George Voinovich

At a hearing on the Kerry-Boxer climate bill in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Nov. 3, Sen. George Voinovich was the only Republican to show up (for a whole 15 minutes!). He explained that Republicans were boycotting the proceedings because they wanted to wait until the EPA completed a more thorough economic analysis of the bill.  He insisted that he did “want to work on a bipartisan basis” and that requesting further EPA analysis was “not a stalling tactic.”

Voinovich has been arguing for further economic analysis ever since the House passed its version of a climate bill, Waxman-Markey, this summer.  He made the point in a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson [PDF] in July. When the Kerry-Boxer bill was unveiled in late September, he called for “time [to be] allowed for a thorough vetting of what has been proposed.”  And in late October, in remarks to the Environment and Public Works Committee [PDF], Voinovich stressed the importance of dealing with climate change, but again argued that more in-depth economic analysis was essential: “Climate change is a serious and complex issue that deserves our full attention. I acknowledge [the] commitment to timely legislation, but the abbreviated process by which this legislation is moving is not conducive to thoughtful, bipartisan climate change legislation.” He ended his statement by warning against attempting “to jam down this legislation” through the Senate: “Wouldn’t it be smarter to take our time and do it right?”

The senator also has concerns about particular provisions in the bill.  “One of my problems with this legislation is that the caps are unrealistic in terms of the availability of technology,” he said. And Voinovich argues that forced emissions reductions would result in significant transfers of wealth from fossil fuel-dependent regions of the country to areas that are less reliant on coal: “California is going to make out like a bandit with this legislation. To jam this thing through here is not going to be good and America is going to be very, very upset about it.”

——-

Here’s more on Voinovich and climate, as written by Kate Sheppard on July 30, 2009:

Sen. George Voinovich has acknowledged the problem of global warming, but wants to take a cautious approach in addressing it. He sponsored a weak climate bill last year that never got any traction.

He is retiring when his term ends in 2010, so he has leeway to support climate legislation without fear of political repercussion.

At the same time, Voinovich is a big supporter of fossil fuels.  Last year, he told Grist that the U.S. should “get every drop” of oil out of U.S. soil.

Voinovich doesn’t like the climate bill that passed the House in June. “In my view, the Waxman-Markey bill fails on all accounts,” he said at a panel on the future of coal that he hosted with Democratic Sen. Tom Carper (Del.).

“You’ve got a bill that is 1,200 pages, and there is just a lot of crap in there,” he said. (Actually the final version came in at more than 1,400 pages.) He criticized the near-term emission-reduction targets in the bill, saying that 17 percent by 2020 is “too high for us.” He’s also worried that the bill would allow carbon offsets to be purchased from foreign sources, arguing that could result in more U.S. cash going to China. “With modest $15 per ton, we could send $15 billion to China,” he said.

He stalled confirmation of the EPA’s deputy administrator while demanding that the agency provide a new analysis of the House climate bill that was more to his liking.

Track the debate and take action >>>

Voinovich has outlined his own priorities for a climate bill, including a cost-containment mechanism (also known as a “safety valve” or “off-ramp”), a requirement for international action, and major funding for carbon-capture-and-sequestration technology.

He seems willing to work on passing a climate bill this year. “There is a lot of work yet to be done; but from my perspective, it’s still open,” Voinovich said. “I’m leaving the Senate at the end of next year and I think there is the possibility in getting something done that’s meaningful.”

Do you know more about this senator’s stance on climate legislation?  Tell us.

Find out about other senators by clicking on their names in the right column.

Related Links:

Never-give-up fighting spirit: lessons from a grandchild

Approaching Copenhagen with a Portfolio of Domestic Commitments

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Photo: Kat... via FlickrConsider the weasel: so unassuming, even sweet -- on the outside. But put them near their prey and watch out! I've got weasels on my mind, of course, thanks to Ohio Issue 2, which goes before voters tomorrow. Issue 2 is the Ohio livestock industry's attempt to head off restrictions on their worst practices, such as tail docking, battery cages and gestation crates, and, purely coincidentally I'm sure, to keep the Humane Society of the United States from doing in Ohio what they've done in California, Michigan, Florida and Colorado just to name a few -- either through the ballot box or negotiated executive order, change the way factory farms raise their animals. Fiendishly clever in its construction, Issue 2 would create a new commission called the Livestock Care Standards Board to regulate livestock farming techniques. It sounds so reformist! There would even be consumer and human society representation. How unassuming, even sweet -- on the outside.

Indeed, once you take a good look at Issue 2, you see how truly weaselly it is. Eleven members of the 13 member board would be appointed by the governor (who also appoints the chairman). While spaces would be reserved for those consumer and humane society representatives, as well as for family farmers (who may also be large-scale factory farmers), the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation itself would not have underwritten at least $500,000 of the estimated $5 million Issue 2 campaign [PDF] if there were not a clear understanding of whose interests would ultimately prevail.

But far worse for Ohioans than the board's makeup will be its influence. Issue 2 would write the LCSB into the Ohio State Constitution, rather into than the legal code -- no half measures for Big Ag! Why would this be a problem? The group Ohio Against a Constitutional Takeover explains (via PDF):

The Livestock Care Standards Board, once cemented into the state constitution, would have the power to override any act by the Ohio Department of Agriculture or the state legislature, or any other initiative or referendum brought before the Ohio public other than an additional constitutional amendment. In effect, this means that any standard created by the Board is a final decision, giving it unchecked power over animal agriculture.

Nothing like the exercise of little raw power to put a spring in an industry's step. To be clear, this board would have sole and supreme authority -- it would take "self-regulation" to a ridiculous extreme. Again, short of amending the state's constitution (which is more difficult than simply passing a referendum), voters, along with the state ag department and the state legislature, would lose any ability to control the livestock industry. They could, quite simply, do as they please.

The sad fact is that, in a low-turnout off-year election like tomorrow's, the odds of passing this ludicrous amendment are surprisingly good. Yes, newspapers across the state both large and small are opposed. Groups from Farm Aid, to the Ohio Farmers Union to Food and Water Watch, and the Center for Food Safety have stated their opposition as well. But that durn LCSB sounds so professional and reform-minded! Why not just trust it?

Make no mistake, this is not just Ohio's problem. Should this bit of governmental legerdemain succeed, a similar commission will likely be coming to a state near you. Big Ag isn't even pretending it's a one-off. Having been embarrassed at the polls in state after state when it's gone up against the Humane Society, Big Ag is trying not so much to take but to steal Ohioans' ball and go home. Let's hope they fail.

Related Links:

Soil carbon—a blind spot in the debate on carbon

George Voinovich (R-Ohio) [UPDATED]

Feed the world sustainably by 2050? Yes, we can!

Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and leading DC-based think tank Third Way are the latest political figures to issue a call for significantly increased public investment to catalyze clean energy innovation. The Ohio Senator and the moderate progressive think tank joined the Breakthrough Institute today to unveil a new report calling for both the creation of a "National Institutes of Energy" and a dramatic increase in federal funding for energy research and development. The report, titled Jumpstarting a Clean Energy Revolution with a National Institutes of Energy, argues that these two measures are necessary to make clean energy cheap and get America running on clean energy.

"Clean energy is the future of our nation, but it can also create jobs now - in Ohio and across the Midwest," Senator Sherrod Brown said. "Done right, increased research and development of new clean energy technologies will drive innovation and reduce our dependence on foreign energy. Already in Ohio entrepreneurs and workers are leading the way."

"Our nation has a history of rising to meet pressing challenges by investing the resources necessary to overcome them," said Jesse Jenkins, Director of Energy and Climate Policy at the Breakthrough Institute and one of the report's authors. "Now, America must dramatically increase our investment in clean energy research and development and employ new and effective models to put that money to work. Clean, cheap energy technologies are needed to revitalize our economy, secure the nation's energy independence, and avert the risks of climate change," Jenkins added.

Modeled after the National Institutes of Health, a New National Institutes of Energy (NIE) would be designed to most effectively channel R&D funding toward the development of new, low-cost commercial clean energy technologies. The NIE would function as a nationwide network of regionally based, commercially focused, and coordinated innovation institutes. Alongside other effective research institutions, the new NIE would critically strengthen the nation's energy innovation capacity.

The report also calls for a sustained increase of $15 billion in annual federal energy R&D funding, consistent with President Barack Obama's proposals. This would result in a total annual R&D budget of roughly $20 billion per year. The purpose of both the R&D increase and the establishment of a new NIE is to close what the authors call "the clean energy price gap" - the difference between the current low price of carbon-intensive energy production like coal and the comparatively higher price of today's non- or low- carbon emitting technologies.

"Getting America running on clean energy is the defining challenge - and opportunity - of our time," said Josh Freed, a co-author of the paper who runs Third Way's Clean Energy Initiative. "Establishing a National Institutes of Energy and fully funding R&D will drive the research that will lead to the next generation of clean technologies. These not only will fight global warming, they will allow the United States to be the energy leader in a carbon-constrained world."

The authors also point to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who has said that it is a "myth [that] we have all the technologies we need to solve the energy challenge... We need new technologies to transform the [energy] landscape." The authors argue that their proposal would create the structure and provide the funding the United States needs to transition from an aging, insecure energy infrastructure to clean, cheap energy. Neither the private sector nor the federal government is currently meeting these needs at a time when other nations around the world, including China, South Korea and Japan, are dramatically increasing their clean energy funding.

Both groups also lauded the involvement of Senator Brown, who keynoted an event on Capitol Hill today to release the new report. "Sherrod Brown has been a leading voice in the Senate calling for energy reforms that helps to transform and save the American manufacturing sector. He understands that the best way to do that is for America to develop the technologies that will close the price gap and make clean energy cheap. This will help create the kind of jobs and industries we need to have a thriving economy in the 21st century," said Michael Shellenberger, President of the Breakthrough Institute. Freed added that Third Way "looks forward to continuing the work with Senator Brown that we have kicked off here today."

U.S. Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ) also joined the event to make brief remarks in support of the Breakthrough Institute and Third Way's efforts to advance critical clean energy research investments. The carbon prices established by the American Clean Energy and Security Act recently passed by the House "will not be enough," the Congressman explained, to spur clean energy research and ensure we have the technologies we need to achieve deep emissions reductions. Congressman Holt, who holds a PhD in Physics, warned that if the U.S. does not invest significantly more in clean energy research, "We may find ourselves five years from now, after we've deployed the technologies we have ready today and picked that low hanging fruit, and we're going to look around and say, 'Who was in charge of inventing the next generation of technologies we need?' ... The Market is not just going to do that for us."

Despite differences in their views on the energy bills currently before Congress, Third Way and the Breakthrough Institute said that the two groups had joined together to highlight the critical importance and urgency of energy R&D to the nation's economic future and the fight against global warming.

Third Way can be found on the web at www.ThirdWay.org. The Breakthrough Institute is at www.theBreakthrough.org.

A copy of the full report, Jumpstarting a Clean Energy Revolution, can be downloaded here.

Any questions about the report can be referred to Jesse Jenkins at jesse@theBreakthrough.org.

Click here for a press release from the Office of U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown

Press Coverage:

Images from event (via ThirdWay):

1. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio

2. Senator Sherrod Brown and Matt Bennett of Third Way

3. Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ), Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus of Breakthrough Institute, and Josh Freed of Third Way

4. Congressman Rush Holt and Josh Freed

Related Links:

Approaching Copenhagen with a Portfolio of Domestic Commitments

Climate Denial Crock of the Week: The big mist take

What Do Coal and Dirty Dorm Rooms Have in Common?

Sherrod Brown

Sen. Sherrod Brown was one of just four Democrats to vote against moving the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act to a floor vote last year, but this year he says he won't block climate legislation. "I'm not going to be part of a filibuster on climate change," Brown said recently.

Last year's bill never had much of a chance, and Brown was not satisfied that it would protect manufacturing. He signed a letter from 10 swing-vote Democrats explaining why they opposed the bill. Shortly after his "no" vote, he said, "I am committed 100 percent to passing a robust cap-and-trade policy. I could not settle for this legislation because it may hurt my state ... I would introduce a bill that would combat global warming without hurting families."

He seems to have more confidence in the cap-and-trade bill that the House passed this year. "I thought that Waxman was unbelievably adept," Brown said, referring to the chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee who ushered the bill through.

Brown's main concern is how a climate bill would affect the economy in his coal-reliant home state, which has a heavy manufacturing base. The House bill would impose trade penalties on countries that don't limit their greenhouse-gas emissions, but Brown says even stronger trade protections are needed. "This bill doesn't pass if it doesn't take care of manufacturing," he said. "And I don't think you can fully take care of manufacturing without some border equalization." That puts him at odds with President Obama, who criticized the House bill's border adjustment measures as being too "protectionist."

Track the debate and take action >>>

"I don't think the strategy is set on how you get to 60 yet until we figure out how you get Midwestern senators that are interested in manufacturing to support climate change [legislation]," Brown said recently. "I have close to a 16-year, 100 percent environmental record. And I want to support this bill, but it's got to protect manufacturing. Because if we don't, it's worse for global warming."

Brown voted not to rule out using the budget process to pass climate legislation earlier this year. He also joined this year with fellow swing-voter Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) to introduce a bill that would direct the secretary of energy to study ways to improve the competitiveness of energy-intensive manufacturing under clean-energy and climate-change policy. If a measure like that were included in a climate bill, it might help get Brown on board.

Do you know more about this senator's stance on climate legislation? Tell us.

Find out about other senators by clicking on their names in the right column.

Related Links:

Never-give-up fighting spirit: lessons from a grandchild

Approaching Copenhagen with a Portfolio of Domestic Commitments

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Ohio media sources are reporting that Piketon, a small town 60-miles south of Columbus, could be in line to get a new nuclear power plant. Gov. Ted Strickland (D), Sen. George Voinovich (R), Rep. Jean Schmidt (R) and officials from Duke Energy and French nuclear company Areva were in Piketon Thursday to announce plans for the plant.

Piketon, the former site of a uranium enrichment facility, is considered highly desirable for a nuclear facility because of its high capacity transmission lines and water resources, reported the Columbus Dispatch. According to the energy companies, the plant would create 4,000 "clean energy" jobs in Piketon -- impressive for a town of 2,000.

But not so fast. Though some coverage incorrectly suggested that the Piketon plant is a done deal, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would beg to differ.

"We have not received an application for the plant," said Scott Burnell of the NRC Office of Public Affairs.

According to Burnell, the process for acquiring NRC's approval could take up to five years: first an 18-24 month period for the energy companies to collect the information for the NRC permit application, and then a 2.5-year period for the NRC to review the application. "It could very likely go longer than that," said Burnell.

If the Piketon initiative, led by Duke Energy, is successful, it would be the first nuclear plant to be constructed in the U.S. since construction began on the River Bend plant in Louisiana in 1977.

Related Links:

EU pushes China further after pledge to slow carbon intensity

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

"...we can train ourselves to attend to the beautiful things waiting to be noticed. We can become curious and push the perceptions outward towards the surrounding world and society. We can see the miracle of life around us. We can be altered and saved by the situation in which we find ourselves."  Anne Bogart, Siti Theatre Company

A few years ago, when coal miners stumbled onto a 300 million-year-old fossilized rainforest in a mine in eastern Illinois, the nation was reminded of coal's one-time role in the garden. 

In one of the more creative protests against dirty coal this year, a "Counter Coalture" movement has emerged in southeastern Ohio to take coal back to its place in the garden, and raise awareness about the social impacts of coal mining, washing, burning and disposing on the people who live near active mines and facilities.

The coalition launched its action yesterday, June 7, with a day of protest gardening.

Following the non-violent principles from an Appalachian program called "Opposite Action," the Counter Coalture Coalition launched a website and issued a call for citizens "to plant trees, flowers, houseplants or other forms of vegetation in a united, peaceful protest against the negative impact of coal mining upon our planet. Not simply symbolic, this will provide a real opportunity to remediate part of the negative impact that mining and excessive energy consumption has upon the world. "

As former Ohio State University student and folk legend Phil Ochs once sang: "In such an ugly time, the true protest is beauty."

Some of the first "counter coalture" gardens can be seen at countercoalture.org.

C. Joseph from Harrison County, Ohio writes a dedication: "The side garden has mint, coral bells for the hummingbirds, and some tall, fall asters in the back. My coalture garden is dedicated to my Grandmother who spent her life in dirty, western PA coal towns. She always had a beautiful garden and people would come to photograph it because it was such a blessing to their ugly coal town. Grandma hated the coal dust & the mines ruined her water, but she always tried to create beauty with her garden. Though no one ever smoked, her entire family died of cancer, probably because of the coal mines, dust and polluted water."

Southern Ohio is one of the most coal-burdened regions in the nation.  As Elisa Young in Meigs County in southern Ohio once wrote:

The clock is ticking in Meigs County - we are up against critical challenges to transition our community away from coal toward a healthy, sustainable future, or become a virtually unlivable coal colony. We currently have the highest lung cancer death rate in the state according to the American Cancer Society, despite being a remote, rural, farming community. Harvard studies say we have the shortest live expectancy in the state (our ancestors lived well into their 90's - current life expectancy 70.2), and a recent USA Today report showed that with the VOC's being released by currently existing industry around us we rank in the top 3rd percentile for the worst air quality in the nation. There is a lot of pride in the fact that we generate the electricity that a major area of our country is run from. I believe we can find ways to continue doing that, moving toward energy independence that makes us real leaders in the renewable energy future. That future will be driven by our choice to do so now, or by necessity when that last lump of coal has been drilled, blasted and drug out from beneath us in Appalachia. It's a choice, and we need your help and support. I'm not against jobs or generating energy, but I do believe every dollar we throw to sequester into that bottomless clean coal pit is a dollar kept from from moving us toward a truly clean, healthy, sustainable future for our children and grandchildren.

Here's a clip from "Coal Ties," a documentary that explores one town's connection to its southern coal counties:

Related Links:

Prologue to Copenhagen

Vinod Khosla Nonesense

Ask Umbra on ditching dirty things

Related Links:

Prologue to Copenhagen

Vinod Khosla Nonesense

Ask Umbra on ditching dirty things

If you don't border the Great Lakes, keep your grubby hands out of 'em. That's the general message of a bill that would bar any major water diversion from Lakes Erie, Ontario, Huron, Michigan, and Superior, unless all eight lake-bordering states approve. The so-called Great Lakes Compact, which has passed Congress and heads to the welcoming pen of President Bush, also holds Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to new conservation standards and requires that they regulate their own large-scale water use. The Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec have agreed to similar conservation measures. The compact -- which exempts diversions of fewer than 5.7 gallons, a favor to bottled-water producers -- eases fears that thirsty states and even countries would try to siphon the lakes, which hold 90 percent of North America's fresh surface water and 20 percent of the world's supply.

Related Links:

EU pushes China further after pledge to slow carbon intensity

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

Related Links:

Making buildings more efficient: It helps to understand human behavior

Why buying cheap energy certificates worsens climate change

Making buildings more efficient: rationalizing retrofit markets

Related Links:

Prologue to Copenhagen

Vinod Khosla Nonesense

Ask Umbra on ditching dirty things

Still known for smokestacks and football, Cleveland is turning its ship around.Photo: Craig Hatfield"Most people know Cleveland by the Browns or The Flats," says Marc Lefkowitz. From the roof of his office building, which is dotted with native wildflowers and grasses, he gestures to the downtown skyline -- marked by the iconic Mittal Steel smokestacks that gave The Flats neighborhood its name -- and toward the beloved football team's stadium along the shimmering shores of Lake Erie.

That two-pronged version of the city's reputation may be wishful thinking on the part of Lefkowitz, web editor for a local green nonprofit called Green City Blue Lake. Because most people -- if they give Cleveland much thought at all -- probably see it as a Rust Belt city, a victim of white flight and the decaying industrial economy, and of environmental gaffes in the 1970s when Lake Erie was declared dead and the nearby Cuyahoga River was so choked with pollution that it caught fire.

The good news is, those ecological and economic atrocities planted the seeds of an early social justice, anti-poverty, and environmental movement in the city that has of late begun to blossom into a full-fledged sustainability movement. Cleveland is one of a handful of cities in the Rust Belt -- including Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Columbus -- that are reinventing the region as a sort of Green Belt.

The movement here is largely rooted in nonprofit groups and citizen activists like Lefkowitz and GCBL, but the city government is doing its part. Cleveland was the second U.S. city to sign the U.N. Global Compact, a charter for businesses to align themselves with human rights, labor, environmental, and anti-corruption practices; it also hired a sustainability programs manager in 2005, slightly ahead of the sustainability curve. Last year, the American Public Transportation Association named Greater Cleveland's Regional Transit Authority the best transit system in America.

But the real test of success will be if a green economy sprouts. The smokestacks in The Flats -- whose factories and steel mills have given way to luxury lofts perched above posh pubs filled with martini-sipping patrons -- may never spew steam again. That's a good thing, of course, for air pollution purposes, but eco-activists here hope a form of green industry will take root instead. If the flowers popping on GCBL's roof are any indication, green Cleveland may soon come into bloom.

Green City Blue Lake (formerly EcoCity Cleveland) can take credit for jumpstarting many a sustainability initiative here. Even its name embodies the vision: a city no longer muddied with brownfields, but reborn green, on a lake that's no longer swirling in pollution, but a clear and healthy blue.

The GCBL green roof comes into being.

Photo: ecocitycleveland.org

Started in 1992 by David Beach, currently the organization's executive director, GCBL's undertakings include the BLUE (Building the Livable Urban Edge) Project, which aims to improve waterfront access and quality; an urban "EcoVillage" of affordable green homes; and a climate change plan for the region. Last July, the group merged with the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, which will now be home to the Green City Blue Lake Institute and their joint Center for Regional Sustainability.

The group's current headquarters -- until they move to the museum this summer -- sits in the heart of the Ohio City neighborhood, characterized by the low-rent but gentrifying commercial activity along Lorain Avenue: used-car lots, ethnic grocers, and corner bars mixed with antique shops. Its 1920s-era, four-story building is the city's very first green-retrofit construction project, renovated in 2003 with features like a geothermal unit, solar panels, a partial green roof, and stormwater retention. The building is also home to some of the most active and influential green groups in the city, including The Nature Conservancy, the Cleveland Green Building Coalition, and Environmental Health Watch, a public health group that works to prevent and reduce exposure to harmful substances.

The building exemplifies a larger strategy for revitalizing Cleveland: luring folks back with the promise of reasonably priced real estate. "The intention of this space was to offer nonprofit groups below-market rent, to entice them to come here," says Lefkowitz. GCBL hoped its example -- siting a green business in a vibrant neighborhood -- would encourage other like-minded businesses to follow its lead.

And indeed they are -- at least a little bit. Great Lakes Brewing Company is just down the street. The brewer powers its delivery truck (and a shuttle bus called "The Fatty Wagon" that transports fans to and from Cleveland Indians games) with restaurant vegetable oil, educating customers on the benefits of veggie oil power, which produces 40 percent less soot than diesel and 25 percent less pollution. Farther east, closer to downtown, lies the country's only American League stadium with a solar panel roof.

Despite some bustling neighborhoods, Cleveland still suffers from a shrinking population. The local paper reported that Cuyahoga County had the sixth-largest population decline in the U.S. between July 2005 and July 2006; only Detroit and cities addled by Hurricane Katrina lost more residents.

These days, the city needs to entice newcomers to join its 500,000 citizens and to fill the ever-increasing number of vacant homes in town; according to The New York Times, Cleveland also has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country.

"We've been heavily hit by the mortgage-lending crisis, and we're taking down about a thousand homes per year," says Andrew Watterson, program director of the city's office of sustainability. One solution: houses both green and affordable in the form of the Cleveland EcoVillage, a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood linked to mass transit.

The project is the brainchild of five local nonprofits (Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization, Environmental Health Watch, Cleveland Green Building Coalition, EcoCity Cleveland, and Cuyahoga Community Land Trust, an organization that promotes the land-trust model of home ownership), the city, the regional transit authority, private developers, and neighborhood residents. They aim to bring residents back to the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood, and to serve as an example to other cities of how to redevelop the inner city in a green fashion.

An affordable, efficient Green Cottage.

Image: gcbl.org

Near the newly renovated West 65th Street rapid transit station, Cuyahoga Community Land Trust is in the process of building five two- and three-bedroom homes, between 1,226 and 1,350 square feet each, called the Green Cottages. They're designed to be LEED-certified and models of energy efficiency, with projected heating costs of just $36 a month thanks to energy-saving appliances and heavy insulation. The houses -- which will be sold for between $105,000 and $125,000 to homeowners earning no more than 80 percent of Cuyahoga County's median income ($34,800 for a single person; for a family of four, $49,700) -- will break ground this summer.

"It's important to keep a range of diverse incomes to keep the neighborhood stable," says Mandy Metcalf, director of Environmental Health Watch's Affordable Green Housing Center and former director of the EcoVillage project.

Because mixed-income housing is a key to sustainability, EcoVillage designers wanted to coax both lower- and upper-middle-class residents to return to the inner city. The cottages are surrounded by Craftsman-era homes, many of them carefully restored, painted the colors of Easter eggs and with wide front porches. Down the street, within walking distance to the rapid-transit station that links to downtown, are 20 1,600-square-foot EcoVillage townhouses constructed by GreenBuilt Homes, an eco-friendly Cleveland builder.

These moderately priced eco-townhomes sold out shortly after their construction.

Photo: cleveland.oh.us

The townhouses rate high in energy efficiency and were built with low-VOC paints and photovoltaic panels. They were put on the market for an average of $215,000, pretty close to the average listing price for the city, and sold out shortly after construction. Since the spring of 2004, they've been occupied by a mix of people, mostly young professionals along with some empty nesters and a few families with young children. "We had a few folks who moved in from the suburbs, some who moved from within the local neighborhood, and some that came from other cities and other states," said Metcalf. At this point, the people behind EcoVillage feel pretty safe claiming the project a success.

In fact, green building is something the city can already boast about. Cleveland ranks second to Los Angeles in the number of LEED-ND (a newer LEED certification for neighborhood development) projects per capita currently seeking certification. Two green public housing projects are also in the works.

The mini green-building boom has spurred other efforts at sustainability, especially in greening the city -- literally. Several groups and individuals -- including City Fresh, a joint initiative between the New Agrarian Center and Ohio State University Cooperative Extension; Detroit Shoreway Corporation; Gypsy Beans & Baking Co.; a farmer named Josh Klein; and Councilman Matt Zone -- recently installed a community garden and market to supply both residents and restaurants with fresh veggies.

The same coalition is also working with Cleveland's Parks and Recreation Department to redesign the Zone Recreation Center in the EcoVillage to function more like a natural habitat, with butterfly gardens and some stormwater runoff features.

To encourage more walking among residents, decorative fencing and plantings were added to a pedestrian bridge on West 65th Street. A lot on West 58th Street in the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood, formerly occupied by a gas station, was transformed into a park last fall. Wonder City, a group formed by two sisters spearheading an urban farm on Lorain Avenue, plans to hook up with an adjacent day-care center to educate children about growing vegetables. And City Fresh links local growers with communities that have limited access to fresh produce. It also trains Cleveland residents in gardening and taking produce to market. Currently there are 140 community gardens in the city.

Cleveland's botanical garden and another community plots are literally greening the city.Photo: cbgarden.org"Green veins and arteries are going in the city," says Geri Unger, the Cleveland Botanical Garden's education director; the organization has four half-acre learning gardens where high-school youth spend the summer taking veggies from seed to market. "We have community development organizations lining up at the door to get [grants and plots]."

Employees at the Botanical Garden are collaborating with Kent State University's Liquid Crystals Institute to see how liquid-crystal technology can create more energy-efficient greenhouses. Besides the more obvious benefits -- good food, nicer spaces, enhanced property values, makeshift horticulture education -- the program helps erase the blight of abandoned lots, replacing them with gardens.

Beyond green building and urban agriculture, though, Cleveland will need to revive its industrial side to keep the condo-buyers coming. In an area bordering the Flats, the Cuyahoga Valley Initiative is taking Cleveland's industrial heritage and creating opportunities to launch jobs centered around sustainability and green education.

"The greatest resource for wind in Ohio is in Lake Erie," says Watterson. So what to do with those gusts? Cuyahoga County and Case Western Reserve University's Center for Energy & Innovation, along with five other organizations forming the Great Lakes Energy Development Task Force, are working together to create a wind farm on the lake, with up to a dozen turbines standing offshore and possibly generating five to 20 megawatts per hour.

The project has piqued the interest of folks from NASA, General Electric, and Fortune 500 companies, according to GCBL. A 2004 Renewable Energy Policy Project report suggested that the wind industry could bring 12,000 jobs to Northeast Ohio, but that won't be confirmed until Case's center completes its feasibility study in early 2009. Wind farms on fresh water are still untested -- this would be the first freshwater wind farm in the world.

Some believe that in order to truly transform itself, Cleveland will need to wield a brush with broader strokes. While the city has been involved in some of these citizen- and non-profit-driven projects, its own efforts seem to be moving from incubatory to toddler stage. Successes include adopting an anti-idling policy in 2006, adding eight hybrid vehicles to Cleveland Public Power's fleet, requiring that bicycle parking be a part of all new developments, and demanding that the city's water division require all contractors to divert 50 percent of construction and demolition waste from landfills.

"Our projects have to be good for the planet and the people, and help prosperity and economics," says Watterson. The city recently launched a feasibility study looking at waste-to-energy solutions and seeking to boost the amount of waste recycled from 11 to 70 percent.

Perhaps the broadest stroke will come with the adoption of a climate change plan. GCBL's Laura Christie and Brad Chase are tasked with leading this effort. "We're creating a baseline for what our [seven-county region] carbon footprint is," Christie says, by considering the city's food supplies, energy, arts and culture, water, spirit, transportation, education, and economy. "After we've got the regional picture, we can go to cities and counties in the region and help them," says Christie.

But before they can export their sustainability plan to the world, Cleveland's boosters have got to make sure it's working at home. So far, Lefkowitz has seen subtle but ineluctable signs that the shift from rust to green is winning back a few hearts and bodies -- and putting the city back on the map. He says he often fields calls from Cleveland natives working in green economies in other cities with a simple request: They'd like to come home and help out. Over time, he's been able to provide useful information to such callers: actual green opportunities, right here in Cleveland.

Related Links:

Why buying cheap energy certificates worsens climate change

More NYC farmers markets accept food stamps and sales soar

Home Economics of the JP Green House, Part 1

Related Links:

Why buying cheap energy certificates worsens climate change

Is there a tradeoff between economics and the environment?

John McCain’s troubles are the world’s troubles

Related Links:

Washington Times: “Obama digs in on global warming”

Chuck Norris on Copenhagen

The U.S.-India climate ‘partnership’

Related Links:

Friday music blogging: Harper Simon

George Voinovich (R-Ohio) [UPDATED]

If you can’t beat ‘em, cheat ‘em

Related Links:

Prologue to Copenhagen

Vinod Khosla Nonesense

Ask Umbra on ditching dirty things

With Election Day just over two weeks away, Muckraker brings you part two of our roundup of gubernatorial races with important green angles. Last week, in part one, we chronicled the hottest campaigns along the Eastern seaboard. This week, we're briefing you on a few of the must-watch races in the Midwest and Pacific regions.

Jennifer Granholm.

Photo: Michigan.gov

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D), who's running for a second term, faces stiff competition from Republican Dick DeVos, a businessman who's spent much of his career building his father's multi-billion-dollar pyramid-marketing empire, Amway Corp. "This has been one of the closest governor's races in the country," says the Sierra Club's national political director, Cathy Duvall, whose group is backing Granholm. "Almost nowhere else do you see a more striking contrast between a stellar, hard-won environmental record and an anti-environmental agenda."

DeVos, an ultra-conservative, has already spent $21 million since February on his campaign, more than $16 million of which came from his own pocket. Despite his scant political experience, critics say DeVos's anti-environment leanings are evident in the agendas of the right-wing organizations he has funded. Among them is the Acton Institute, a libertarian outfit (of which his wife is treasurer) that railed against the Kyoto Protocol, according to the Detroit Metro Times. He has also financed the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, which supports drilling for oil under the Great Lakes and selling off state parks. According to Sierra Club's Leigh Fifelski, DeVos also supports weakening environmental regulations on large-scale livestock and poultry operations. "This guy appears to be about as cozy with industry as it gets," says Lisa Wozniak, executive director of Michigan League of Conservation Voters. "Unfortunately, that wins you a lot of political support in [an industry-heavy] state like ours.''

Dick DeVos.

Photo: DeVos for Governor

No one knows this better than Granholm, who has fought -- and won -- many an uphill environmental battle as governor. Her plan to reduce mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants 90 percent by 2015, for instance, drew much caterwauling from industry, but she pushed it through anyway. She has promoted the development of clean energy sources such as wind farms, and committed to creating a state-wide renewable portfolio standard that will set hard targets for clean electricity production (the details have yet to be ironed out). Enviros also applaud her support for raising a "tipping fee" to help stem the voluminous tide of garbage that flows from other states and Canada into Michigan landfills. While Granholm has not come out in support of more ambitious fuel-economy standards ("You most likely couldn't be elected governor in this state if you did," says Wozniak), she has worked to broker conversations between greens and Detroit. "She's a visionary 21st-century leader, and we're doing all we can to keep her in power," Wozniak says.

Granholm had enjoyed widespread popularity and national recognition during her first couple of years in office, but her stature's been hurt by high unemployment and a weak economy in the state, both due in part to Detroit automakers' floundering fortunes.

A recent EPIC-MRA poll gave Granholm a narrow lead over DeVos of 46 percent to 40 percent, with a 4 margin of error.

Ted Strickland.

Photo: tedstrickland.com

Democrat Ted Strickland is whomping Republican Ken Blackwell in Ohio's gubernatorial race, much to the relief of the state's enviros. Strickland has earned a 77 approval rating from the national League of Conservation Voters for his six terms in Congress representing Ohio's 6th district -- decent rather than impressive, but the environmental community is staunchly supporting him nonetheless. "Ohio isn't exactly a green state, so he's got a strong record in that context," says Bill Demora, head of the Ohio League of Conservation Voters. "We're very proud to back him."

Ken Blackwell.

Photo: kenblackwell.com

Strickland looks particularly likable when you consider the opposition -- Ken Blackwell, a multimillionaire who's closely linked to the religious right and so conservative that he's alienated even many Republicans. Blackwell has not amassed much of an environmental record in his current position as Ohio's secretary of state nor in previous roles as mayor of Cincinnati and undersecretary of Housing and Urban Development under the first President Bush, and he's been keeping mum about environmental issues during his run for governor. His campaign website does not outline any environmental goals, and he declined to speak with OLCV about his environmental platform.

Strickland, in contrast, "spent 70 minutes with state environmental groups hashing out his goals," Demora says. Among them, he plans to dedicate 30 percent of state bonds -- an estimated $250 million, according to his campaign website -- to energy-efficiency research and clean-energy job development. He also plans to conduct the first audit of the state government's energy use and curb that energy use 5 percent in his first year in office and 15 percent within five years.

A recent SurveyUSA poll shows 60 percent of likely voters favoring Strickland, while 32 percent back Blackwell.

Bob Beauprez.

Photo: house.gov

An open governor's slot in Colorado has made for a feisty race between former Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter (D) and U.S. Rep. Bob Beauprez (R). Beauprez is the first gubernatorial candidate whom LCV has added to its "Dirty Dozen" list of candidates it most hopes to defeat -- an honor traditionally reserved for Senate and House contenders. During his two terms in Congress, Beauprez has earned a 5 percent approval rating from LCV (yes, that's out of a possible 100). "This guy's record is so abysmal, and so out of touch with the interests of Colorado voters, we had to break tradition," said LCV's Tony Massaro.

Beauprez has voted in favor of fast-tracking drilling for oil and natural gas and exempting drilling activities from the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act -- sensitive issues in Colorado, which has seen heavy energy development in recent years. Some enviros satirically refer to Beauprez as "The Elk Whisperer" because he's championed a program to push elk populations off energy-rich land and into new habitat. "How he plans to move elk off migration patterns they've had for thousands of years, we don't know," says Carrie Doyle, executive director of the Colorado Conservation Voters. Environmentalists in Colorado are particularly flummoxed by Beauprez's support for a proposal to cut more than $20 million from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which is headquartered in his state. Beauprez also infuriated enviros when he backed a proposal to funnel up to $4 billion in state funding to dam-building, says Doyle, and lost face when the proposal was roundly defeated.

Bill Ritter.

Photo: ritterforgovernor.com

Ritter, by comparison, is applauded by greens for creating an "environmental crimes" unit as assistant district attorney to crack down on corporate polluters. Though his environmental record is otherwise fairly inchoate, he has outlined a strong platform. "Our state has some of the highest potential for wind and solar energy production, and Ritter has seized on that as a cornerstone of his platform," says Doyle. Ritter has expressed support for an ambitious target that would require Colorado utilities to generate 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2015, and has promoted water conservation and reuse plans over river-damming projects.

According to a recent Mason-Dixon poll, Ritter currently has a 15 percent lead over Beauprez, with support from 50 percent of likely voters compared to Beauprez's 35 percent.

Ron Saxton.

Photo: votesaxton.com

"To be really blunt with you," Oregon's Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron Saxton recently told a business group, "I'm not running for governor to deal with global warming." That's an understatement coming from the conservative corporate lawyer who has publicly opposed state-level climate regulations. He's also made numerous other "really blunt" anti-environment comments that have outraged Oregon green groups and deepened their support for Democratic incumbent Ted Kulongoski.

In this nail-biter of a race, global warming has emerged as a hot issue, "eclipsing the usual knock-down fights over wilderness, endangered species, and timber policy," according to a recent article in the Oregonian. Kulongoski -- endorsed by the Oregon League of Conservation Voters, the Oregon chapter of the Sierra Club, and Oregon Wild (formerly the Oregon Natural Resources Council) -- has backed a number of progressive climate strategies. He led the state to adopt California's stricter automobile standards, which will limit greenhouse-gas emissions from new cars and light trucks starting in the 2009 model year. He has also been a champion of renewable energy, and is pushing an ambitious clean-energy target that would require Oregon utilities to generate 25 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2025. Not only does Saxton oppose such a program, he has summarily dismissed the viability of clean-energy technologies such as those that tap wind and geothermal power. "They're gimmicks and they could turn into very expensive gimmicks," The Register-Guard quotes him as saying.

Ted Kulongoski.

Photo: governor.state.or.us

Kulongoski has joined conservation and tribal groups in suing the Bush administration over dam operations that harm Snake River salmon. He has also "aroused the ire of the timber industry by supporting the Clinton-era roadless rule and opposing the Bush administration's efforts to weaken forest protections," says Jonathan Poisner, executive director of OLCV. Saxton, in contrast, has received $1.1 million in campaign funding from timber interests. Says Poisner, Saxton is "blowing away every campaign fundraising record in this state's history -- all the traditional business interests have flung their pocketbooks wide open."

Saxton, who ran for governor in 2002 and lost to Kulongoski, has out-raised his opponent $5.3 million to $3.1 million this time around, which is propelling his unexpectedly successful campaign against the incumbent. According to the latest poll from Riley Research Associates, the two candidates are in a dead heat: 39 of likely voters say they'll support Saxton, and 37 percent say they'll back Kulongoski. The poll has a 4 percent margin of error.

In the Golden State, both candidates in the race for governor could be dubbed environmental golden boys.

Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Photo: gov.ca.gov

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) has unleashed a rapid-fire succession of historic environmental achievements in recent weeks and months, culminating with his signing of landmark legislation to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in the state 25 percent by 2020. And just this week he signed California on to the Northeast's carbon-trading program, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Schwarzenegger has come to represent a new kind of Republican, a moderate counterweight to the conservative, anti-environmental leadership in Washington -- or, depending on your view, an old-school Republican in the mold of Teddy Roosevelt, who saw conserving the environment as part and parcel of a conservative agenda.

California's environmental establishment, nevertheless, is maintaining its support for Democratic candidate Phil Angelides, who's built up a strong green record as state treasurer, investing heavily in renewable-energy development, and has been campaigning on an ambitious environmental platform.

Phil Angelides.

While enviro groups in the state applaud Schwarzenegger's recent moves, they argue that on the whole his record has been inconsistent. They point, for example, to his veto last month of a bill that would have slashed toxic air pollutants from the big shipping ports at Long Beach and Los Angeles. Tom Adams, board president of the California League of Conservation Voters, went so far as to characterize Schwarzenegger's signing of the climate act as a political stratagem -- "an election-year ploy to establish environmental credentials a mere 41 days before voters go to the polls" and an attempt "to mask his overall weak environmental record."

And yet Schwarzenegger has amassed a number of impressive environmental achievements during his tenure. He pushed through a version of his Million Solar Roofs initiative, which offers substantial subsidies for solar systems on residential and commercial buildings. He is petitioning the Bush administration to protect roadless areas in California's national forests. He has backed the state's requirement that automobiles sold in California have lower greenhouse-gas emissions starting in the 2009 model year, despite aggressive pushback from Detroit. In all, environmental concerns look to be a focus for the governor, not an afterthought.

California voters -- known to favor candidates with strong environmental records -- seem to agree. A new poll by Rasmussen Research shows Schwarzenegger leading by 9 points, with 49 percent support compared to 40 percent for Angelides.

Related Links:

Is there a tradeoff between economics and the environment?

A Penny Saved Is…

George Voinovich (R-Ohio) [UPDATED]

James Bowe, a lifelong resident of Whitesville, W.Va., knows the mountains around his home better than he knows himself. He's seen friends and family buried there, and has devoted countless hours to protecting his loved ones' resting places and the Indian burial grounds that stand alongside them. So when Bowe pulled up on his four-wheeler in early April and spotted a coal company drilling in the middle of what he says was a known, if unnamed, cemetery on White Oak Mountain, he was livid -- and determined to stop them.

Mountaintop-removal mining marches its
way across West Virginia.

Photo: V. Stockman / ohvec.org

Knowing how quickly surface-mining operations can scrape away any trace of a mountain's natural landscape, Bowe immediately filed a formal complaint with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. For the next three days, he waited anxiously for intervention. On the fourth day, a DEP officer arrived, but it was too late: There was nothing left of the headstones that had been there, and only a small section of border fence remained. The investigator's report said he believed "a cemetery did exist at this site," but concluded that the cemetery "was unknown to the core drilling company ... and the West Virginia DEP when this permit was issued."

Bowe was, and remains, incredulous. "I don't see how the company wouldn't have known -- there was a tombstone sitting there," he said later. "You can't miss that. When you see crosses on top of something and sandstone markers, what do you usually associate that with?"

The DEP report indicates that the agency turned the matter over to Lora Lamarre, senior archaeologist at the West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office, for a final decision. Contacted in late April, Lamarre said there was no record of this complaint.

Stories like Bowe's have become a staple of local lore in Appalachia. There are hundreds of accounts of sunken graves, uprooted Indian and slave burial grounds, family cemeteries blown to smithereens and compacted into valley fills. Some of the tales have gained an almost mythical status, but residents and activists say they are disturbingly real.

Throughout the coal-rich land of southern West Virginia and eastern Ohio, they say, mining companies are damaging and even destroying burial sites. Industry leaders Massey Energy Company, Arch Mineral, and their subsidiaries are accused of drilling under, mining over, or raining sulfurous and acidic emissions down on tombstones and graves across the region.

"Many a known burial ground has been annihilated by drilling and blasting," says Maria Gunnoe, a member of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition. Such actions, say Gunnoe and other worried activists, are destroying the few pieces of these scarred mountains that locals can still call their own.

Much of the reported damage takes place along West Virginia State Route 3, which starts south of Charleston and runs along the Coal River. As it winds through coal country, the road and the skeletal settlements along it tell the story of the last quarter-century of mining in central Appalachia, says Peter Slavin, a Virginia-based writer who has covered the industry for more than a decade. Once brimming with life and the promise of prosperity, most of these communities now sit empty and broken. Failed businesses and rundown buildings stand like memorials to a more hopeful past.

Everything changed after Congress passed the Clean Air Act in 1970, and the later amendments to it, requiring strict emissions guidelines for high-sulfur coal processing. Companies began to invest in low-sulfur bituminous coal, which can be easily extracted by blasting and scraping away the tops of mountains. With the rise of mountaintop-removal mining, entire towns have been relocated -- in many cases forcibly evacuated -- to allow better access to the coal seams running through these hills.

Stories of mining's impact on communities here are nothing new. Coal companies have had a heavy presence in central Appalachia for more than 100 years. But the earth-moving dozers and evacuations associated with mountaintop removal have raised the stakes. Between 1939 and 2005, this form of mining claimed an estimated one million acres of West Virginia's mountains. More than half of that occurred after 1992.

Because the coal-rich land that companies buy or lease often borders or encompasses communities that date back hundreds of years, companies inadvertently find themselves in possession of the generations-old family cemeteries that pepper the landscape. Though the law requires them to provide access to cemetery visitors and researchers, the plots are often inaccessible, either due to remote locations or heavy mining activity around them. By the time families with limited access or those who have moved away return to visit their ancestors, they often find that the roads have been closed -- or worse, that the cemetery and graves no longer exist.

Larry Gibson inspects damage caused by
mining adjacent to his family cemetery.

Photo: Penny Loeb

Larry Gibson has been fighting surface mining and the companies who practice it for decades. His family's land on West Virginia's Kayford Mountain contains some of the richest coal seams in the area; after refusing countless opportunities to sell the property, he says, he has been threatened and even shot at. But Gibson will not budge. He stays to defend his home and defend landmarks like nearby Stover Cemetery. Though Stover is protected by the state's historic preservation office, Gibson and his friend Elisa Young have become increasingly concerned about the mining activity creeping dangerously close to the cemetery's border.

Stover sits on land now owned by Catenary Coal, and prospective visitors must obtain written permission from the company in advance. When Young and Gibson arrived for a visit last fall, they were refused entrance because guards could not find the email authorizing admission. After a few hours, they gained access, and Young was shocked at what she saw: about two-thirds of the gravestones were scraped to one side of the cemetery, and the wire perimeter fence was knocked over. Many of the graves, Young says, "were sinking into the ground because there were mining cracks, holes that were opening up because of the long wall mining that had been done underneath."

Horrified, she contacted the state DEP, only to find that Catenary was technically following state regulations, which prohibit operations within 100 feet of a cemetery. States enforce mining regulations based on the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977. A mining applicant who suspects or knows of an existing cemetery must commission an archaeological survey to determine the historical significance and boundaries of the plot before a permit can be obtained. But Young and other activists find the guidelines outdated and inadequate.

"Even when they follow the regulations, damage still [occurs], because they're blasting around under these cemeteries, and it literally shakes the ground up," says Judy Bonds, who heads Coal River Mountain Watch. "Even if we can get to a cemetery before the mining company, even if we point out one that needs saving, [the state will] tell us, 'Yeah, OK, here's this corner [for your cemetery].' And to the coal companies, they'll say, 'Now just mine all around it.'"

Raised in a family of miners, Bonds is no stranger to King Coal's presence in Appalachia. But her activist awakening came just six years ago, after she discovered her grandson lying awake at night, planning his escape route in case the dam holding back the slurry pond above their hollow broke. When she finally moved away from Marfork, W.Va., in 2001, she and her family were the last of more than 50 families to leave. The century-old community is now little more than a ghost town.

Bonds still visits Marfork and neighboring Packsville, where many of her family members are buried, but each time she goes back, she finds it more difficult to access the cemeteries. Once inside, she says, she encounters "slippage and headstones falling over where they've blasted out the side of the mountains." Bonds, who also says she's seen graves sink due to mining, claims Massey once hired contract workers to fill in graves, thinking no one would notice the damage. (Representatives for Massey and Catenary did not respond to repeated requests for comment on these or other allegations.)

Those concerned about this issue say it's not just earth-moving that's the problem. Sarah Hamilton, a member of Coal River Mountain Watch, had to go through a safety class and sign a waiver absolving Massey of responsibility for her well-being before guards allowed her to enter the Marfork cemetery. Once inside, she saw "subsidence and ashy gray residue on the ground." Activists believe the substance she saw at Marfork is the same coal dust that biologists have found in large quantities in the water and air around Massey's Elk Run Coal Company processing facility near Sylvester, W.Va.

The coal dust piles up quickly on buildings, in homes, and on land around the plants. And the sulfur it contains, in addition to posing a potential public-health hazard, accelerates weathering on limestone and marble -- two of the principle materials used to make tombstones.

Just across the West Virginia border in Ohio, Elisa Young and her friend Karen Werry, an amateur historian, have spent hours documenting the condition of cemeteries near their homes. Werry recently discovered that previously readable headstones had become illegible after just 10 years of exposure to the air. And Young has noticed unusual wear and tear on the headstones in her family cemetery, which houses more than 200 graves. Werry and Young attribute the erosion to increased local emissions from coal-processing facilities that have shifted to low-sulfur methods.

"Since they knocked the [high-sulfur] stacks down, [emissions stay] concentrated here," Young says. "My theory is that it's those emissions that are eating away the stones. You can smell the sulfur in the air."

Between the pollution, the permitting process, and the informal nature of local cemeteries, it is hard to know how many have been affected by mountaintop removal. The historic preservation office estimates there are thousands of cemeteries in the state, but Lamarre says the office would need to "compile documents from many different agencies, as well as from each county's circuit court" before it could even begin to guess how many have been affected by mining over the years.

"Certainly, there has been unintentional damage to cemeteries, but often this occurs when a cemetery is unmarked or poorly marked," Lamarre said. "We have also heard about damage to cemeteries resulting from mine subsidence, but again, this is unintentional."

Bonds takes exception to Lamarre's readiness to make excuses for the coal companies, and feels the agency does not do enough to preserve burial sites. As it stands, the responsibility for protecting cemeteries rests largely with the people of Appalachia, not with the state-appointed guardians of their culture and heritage.

To be eligible for protection under federal law, a cemetery must be included in the National Register of Historic Places. Prospective registrants must complete a lengthy, multistep application and submit a detailed land survey to establish historical or archaeological significance, and Bonds believes hundreds of cemeteries were already lost by the time residents realized what the registration process entailed. The process of fighting offending coal companies is even more complicated: citizens must not only prove that a cemetery existed, they must provide evidence that the company was aware of that cemetery when it applied for its permit.

They're not gonna take it anymore.

Photo: Jesse Mwaura / ohvec.org

The goal for local activist groups, then, is to raise awareness among residents in areas of heavy mining activity and teach them to watch for notices of land sales or permit applications in the local papers. Additionally, they push people in the community to register any known cemeteries or burial grounds as quickly as possible to qualify for protection. "King Coal has a long arm in this area, so it's up to the citizens to find out about a permit and then try to figure out how to protect the area," Bonds says.

It's also important, she adds, to let coal companies know that residents won't tolerate the destruction of their communities any longer. "When I became active in this, nobody even knew about these permits; no one knew what these things in the paper were. Well now we know, and they know that we know. And now we're saying, 'Stop it.'"

Though she believes her group's efforts have been successful, she says it's "only because we are and have been fighting this so hard here and they know we're fighting it. I shudder to think what they're doing in other communities, in Virginia, in Kentucky, over in Mingo County. I'm really afraid to hear their stories."

Young -- an executive committee member of the Ohio Chapter of the Sierra Club and co-chair of its energy committee -- also does her part to raise awareness. She leads tours called the "True Cost of Coal" for journalists, activists, politicians, and others, hoping to "enlighten people about how this method of generating electricity impacts the communities near the power plants, near the waste, and near the mining -- the whole cycle of coal." Only then, she says, will there be a desire to change, since those who have not been personally affected by mining are "not being forced to absorb the externalized costs of their homes being flooded or their cemeteries being blasted. That kind of thing doesn't go on a utility bill."

This spring, Gibson and Gunnoe took the word even farther afield as members of the first Coalfield Delegation to the U.N.'s annual Commission on Sustainable Development. Gunnoe focused her talks almost entirely on the destruction of cemeteries.

"It is a global problem and it's up to the people to ... do something about it," she says. "We have sacrificed everything for the land that we love, and now our entire way of life is threatened. I will not let them lock the mountain people out of the mountain."

Related Links:

Prologue to Copenhagen

Vinod Khosla Nonesense

Ask Umbra on ditching dirty things

Ohio city is latest to hire sustainability manager

Cleveland, Ohio, has joined Seattle, Chicago, Portland, Ore., and other American metropolises (metropoli?) in creating a city-government position focused on going green and saving energy -- ideally stimulating job growth in the process. Cleveland's new "sustainability programs manager," Andrew Watterson, is getting started with relatively simple and cheap solutions that will show results quickly, such as replacing incandescent light bulbs in city buildings with more efficient and longer-lasting fluorescents and instituting a "no-idling" rule for city trucks running on diesel. He's also working on energy-conserving options for the roof of Cleveland's City Hall, including a green-roof proposal. Watterson envisions Cleveland one day becoming one of the cheapest cities in which to do business when it comes to energy costs. "We live in a capitalist society," Watterson said. "You need to put [your message] in that context."

Related Links:

EU pushes China further after pledge to slow carbon intensity

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

Mega-farms in Ohio offer stench but little else to communities

The Plain Dealer examines the effects of eight giant hog farms built in Paulding County, Ohio, since 1994 and five mega-dairies since 2000, and comes away with a grim cautionary tale. A number of local families have fled from their homes, some unable to live with the stench from open manure pits, others because the hydrogen sulfide emitted by the pits has caused brain damage, they and their doctors say. Three of the massive dairies have also violated the Clean Water Act, according to the U.S. EPA. And what do local communities get in return for hosting these stinking factory farms? Not much. The farms buy only 1 percent of their feed from local grain farmers. They also provide few jobs, and the ones they do offer pay about $7.50 an hour and are largely filled by Mexican migrants. Nevertheless, Ohio Department of Agriculture Director Fred Dailey says the farms are welcome: "In Ohio, they're all family farms."

Related Links:

Toward a medically defensible energy policy

George Voinovich (R-Ohio) [UPDATED]

Growing up green: Breathing for two

A baffling leak has been discovered at one of the newest nuclear reactors in the U.S. The South Texas Nuclear Project, 90 miles southwest of Houston, was discovered to have leaked cooling water from its large reactor vessel, a problem that experts have never before encountered. "This is the first time it's been seen, either here or abroad," said Victor Dricks, spokesperson for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The plant's operators have pledged to keep the reactor offline until the source of the problem is found and the leak fixed. Managers of the 103 commercial nuclear plants in the U.S. have been on the lookout for leaks since last year, when extensive cooling-water seepage was discovered at the Davis-Besse nuclear plant near Toledo, Ohio, which has now been shut down for 13 months.

Related Links:

Ask Umbra on ditching dirty things

Ask Umbra on trash, toxics, and tots

Top 25 reasons to give a damn about climate change