by jboullion | Nov 9, 2011 | Uncategorized
A news release from the Sierra Club:
Madison, Wisconsin – Today, the Sierra Club issued a Notice of Intent to sue We Energies for the October 31 flood of coal ash into Lake Michigan when an old landfill located on the bluff collapsed at a construction site at the company’s Oak Creek coal plant.
“We Energies must be held responsible for the toxic mess at the bottom of Lake Michigan,” explained Jennifer Feyerherm of Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign. “We Energies has essentially turned Lake Michigan, a national treasure that supplies drinking water to over 10 million people, into a coal ash dump. We Energies filled a ravine next to Lake Michigan with coal ash, and it is that ash that now lies at the bottom of the lake. This was a predicted and preventable disaster.”
A biologist from the Southeastern Wisconsin Planning Commission raised concerns about the structural stability of the bluff when We Energies was planning to develop the site. As construction proceeded, the bluff collapsed, covering the shoreline with an estimated 25,000 cubic yards of coal ash and soil and dumping 2,500 cubic yards of coal ash and soil into the lake.
The Notice of Intent to sue alleges that the pollutants in the coal ash at the bottom of Lake Michigan “pose an imminent and substantial endangerment to human health and the environment.”
Coal ash is the toxic byproduct of burning coal. Heavy metals such as arsenic, mercury, chromium, and molybdenum remain in the ash after coal is burned. These toxic metals are linked to many health effects including cancer, birth defects, kidney damage, and nerve damage. In fact, studies have likened the risk of living near a coal ash site to smoking a pack of cigarettes each day. These toxic metals also put our fragile Great Lakes ecosystem at risk, threatening aquatic habitat and building up in the food chain.
“There are more than 2,000 toxic coal ash sites in the U.S. polluting our air and water, and now there is a new one on the bottom of Lake Michigan,” noted Melissa Warner, a volunteer leader with the Sierra Club that lives south of the coal ash dump. “My family’s drinking water comes from the lake. We Energies must clean up its mess and prevent any disaster like this from happening again.”
To date, there has been little information available to the local community about where the coal ash in the lake is going, what it will take to clean it up, and when the cleanup might be completed. Today’s Notice of Intent to sue is the first step in legal action against We Energies to force the company to clean up the toxic coal ash.
Ever since the TVA coal ash disaster in 2008, the Environmental Protection Agency has been trying to enact national protections to stop this kind of disastrous spill from happening.
“Communities here in Wisconsin and across the nation remain at risk and unprotected,” concluded Feyerherm. “The burning of coal is a public health menace. This spill is yet another illustration that as long as we are still mining and burning coal, our families and communities are paying the price.”
More posts on the spill and utilities.
by jboullion | Nov 3, 2011 | Uncategorized
A news release issued by Clean Wisconsin:
November 1, 2011
Contact:
Katie Nekola
Clean Wisconsin
608.212.8751(cell)
MILWAUKEE — Monday’s bluff collapse at We Energies’ Oak Creek coal plant sent a substantial amount of coal ash into Lake Michigan. Coal ash is a dangerous byproduct of burning coal to make electricity, yet has potentially toxic health effects if it enters our groundwater.
“We Energies said in an update on its website today that coal ash is ‘not a hazardous material,’” says Katie Nekola, attorney for Clean Wisconsin, “but that is far from true. The fact is, coal ash contains chemicals and compounds that are dangerous to human health. This disaster proves that we need better regulation of coal ash and that the public deserves the right to know what’s in their drinking water.”
Coal ash contains 24 known pollutants, some of which, according to the National Resource Council, are toxic even in minuscule quantities. Those toxins include: arsenic, boron, cadmium, chromium, hexavalent chromium, lead, mercury, and dioxins, along with other chemicals and compounds.
These toxins can cause serious health problems including cancers, central nervous system damage, and blood and kidney disorders. Coal ash dump ponds and landfills are often unlined, and arsenic, lead, mercury and cadmium can leach into local drinking water. One Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study found that residents living near unlined ash ponds run a risk of cancer from arsenic contamination that is 2,000 times greater than the EPA’s threshold for acceptable risk. At Oak Creek, the coal ash came from a decades-old, closed coal ash landfill. This spill comes at a time when Congress is considering limiting EPA’s authority to regulate coal ash as a hazardous waste.
“This landslide poured toxic materials directly into Lake Michigan, which 10 million people rely on for drinking water,” said Nekola. “Area residents should insist that We Energies and state regulators ensure the safety of their water supplies as soon as possible.”
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by jboullion | Nov 1, 2011 | Uncategorized
From an article by Meg Jones and Don Behm in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Oak Creek – A large section of bluff collapsed Monday next to the We Energies Oak Creek Power Plant, sending dirt, coal ash and mud cascading into the shoreline next to Lake Michigan and dumping a pickup truck, dredging equipment, soil and other debris into the lake.
There were no injuries, and the incident did not affect power output from the plant.
When the section of bluff collapsed and slid from a terraced area at the top of a hill down to the lake, Oak Creek Acting Fire Chief Tom Rosandich said, it left behind a debris field that stretched 120 yards long and 50 to 80 yards wide at the bottom.
Aerial images show a trailer and storage units holding construction equipment tumbled like Tonka toy trucks and were swept along with the falling bluff in a river of dirt that ended in the water.
“This is definitely a freak accident,” U.S. Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Brian Dykenssaid.
As a company hired by We Energies began cleanup in Lake Michigan, the utility confirmed that coal ash was part of the debris.
“Based on our land use records it is probable that some of the material that washed into the lake is coal ash,” We Energies spokesman Barry McNulty said. “We believe that was something that was used to fill the ravine area in that site during the 1950s. That’s a practice that was discontinued several decades ago.”
The Environmental Protection Agency is in the process of developing stricter regulations of coal ash following a 2008 Tennessee coal ash pond washout that created a devastating environmental disaster.
by jboullion | Aug 12, 2011 | Uncategorized
From an article by Betsy Bloom in the La Crosse Tribune:
Outdated power plant cooling systems take a major toll on fish and other wildlife in the upper Mississippi River, according to a Sierra Club report released Thursday.
The report refers to the plants’ open-cycle cooling systems as“giant fish blenders” that also spew out heated water harmful to aquatic habitats.
The plants suck in millions of gallons of water each day from the river that is circulated to help cool equipment, then released back into the river, according to the report.
Larger fish can become trapped against screens at the mouths of intake pipes, while smaller fish and other organisms are churned through the system and succumb to the high-temperature water, the report claims.
Mentioned in the region were Dairyland Power Cooperative’s plants at Genoa and Alma, along with the Alliant Energy plant at Lansing, Iowa.
The four coal-fired plants on the Wisconsin side of the river combined draw in more than 890 million gallons of water a day, according to the report.
The Sierra Club faults not only the power companies but also the Environmental Protection Agency for not requiring the plants to upgrade to a closed-cycle cooling system it contends uses 95 percent less water.
Dairyland Power spokeswoman Katie Thomson disagreed with the report’s conclusions, saying the plants have a “a very minimal impact on the Mississippi River.”
by jboullion | Aug 5, 2011 | Uncategorized
From an article by Tom Content in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
We Energies customers could see a small increase in electric bills in 2012 linked to the higher price of coal and other power plant fuels expected next year, the company said Wednesday.
The state’s largest utility filed a plan with the state Public Service Commission that said costs linked to power plant fuels are projected to rise by about $50 million in 2012.
The utility wants to delay an increase in non-fuel rates until 2013. Whenever that increase hits customers’ bills, it would result in a hike of about 6%, the utility projects.
Under the utility’s plan, rates would rise in 2012 only because of power plant fuel prices, and the bottom line for customers would be an overall 2012 increase of less than 1%.
Residential customers would see a 0.7% increase, adding 77 cents a month for a typical residential customer now paying $104.90 a month for electricity, utility spokesman Brian Manthey said. Business customers would see increases of about 1% to 1.1%. . . .
The higher price of coal is projected to lead to $28 million in higher costs next year, including the price of the fuel itself and cost to deliver it by train to Wisconsin. Other increases include $10 million for power it buys from the Point Beach nuclear plant and about $8 million for natural gas.
Offsetting these increases somewhat is the state’s newest and largest wind farm, set to open late this year. Generation from the Glacier Hills Wind Park would decrease 2012 fuel costs by more than $12 million, We Energies said.
