There is no time to wait.
Be The Lorax wherever you are.
Category: coal
White Stallion gallops away from proposed 1200 MW coal plant
Texas, a stalwart in using coal for electricity, has seen three proposed coal plants tank since the beginning of December. The Limestone 3 unit, which would have produced 745MW of power, went belly-up the first week of December. Developers spent six years trying to get that plant permitted and built before throwing in the towel.
In the last week of January Las Brisas Energy announced the cancellation of a 1320 MW proposed plant (the plant would have used a petroleum refinery product which is much like coal, called pet coke).
On Thursday, February 14, White Stallion Energy gave plant opponents the sweetest Valentine possible by announcing that it isn’t going to pursue its 1200MW coal plant any longer.
Did they quit because of a lack of water? Air quality concerns? The impact on the health of local citizens?
Nope. It was all about the bottom line.
White Stallion said in a very short press release, “the presently low price of natural gas has made the price of electricity from a new coal fired generator uncompetitive at this time”
That is COO speak for “this project is too expensive for us to make any money.”
Which brings us full circle to the questions people have been asking since January 2008: what makes Plant Washington such a good investment?
There is no pro-forma study to justify the project, in fact there is no independent information to support this multi-billion dollar plant,, and there never has been. Washington EMC officials have told us that much. They spent $1M of our money on a project which has no data or cost analysis to demonstrate that it is a sound way to spend our money (and it is our money since the co-op belongs to the members).
The Texas Observer’s coverage the day after White Stallion bucked its project summed up the present status of the coal industry with the article”Coal, an Obituary.” It included these observations and analyses:
- “coal stopped making economic sense. In short, coal got fracked.”
- “The story for White Stallion is similar too: local opposition that started small but grew (it certainly helped that the conservative county judge turned against it); major regulatory impasses for the company; and a bottom-line that had the bottom fall out of it.”
- “The White Stallion developers also didn’t do themselves any favors with ridiculous claims that the plant would lower electricity rates locally and that their traditional coal plant was a “clean coal” facility.”
- “It’s weird to say, but get used to it: Coal is expensive.”
The Texas Observer also forecasts, “Wind power is cheaper. Even solar is fixing to eat coal’s lunch, if it isn’t already doing so. El Paso Electric Company recently agreed to buy power from a New Mexico solar farm for a little under 6 cents per kilowatt-hour. A new coal plant costs twice as much.”
Perhaps the most damning statement about White Stallion came from Eva Malina, with the local No Coal Coalition. Malina said, “I think they thought that since we were a small rural community, they would not encounter opposition. They were wrong.”
A tribe of 40,000 strong
Washington County, where I live in Middle Georgia, is small, about 20,000 people living in a county with white clay, rolling hills, and woods filled with deer.
Yesterday I watched the area at the Washington Monument fill with twice as many people as those who call Washington County home to make their concerns about our natural resources, climate, and health, clear to the country.
I met fellow tribe members from Burlington College in Vermont on the DC Metro Sunday morning. The young man who chatted with me was wearing a tie, I suspect because the day was planned to be of historic proportions.
A father with his young son, perhaps four years old, wearing a Forward on Climate button, navigated Union Station. Travelers from New York and New Mexico jockeyed for hot coffee before setting out in the bitter cold for the Washington Monument.
On our way to the monument we walked past a small group of people wearing bright yellow t-shirts. 
They weren’t smiling, and they seemed to want to debate and record people rather than participate. Clearly they weren’t there because of passion, and their sad, plain flyer with pro fossil-fuel data identified them as the hired hands the industry pays and outfits for events which threaten their profits.
We streamed in with signs and banners. We came by car, train, bus, and plane. Great-grandchildren perched on the laps of their elders in wheelchairs. Children carried cheerful signs with bright suns and flowers, lettered in the distinct print young children use.
We bounced on our toes to warm our feet. Couples held gloved hands. Before long we were a sea of fleece and down jackets.
And we marched, this river of people from across North America. Women from First Nations walked in front while men towards the back kept a steady beat on a large handmade drum. So many people, so many colors, shapes, ages, and reasons for being there to say, together, that the old ways must change.
We walked away from the yellow t-shirted few, greeting the people around us while we chanted and smiled. I walked with two women from Canada, then students from Earlham College and Appalachian State. New Yorkers opposed to fracking wore their signs over their chests and backs. Three men carried wooden numbers on tall stakes spelling out 350.
We cheered and chanted in front of the White House, calling for the President to make good on his words about Climate Change and how we will fuel our country. He had escaped the bitter cold for a weekend in Florida, but we were sure our voices were heard.
Our message was clear and our voices were strong. We made history yesterday standing shoulder to shoulder for the future we want for the youngest who were among us.
Customers abandon Whole Foods in lockstep
Earlier this month Whole Foods CEO John Mackey spoke with National Public Radio (NPR) as a book Mackey co-authored, Conscious Capitalism, was released. For years Mackey has said he thinks the healthcare reform laws are a form of socialism, but he took it up a notch and told NPR he thinks, “it’s more like fascism.”
The next day on CBS This Morning the Whole Foods founder tried to dial back his rhetoric and “bad choice of words.” Customer’s weren’t buying it.
Mother Jones followed the NPR and CBS features with a January 18 email interview with Mackey. 
He seized the opportunity to set off Whole Foods customers with his comments on Climate Change, which included, “climate change is perfectly natural and not necessarily bad.”
Mackey is pretty egalitarian in his ability to alienate customers who know they are paying premium prices to shop at Whole Foods (also called “Whole Paycheck” by customers).
My friend Karen Bonnell sent this email to Whole Foods, which she is allowing me to reprint here:
Dear Whole Foods Market,
I am writing to tell you I must end our love affair. Your (CEO’s) recent comments that Obamacare is “like fascism” and now, saying that Climate change “is not necessarily bad” shows me beyond any shadow of doubt that you don’t have a clue about things most important to me. So, it is adios, and I and my pocketbook will shop elsewhere.
I bet the lines are shorter at Whole Foods these days. That’s the way conscious capitalist consumers behave.
Advent 1: Doing the math in hope
This post was shared with me by Betsy Blake Bennett, the Archdeacon of the Diocese of Nebraska. It was originally posted at Green Sprouts.
Advent 1: Doing the math in hope
Our Advent Scripture readings, hymns, and prayers emphasize the themes of expectation, hope, and repentance.
Today’s reading from Jeremiah (Jeremiah 33:14-16) is a prophetic voice of hope in a situation that looked hopeless. People of faith are people of hope. A gift people of faith can bring to conversations about the environment – and especially about the climate crisis – is hope.
The Do the Math tour presented by Bill McKibben and 350.org was in Omaha last night. The Do the Math website summarizes Bill McKibben’s primary message:
It’s simple math: we can burn less than 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide and stay below 2°C of warming — anything more than that risks catastrophe for life on earth. The only problem? Fossil fuel corporations now have 2,795 gigatons in their reserves, five times the safe amount. And they’re planning to burn it all — unless we rise up to stop them.
An article published today by Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press drawing on new international calculations on global emissions published Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change says that rather than decreasing the amount of greenhouse gases, in the past year the amount increased by 3 per cent. The study’s lead author, Glen Peters at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo, Norway, says that the only possible way to stay within the goal of two degrees of temperature rise is to start reducing these emissions now and “throw everything we have at the problem.” Given how little we have thrown at the problem up to now, it seems unlikely to happen now.
With 0.8 °C degree of warming, we have seen all sorts of extreme weather in 2012, including Superstorm Sandy, the drought in the Midwest, and wildfires such as the one that forced evacuations around Estes Park, Colorado, this weekend. Imagine what two degrees would bring! Some scientists have said that reaching even the two degree limit would be disastrous , but it’s clear that our earlier failure to notice the signs and turn things around makes it nearly inevitable. Anything beyond two degrees changes our world in even more extreme ways, ways that are nearly unimaginable.
In today’s Gospel lesson (Luke 21: 25-36) , Jesus talks about paying attention to signs that are right in front of us, signs that people tend to deny or ignore. He describes distressing, fearful times and then says (Luke 21:28): “Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
In Omaha last night, Bill McKibben said that even though the information he was presenting was very discouraging, he found it exciting in a way because we are getting “nearer to the heart of things”. And we are indeed down to what is essential to survival; we are down to questions of meaning and questions about our priorities; we are down to questions about where our hearts lie when we face the finitude not only of our own lives but of our biosphere, our planet, and the way of life it has supported. Our search for hope in this seemingly hopeless situation leads us to a place of repentance and conversion: Are we willing to do what it takes to make hope possible?
The Do the Math campaign is taking a page from the anti-apartheid campaign and asking institutions – including religious institutions – to freeze new investments in the fossil fuel industry and then to fully divest themselves of all fossil fuel investment within five years unless those companies change their way of doing business. When energy companies are willing to leave most of their current reserves underground, to stop exploring for new hydrocarbons, and to stop lobbying for special breaks and for the defeat of legislation that would promote a switch to other forms of energy, in short, when the fossil fuel industry puts life ahead of profits, then divestment will become unnecessary.
Bill McKibben said that people tell him this sort of campaign is impossible, that it’s a “David and Goliath” situation. He said these words were discouraging until he though, “Wait a minute! I’m a Methodist Sunday School teacher; I know how the David and Goliath story ends!” We know not only how that story ends, but how the entire salvation story ends, and that is why we hope when all seems hopeless.
The questions we must answer are Advent questions; the journey of the heart we take to repent and turn ourselves and the world around is an Advent journey. Where do our hearts lie? How do we hope when everything seems dark? Can we set aside lesser priorities of personal convenience and comfort in order to do what needs to be done for the greater common good both close to home and in corners of the globe about which we know very little?
Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility…(From the Collect for the First Sunday of Advent)
Posted by Betsy Blake Bennett at 5:59 PM
Where the road will lead me
The Friday Photo
A weekly photo inspired by art, community, and spontaneity
October 12, 2012
This tree shaded dirt road at our farm will be used by four generations in my family this weekend. Marshmallows will be skewered and roasted, fish will be caught and returned to the Ogeechee, targets will be sighted, stars will be watched under a clear sky, good food will be cooked and shared by friends and family, and there will be a lot of laughter. We are so lucky.
Coal miners told showing up for Romney filming “mandatory” but without pay
Coal mine workers in Ohio were told that attending, and apparently appearing, in a Romney ad was “mandatory.” Now ProgressOhio has filed a complaint with the FEC over campaign violations.
It says a lot about Romney, Murray Energy, the mine owner, and the desperate steps they will take to win this election. Forcing workers without pay to attend or appear in a campaign ad crosses all kinds of legal and ethical boundaries, and tips the hands of Romney and an industry frantic to elect a candidate who believes in “clean” coal.
And what about “clean” coal? Bloomberg government analyst Rob Barnett says this, “We’re a long way off.”
The choice in November is clear: vote for big industry that opposes protecting workers, our air, water, and mountains, while supporting a candidate who thinks science, safety, our health, and global warming aren’t important, or elect a President who wants to create good jobs using renewable and safe energy, while protecting the air we breathe, the water we drink, fish, and swim in, or the mountains we climb. It’s just that simple.
Listen to Marketplace’s report today.
This river needs mowing
The Friday Photo
A weekly photo inspired by art, community, and spontaneity
October 5, 2012
This trickle of water is what is left of the Ogeechee River after months of drought. If anyone wonders why opponents of Plant Washington, sited about 15 miles from the bridge in Glascock County where this picture was taken, wonder why we are worried about a coal plant using 16 MILLION gallons of fresh water a day, now you have your answer.
Is Washington County becoming a mecca for renewable energy?
Governor Deal has announced that General Biofuels will build a $60M facility in Washington County to manufacture wood pellets for fuel production in Europe. As European countries shutter both coal and nuclear and switch to renewable fuels sources, the demand of wood pellets continues to create business here in the United States. The plant will be located just blocks off Highway 15 on Waco Dr., and production is slated for early 2014 according to Deal’s office.
This plant will employ 35 people and also benefit other local businesses both during and 
after construction (i.e. work boots and clothing, meals out, all types of office and plant facility supplies, safety training). All of these jobs are the direct result of companies using renewable fuel sources.
Business will increase for Sandersville Railroad and Norfolk Southern as these two rail lines will move the pellets to the Port of Savannah for shipping overseas. What I have said many times over bears repeating here: I am glad to see a business succeed, including the Tarbutton’s privately held railroad. I can’t support Plant Washington because the project will harm the air, water, and health of local residents near the plant as well as downwind and downstream. Plant Washington is a good example of putting personal profits ahead of a community.
Charles Lee with the Chamber of Commerce and Industrial Development Authority told me he can’t provide information on public facility bonds or tax abatements as those details are still in negotiation. Regardless of the project, I urge the County Commissioners to carefully consider all projects involving taxpayer dollars.
Local citizens need to pay attention as well. The county can issue bonds through the Public Facilities Authority without any taxpayer input except comments that citizens may make at a county commission meeting. Voter approval is not required for issuing these types of bonds.
There is still a lot to learn about General Biofuels. At face value it is certainly a much more progressive and promising economic option for Washington County and our neighbors than coal, for which local leaders should be commended.
Where are the families Romney wants to help?
Last week Mitt Romney closed his acceptance speech for the Republican Party’s Presidential nomination with this, “President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans, and heal our planet. My promise…is to help you and your family.”
Governor Romney is right to want to help families. I looked around and the only families I know are living here on Earth, so shouldn’t Romney also want to work on healing our warming planet so families are stronger? Hmmmm.
Tarbutton and Alford behind wildly unpopular Georgia Regents announcement
Plant Washington profiteers Ben Tarbutton III and Dean Alford pal around at the taxpayer funded Georgia University Regents meetings, which Tarbutton chairs (Alford got a plum seat on the Board after Tarbutton ascended to its leadership)
Earlier this week, despite “widespread opposition” and a possible trademark law suit from the Virginia University Regents, Tarbutton’s board announced that Augusta State University, and the recently rebranded Georgia Health Sciences University, will now be called “Georgia Regents University.”
Regents Board Vice-Chair William NeSmith, who also serves as the area’s representative in the Georgia House, told the Augusta Chronicle, “To a person, I haven’t found anyone supportive in the 10th Congressional District that supports Georgia Regents University. It is widely unpopular to the people that I’ve talked to.”
Chris Gay, a sports writer with the Augusta paper, said this in an open letter to the Regents, “By naming this new school Georgia Regents University, you will essentially be naming this school after your own body. Which makes no sense. Why not name it “Georgia Board of Regents University” then? If you name it “Georgia Regents University,” we’re all going to add the word “Board” anyway. (And this is slightly off topic, but do you know what GRU is anyway? Have you seen the movie “Despicable Me?” If not, do a Google search.)
And the Georgia Regents response to what some might call outrage over the name announcement? Tarbutton essentially said, “Get over it.”
Tarbutton and Alford were mic checked in the spring when the Regents increased fees for students. Lately they can’t seem to drum up much support for Alford’s no-bid coal plant which would be fed by the Tarbutton’s short line railroad.
Now, it seems they have made the entire city of Augusta, Augusta State Alums, and graduates of the Medical College of Georgia/Georgia Health Sciences University furious with their stubborn insistence on naming their alma maters after themselves.
A new back room deal
Based on the announcement Dean Alford made last week about Plant Washington and Taylor Energy Fund, the questions just keep building about what obligations the remaining four EMCs have to the project or P4G, what Taylor actually brings to the long embattled proposed coal plant, any contracts that will provide the EMCs with a “preferred position” if the plant ever gets built, and how much, if any, money will be returned to the co-ops.
This much is known, or being asked:
1. Alford started with ten EMCs in January 2008 when he announced Plant Washington with much bravado. At the beginning of last week he was down to four: Snapping Shoals, Central Georgia, Washington, and Upson. Last Wednesday, following media coverage of opposition candidates for the Snapping Shoals EMC Board of Directors in the Rockdale Citizen, Alford announced that the EMCs are “released” from any other expenses. In their place retired executive Tim Taylor steps in with a newly registered company that has a P.O. Box in Colorado and a disconnected phone line in Georgia. There was no mention of exactly how, or how soon, the EMCs who have clung to this project will get their investment dollars back, if ever.
2. Now instead of ten co-ops Alford has one individual as a partner. His new partner has a history of expensive coal projects in Colorado and a recently registered company. No mention of any financial capacity has been announced to the public, and in fact in this latest round of interviews with the media, Alford refused even to provide contact information for Taylor (that’s fodder for another blog post)
3. Last week Dean Alford announced that the remaining four EMCs 
had signed a new agreement with P4G which releases them from any future financial investments, but which also provides them with a “preferred position” when the eventual (but to date unidentified or confirmed) owner of the plant begins to sell power. What type of back room deal has my co-op, Washington EMC (WEMC) agreed to? Have they agreed to buy power from Plant Washington, whose ultimate construction costs are unknown? What kind of rates have they been guaranteed, and how do those rates compare to other options?
4. Alford told the Rockdale County paper, “The co-ops have always said their desire was the permitting of the plant and to find a strategic partner to own and operate the plant.”
Hmmm. In January 2008 he told the Marietta Daily Journal, “These 10 cooperatives … are building this facility — 100 percent used by them, for them, — to keep energy rates affordable.”
And then under oath in court Alford said in response to an attorney’s question, “Now, when this facility is built, will Power4Georgians actually own the physical — the real property? Will they actually own the power plant?” Dean Alford, “That is the plan at this time.” Testimony by Dean Alford, Fall-Line Alliance et al v. Georgia EPD September 9, 2010.
So was Dean Alford lying then or is he lying now?
5. When Plant Washington was announced, P4G touted job numbers of 1,400 during construction. That number has increased to 1,600. With no engineering designs secured, how has the number of projected construction period jobs increased? Magic?
6. Alford and P4G continue to trot out a projected cost of $2.1B for the plant. That figure is 
over four years old, and construction costs have risen in that time. An independent report released by GeorgiaWatch, a consumer advocacy group, projects costs to be $3.9B, and that number doesn’t include the added expense of required mercury pollution and carbon pollution controls. If the number of workers goes up, then wouldn’t the payroll expenses go up too? What kind of math is this?
7. As pointed out in a recent edition of the Sandersville Progress, Alford has discussed the complex modeling P4G has done on the water demands and stress that Plant Washington will place on the aquifer. However, P4G has failed to file reports and information as required by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) water permit, and the EPD has not enforced these required filings. FOR TWO YEARS. (Why bother with a permit at all? But I digress.)
8. And in the Macon Telegraph’s coverage, Alford is quoted as saying that Plant Washington will be exempt from new carbon limits because it received its final permit before the new carbon regulations were proposed. This isn’t accurate, as a recent legal filing by the Environmental Protection Agency makes clear. Plant Washington’s permit was, at that time, still under legal challenge and still being amended to make Plant Washington subject to new EPA regulations governing mercury and other toxic pollutants.
Alford has in the past referred to statements he disagrees with as “dishonest or intellectually naive.”
If P4G and WEMC leaders think that their owner/members and the public don’t see through their assertions, who is intellectually naive? And who is being honest about the facts?
Get your feet wet
The Friday Photo
A weekly photo inspired by art, community, and spontaneity
July 13, 2012
The Ogeechee Riverkeeper staff, Board of Directors, and the members have stood with us shoulder to shoulder, led when we needed direction, and watch our back for over four years since Plant Washington was announced.
They have worked late nights, through weekends, interrupted vacations, and never failed to do the work of protecting the river.
I was honored and humbled to be chosen as their Big Cypress Volunteer of the Year. There is so much work to be done for the Ogeechee. Get your feet wet and help them.
WEMC: Quit calling the co-op owner/members liars
I don’t need to recount the way P4G got a water permit, but we all know, plant supporters and opponents alike, that appeals were filed and the permit requirements were significantly increased due to those appeals.
And friends, the Oconee was too low for withdrawals in May. Period. The data on water levels came from the USGS. No one rigged up questionable data for the recent press release on exceptional drought conditions or the careful research carried out by the Union of Concerned Scientists used in their report.
I know the only day we will all agree on Plant Washington is when the Washington EMC Board of Directors announce a decision that Plant Washington isn’t tenable and is cancelled.
In the mean time, WEMC Board Members, and in particular my Board Representative, Billy Helton, please tell your spokesman and “no bid” contractor to stop calling your members “dishonest.”
As a result YOU are also calling us, your owner/members, friends, and neighbors, well, liars.
And you can’t hide behind some thin “excuse” like, “I can’t control what anyone says.” You are paying your spokesman and you can put a stop to the inaccurate things he is saying about your owner/members by cutting him off at the checkbook.
Please remember, we are the same people who have held you up while you grieved, brought you food when there was an illness in your family, prayed with you in church, and cheered your children on to victories on the ball field. We are leaders in our shared community of churches, civic groups, businesses, and schools.
Quit stooping to name calling and inaccurate statements about what we all know didn’t happen and the veracity of data.
Those tactics will not be forgotten long after Plant Washington’s pursuit is just a bad memory for our community and co-op.
You know better. Would your mother be proud?
Senators Chambliss and Isakson: Let me introduce you to my family
Dear Senators Chambliss and Isakson,
I have had the pleasure of meeting both of you when you have met with constituents in Sandersville. I haven’t had the opportunity to bring any of my family with me so I hope you will allow me to tell you a little bit about them.
My husband and I moved back to his home county 25 years ago because we wanted to live in a rural community and be near family. We raised two daughters outside tiny Warthen, in an old farm house we restored with considerable sweat equity. We are fortunate to have two incredibly energetic grandchildren Ella, 5 1/2 years old, and Chase, 4 1/2 years old, who live nearby.
Now that you have met my two grandchildren, I hope you will consider my concerns on behalf of Ella and Chase, the five grandchildren you have Senator Chambliss, and your nine grandchildren Senator Isakson.
The other day both of you voted to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ability to enforce the Mercury and Air Toxins Rule, known as MATS. These emission standards weren’t the result of fly-by-night or stealth regulatory work by the EPA. Instead, they were announced in 1990 as additions to the Clean Air Act.
Twenty two years is a long time for citizens to wait on cleaner air and the cleaner water which results from less pollution in the air. It was long enough for me to give birth to my younger daughter and raise her to the age of 22. Her entire lifetime has been spent breathing air that could have been cleaner a long time ago.
I just can’t figure out why, after all the medical, scientific, and financial research done by numerous respected institutions and individuals which shows just how harmful mercury and heavy metals emissions are to fetuses, growing children, and anyone with asthma or cardiopulmonary disease, that anyone would agree it should go on any longer. Or the research that demonstrates that the tougher standards would actually create approximately 8,000 permanent jobs and up to 45,000 temporary ones.
Yet both of you chose to stand up and say with your votes, “Yes, I support the continuation of dirty air and water for American citizens, including my grandchildren.”
I did a little research so that I might understand why you voted as you did. The Southern Company’s Georgia Power, which owns and operates Plant Scherer near Juliette, and emits the most carbon pollution in the country, was the second largest donor with a total of $102,650 in the 2011-2012 election cycle, to your campaign committee Senator Chambliss (that ought to be helpful if you run for re-election in 2014).
Senator Isakson, the Southern Company was third on your donor list with $28,050 to your campaign in the 2011-2012 election cycle (on the heels of the $38, 350 donation for your re-election in 2010).
Where you trying to help your donors who are burning an awful lot of coal with your vote opposing tougher mercury rules?
Or maybe that vote would help clients using the law firm King and Spalding (K&S). Those attorneys represent a group called Power4Georgians that wants to build a coal fired power plant in Washington County. Senator Chambliss, K&S helped your campaign with $58,000 in donations, putting them at a respectable sixth on your list. Senator Isakson, they didn’t ignore you either. K&S is eighth on your donor list with $31,250.
It goes to figure that some local folks in Washington County would support your respective campaigns. I found out some of the neighbors at my farm have done exactly that. Ben Tarbutton (no middle initial or other identifier) has donated $3,000 so far to the Chambliss campaign in the 2010-2012 cycle. Several Tarbuttons have donated $9,300 to the Isakson campaign since 2009. Those family members include Ben Jr., Benji, Charles, Betsy, Gena, and Hugh.
It’s no secret since Plant Washington was announced over four years ago that the Tarbuttons have been vigorous supporters of Plant Washington. It’s also public knowledge that Charles Tarbutton, who personally donated $1,000 to the Isakson campaign in 2009, is a member of the Georgia Power Board of Directors.
There are 10 directors on the Georgia Power Board. There are seven members of the Tarbutton family who have donated to your respective campaigns since 2009. If we consider corporations to be people (per the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling), then the number of interested parties in these two groups plummets from 17 to 8. A single digit.
Almost 24 percent of the 21,187 people living in Washington County are under the age of 18. In the state of Georgia, there are over 2,500,000 children under the age of 18. The math should work out in favor of the children and votes in favor of upholding the MATS rule.
My grandchildren are among those 2.5M children who deserve cleaner air to breathe. Your grandchildren deserve the same, in whatever state they live in. My children deserved cleaner air when they were growing up. Yours did too.
So please tell me, when does the health of the children come first ahead of the money and influence of donors?
Hazardous to children
The Friday Photo
A weekly photo inspired by spontaneity, art, and community.
June 15, 2012
A friend sent this photo to me
It is a limited edition “collectible” retailing for 2,000 British pounds
In today’s economy that converts to over $3,000 US
In proportion it is as expensive as new coal plants are today
It probably has a warning underneath it about being a hazard to children
Just like a real coal plant
One simple reason the EPD shouldn’t issue a final permit for Plant Washington
May 15, 2012
To: Georgia Environmental Protection Division
RE: Amendment 4911-303-0051-P-01-2
When Plant Washington was announced over four years ago the plant was expected to pump 122 lbs of mercury per year into the local airshed. The EPD approved that amount of toxins in a permit which local residents and organizations across the state challenged. The result was a second permit reducing the mercury emissions to 55.6 lbs per year.
The developer of Plant Washington, Dean Alford, acquiesced on meeting the MATS rules at start up. The much needed and long awaited MATS regulations reduce the allowable mercury emissions to 1.69 lbs per year.
Please allow me to pat myself and other plant opponents on the back for standing firm on lower emissions in a community which already teeters on non-attainment, and whose citizens suffer the health ramifications of poor air quality. If your agency is truly committed to protecting the health of Georgia’s citizens and our natural resources permits with such high emission levels should never have been issued.
Now that Mr. Alford has agreed to meet the MATS emissions sooner rather than later, he seems to have had a change of heart. In interviews with Politico Pro and The Sandersville Progress, Alford said he can meet the emissions standards at start up. That is what the amended permit requires. Period.
I hope you can appreciate my concern about Alford’s ability to meet these standards when he joined a filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit stating that the emission regulations are unattainable.
The EPD permit amendment makes no mention of any technical or engineering requirements, or fuel mix, to assure that the emission standards will be met.
Is your agency in the business of issuing permits to companies who announce, before they have secured a final permit, that they can’t meet the requirements of the permit?
Rightly so, the confidence of local citizens in Alford’s ability to meet the standards has been deflated.
The taxpayers and citizens of Georgia expect, deserve, and demand that all companies issued a permit for emissions of any type, are able to meet those standards and maintain them in demonstrable and measurable ways.
Alford’s assurances that Plant Washington can meet the MATS rule are now hollow. I urge and request that the EPD do its duty to protect the health of my community as it is described in your mission and vision statements, and require Alford and Power4Georgians to demonstrate their ability to meet the MATS standards before a final permit is issued.
Sincerely,
Katherine Helms Cummings
You’re only as good as the company you keep
“You’re only as good as the company you keep” is something all of us probably heard growing up. It holds true for adults just as much as impressionable teenagers.
If the company you keep says a lot about you, then Dean Alford’s choice of business partners raises serious questions. Yesterday Alford announced that Taylor Energy Fund LLC is joining Power4Georgians (P4G). Tim Taylor’s company is based in Colorado but the Secretary of State’s website there shows no record of the company. Taylor joins forces with Alford, a private business partner with Dwight Brown, who awaits trial on 35 indictments pertaining to his time at Cobb EMC and Cobb Energy.
What plant opponents have learned about Mr. Taylor’s business history is less than encouraging.
In 2007 five men working at the Cabin Creek power plant in Colorado were killed in a 
tragic fire. Tim Taylor was President of Colorado Service Company (part of Xcel Energy), the company which owns the facility where the men died. The Denver Post coverage includes this quote from Greg Baxter, a regional administrator of the federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration, “This catastrophe could have been avoided if the companies had followed their critical safety procedures. There should never be such a disregard for the safety of employees.”
Mr. Taylor’s approach to company finances should also make Washington EMC (WEMC) and other P4G co-op owner members take notice. In 2009, Xcel, under Taylor’s leadership, made multiple requests to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) for rate increases to pay for construction costs in advance (much like GA Power is doing for Plant Vogtle). One request to the PUC was for $180.2M and it came on the heels of recent rate increases customers were already paying according to the Denver Post.
EMC members should note that Taylor had to take his rate request to a government utility 
commission for approval. EMC rates do not go before the Georgia Public Service Commission. The Board of Directors at OUR co-op, the one we own and belong to, but must request permission to attend monthly meetings or get information about operations, sets our rates.There is no one to appeal to but them.
WEMC owner-members need to ask our Board of Directors who they are choosing to “keep company with” before the first shovel of dirt is moved, or we are told to expect bigger power bills.
Anonymous love letters
The Friday Photo
A weekly photo inspired by spontaneity, art, and community.
April 20, 2012
Every so often I get a reminder that the work I love so passionately matters to other people, and that in fact they want me to succeed.
The mail on Tuesday contained this envelope, and I knew immediately it would have something meant to urge me (and my work partners) on to stop Plant Washington. And it did.
On the heels of the near-fatal injuries inflicted on Plant Washington last week, I was asked what I will do once we “kill Plant Washington dead.”
I got a love letter this week, and I think someone is asking me to work on “old” coal next.
How sweet.
The blessings and the curses of weekly newspapers
Several years ago I edited The Wrightsville Headlight in neighboring Johnson County. I spent a year there meeting and working with some of the nicest people I will ever know.
The upside of a weekly paper is that when you print something readers like, you have a whole week for people to say nice things about the paper. When you run a story about an issue which divides people, there is always an opportunity for a week’s worth of phone calls and passionate discussion.
One serious downside of weeklies is that readers must wait a week to see any corrections or clarifications in print.
This week’s edition of The Sandersville Progress didn’t get some important facts clear about a pending settlement concerning the construction permit for Plant Washington or the Greenhouse Gas Rule (GHG, or carbon pollution rule).
The paper’s coverage did not include or state clearly:
1. P4G (Power4Georgians) does not have a final permit, and the amended permit must stand for public comments before it can be final. This will take weeks to complete.
2. The carbon pollution rule (also called Green House Gas or GHG rule), was 
announced on Friday, April 13. Plant Washington needed a final and complete permit before April 13th to be considered exempt from the rule. In addition, P4G must commence construction before April 13, 2013 in order to avoid this additional pollution control rule. The clock is running now on this project.
3. If Plant Washington fails to meet the exemption criteria announced by the EPA, it will have to meet the new carbon pollution rules.
4. “Commence construction” requires more than moving some dirt around. It might be demonstrated by a contract for a boiler for the facility. For a facility of this size experts estimate the cost to be about $400M, with additional cancellation penalties ranging from $20M-$80M. There is no indication that P4G has done any of the engineering work required to order a boiler. There is also no indication that P4G has lined up the financing that would allow it to enter such a significant contractual commitment.
5. No company has built a new coal plant to meet the new Mercury and Air Toxins rules which were finalized earlier this year. Dean Alford, the project developer, has never built a coal plant.
6.The remaining four co-ops in P4G do not have any Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) in place for customers to purchase electricity generated by Plant Washington.
7. Dean Alford said that the PPAs will be used to help acquire financing loans for the project in addition to the bonds it expects the county to issue. Therefore, there is no indication that P4G has the necessary financing in place for the project.
I understand that the Progress works with limited staff and that the publisher, Trib Publication, has no online capacity to run corrections or clarifications promptly.
Whether the paper is crystal clear or not, thre are people who rely on it heavily for their local news (and we have a high population of people here who do not use the internet at all). It will be another week before we all see high school sports pictures, read Shirley Friedman’s column, or find out that in fact Plant Washington isn’t “full steam ahead.”
In fact, it seems to be sputtering.