statutory factors listed in Indiana Code section 8-1-8.7-3 and by failing to grant or deny Vectren’s request for a CPCN thereunder. Accordingly, we remand the case to the Commission with instructions that the Commission make the required findings under Chapter 8.7.

October 18, 2015 – by Judy Siegel-Itzkovich in the Jerusalem Post

City lights, bright enough to light up the sky may have negative impacts on our health and our ecosystems. © 2008 BlairPhotoEVV

Living under constant and stable temperatures throughout the year due to air conditioning, heating and artificial lighting at night is liable to harm our health, food security and ecological systems, according to a international study by 63 researchers from 24 universities, including Tel Aviv University. The study was published in the British journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Professor Noga Kronfeld- Schor, a behavioral neuroscientist who heads the zoology department of TAU ’s life sciences faculty, said that these artificial environmental conditions create an “unending summer”.

Kronfeld-Schor explained, “The pace of life on our planet is [naturally] affected by seasonal changes. Plants and animals exhibit annual cycles in physiology, health, morphology, behavior and demography.

Our survey points to the fact that humans are not any different, and that we show significant annual rhythms in demography, health and well-being.”

She added that we usually do not pay attention to these seasonal changes because they are very slow.

“We feel our internal clock when we’re in jet lag, for example, but we pay less attention to the seasonal ticking – partly because we live in an artificial environment of ‘constant summers’ with steady temperatures and available lighting. But studies on other species prove that even after many years under set and artificial conditions, animals continue to ‘obey’ their seasonal clock, and statistical analyses show that humans are no different. We express different genes and are ill according to seasons – and are even violent and go to war according to seasons in the year.”

While the artificial environment does not cancel the season clock of humans, Kronfeld-Schor said: “We still don’t know how this environment affects our biological clock. We have a growing number of studies that point to animals losing their synchronization.

For example, migratory birds leaving one country are supposed to reach their target country on an exact date when there are enough hatching caterpillars to serve as a source of food.

The caterpillars time their hatching according to temperatures in the environment, but because of global warming, they do so before the birds arrive, so the birds die of hunger.”

The new article stresses the importance of better understanding of seasonal biology, especially based on disruptions caused by climate changes, the modern way of life and additional effects.

October 8, 2015 – News Release from LG&E and KU in the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer

It began powering customers across the Commonwealth before some areas even had electric service. Now after 65 years of providing safe, reliable energy, the turning of generating units at Louisville Gas and Electric Company and Kentucky Utilities Company’s Green River Station has ground to a halt. The company officially retired the plant’s final two units just before midnight, September 30.

The antiquated Green River Station is now officially retired. Compared to other plants, like TVA’s Paradise Plant nearby, it was a small facility but a big polluter, nevertheless. File Photo © 2015 BlairPhotoEVV

Hailed by Kentucky officials as “the greatest industrial innovation of the century,” Green River was put into service in 1950 to help meet post-World War II energy demands. Strategically located in western Kentucky, the plant played a key role in supporting the region’s dramatic economic growth by taking advantage of abundant, low-cost coal supplies in the area and serving as a critical energy hub that interconnected and supplied power to Kentucky Utilities’ entire system. At the peak of its operations, the plant’s four generating units combined to produce more than 250 megawatts of power.

“This plant might be a small one by today’s standards, but it’s also been a mighty one,” said Green River Station General Manager Tom Troost. “It’s met the challenge of increased demand and endured flooding, ice storms and more than six decades of service in an industry that is constantly evolving.” Continue reading →

October 4, 2015- by the Editorial Board of The Charlotte News and Observer

A massive coal ash problem (Foreground) exists at the Duke Energy Gibson Station in SW Indiana that goes largely ignored by Indiana environmental officials. Already, the drinking water for the little community of East Mt. Carmel, IN is so contaminated with selenium and other substances that it is unsafe for human consumption. Indiana seems to simply look the other way at this and the other numerous power plant ash and waste issues across the state. © 2010 BlairPhotoEVV.

Well, one has to admire the legal tactics if not the outcome. Duke Energy, after years of coal ash violations, made a deal with the state last week to make a $7 million payment, $500,000 for each of 14 coal ash pit and pond sites to settle the matter. In February, fears of a breach became a reality when a Duke coal ash pit in Western North Carolina spewed 39,000 tons of toxic waste into the Dan River. 

Criminal investigations ensued. Gov. Pat McCrory, a former long-time Duke employee when he was mayor of Charlotte, the company’s headquarters, vowed a righteous response. 

Indeed, state environmental regulators levied a $25.1 million fine against Duke. But that all went away Tuesday when the state and the company settled for that $7 million. Duke called it a payment and didn’t even seem to concede it was a fine. 

Frank Holleman, a lawyer for the Southern Environmental Law Center, rightly called it a sweetheart deal for Duke. “There’s a $7 million fine,” Holleman said, “but Duke gets amnesty at every single site in the state. Where is any new requirement on Duke to do something it wasn’t already required to do?” 

Duke is paying millions for cleanup and wrestling with what to do about remaining coal ash pits, which contain heavy metals that are an environmental hazard. Duke says tainted groundwater near the sites contains “trace elements” of the metals.

The state in this case appears to have fallen victim either to a botched investigation or to the high-dollar legal team Duke threw at the problem. 

In legal filings, the company claimed that Donald van der Vaart, secretary of the newly renamed state Department of Environmental Quality, told his staff to figure a big fine for Duke so that McCrory wouldn’t look bad as a former Duke employee. For its part, DEQ said Duke had been delaying action for years. 

But there seems little doubt that the country’s largest electric utility certainly bested the state in this case. Going from $25 million to $7 million doesn’t seem the shrewdest negotiating on the state’s part. And the coal ash problem is an ongoing threat.

A spokesperson for DEQ tried, unsuccessfully, to put a good face on the situation: “We both see value in putting this case behind us so that we can turn our full attention to the coal ash cleanup and basin closure process.” It’s likely some of Duke’s “full attention” was directed toward a victory party somewhere in Charlotte.

This tepid response to reprehensible threats of environmental problems related to coal ash only underscores the attitude of the governor and GOP legislative leaders that business should be left alone with regards to regulation, and if something happens to the environment, well, that’s just the chance you have to take.

September 23, 2015 – by Dave Stafford in the Indiana Lawyer. Editor’s Note: Valley Watch has been fighting this plant since its inception in 2004. In fact, we were instrumental. along with now deceased, Al Harding, in persuading Vectren to drop their proposed 20% investment in this fiasco. Finally after all these years our dedicated efforts are paying off for Duke ratepayers, at least some.

The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission must weigh for the third time rate increases for Duke Energy consumers connected to delays in opening the Edwardsport coal gasification plant in Knox County.

The Indiana Court of Appeals sent the matter back to the IURC in a suit brought by intervening interest groups, Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, Inc., Save the Valley, Inc., Sierra Club, Inc., and Valley Watch, Inc. v. Duke Energy Indiana, Inc., Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, 93A02-1503-EX-184. The appeals court held the commission erred by not reopening the record after a prior remand and relied on evidence not in the record in determining the reasonableness of rate increases. The panel affirmed IURC rulings that a three-month delay in the plant’s commissioning was not caused by unreasonable actions by Duke, and therefore the cost could be calculated to ratepayers. The panel also affirmed the commission’s determination that the plant was partially in service for federal tax purposes before the in-service operational date in the settlement agreement.

“Based on our review of the record, there was ample evidence regarding the three-month delay and its impact upon Duke’s petition for cost recovery, and there was no need for additional evidence on remand to address that issue,” wrote Senior Judge Betty Barteau. “By contrast, there are insufficient findings as to the value of the rate increases caused by Duke’s declaration that the plant was partially in-service for tax purposes, and whether the increases were reasonable.

“Furthermore, the Intervenors did not have an opportunity to seek discovery on the rate increases, due to Duke’s late clarification of the issue. In addition, the Commission on remand considered additional evidence in the form of orders from ECR 19 and ECR 20, although those orders were not part of the record in IGCC-9 and the Commission did not follow the procedure for taking administrative notice of prior orders. The Commission’s consideration of these orders sharply contradicts its determination that it did not need to reopen the record on remand to receive additional evidence,” Barteau wrote.

“Under these circumstances, on remand the Commission should reopen the record, receive additional evidence … and issue findings of fact on these issues:  (1) quantifying the impact upon Duke’s proposed rate increases in this case resulting from Duke’s declaration that the plant was partially in-service for tax purposes; and (2) determining whether the proposed increases were reasonable per Indiana Code section 8-1-8.8-12(d).”