This post was co-written by Kim Teplitzky, field coordinator for the Sierra Student Coalition

Today at Penn State University, dozens of students, faculty, and community members rallied in front of university’s coal plant, calling on the university to move beyond coal to clean energy solutions.

Many find it strange that the Nittany Lions still rely on coal despite the university’s other strides toward clean energy. “The biggest surprise to people is how much we rely on coal,” said sophomore Rose Monahan, a leader with Penn State Beyond Coal. “They know we use it, but they didn’t know that we get 80% of our energy from coal-fired power plants.”

And yet Penn State has made some progress. For example, Penn State is a member of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Sustainability Partnership Program, which has the school committed to reducing its global warming pollution 17% by 2012.

University clean energy student groups have praised the administration for its commitment to sustainability and for initiatives the school has already undertaken to reduce carbon emissions.  According to the College Sustainability Report Card, Penn State purchases 20% of its power from renewable sources.

Students and faculty are now calling on the school to commit to developing a plan and timeline for phasing out the school’s 80-year-old on-campus coal plant. 

Thankfully, there is some progress on that end at Penn State. University President Graham Spanier has agreed to meet student leaders this semester to discuss the topic. 

Penn State Geography Professor Brent Yarnal, who has spearheaded regional and national greenhouse gas inventories and climate change impact assessments, also spoke at today’s rally and praised the students for understanding the urgency of climate change and for wanting their school to lead the movement.

We agree: With some of the world’s leading climate scientists on faculty and a history of student activism, Penn State should be a leader for Pennsylvania and all the large, public university systems in the nation.

Monahan echoed that sentiment.

“People are finally really start to talk about (clean energy),” said Monahan. “They realize how big an issue it’s going to be. Penn State is worried about carbon emissions, but we could definitely go bigger.

Learn more about how coal is Too Dirty For College

Related Links:

Ask Umbra on ditching dirty things

Climate Hope: Inspiring 2009 Books for Clean Energy

What Do Coal and Dirty Dorm Rooms Have in Common?

Arlen Specter

Sen. Arlen Specter is considered a fence sitter on climate legislation, though on Nov. 5 he sided with all but one of the Democrats on the Environment and Public Works Committee in voting to move forward with the Kerry-Boxer climate bill. 

As Darren Samuelsohn of Greenwire reported:

Specter bemoaned his inability to offer amendments addressing his home state’s steel, coal and refining industries. But he said it was more important to pass the climate bill out of committee now, given the international spotlight on the Obama administration’s role during a major U.N. conference Dec. 7-18 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

“Copenhagen is very important symbolically,” Specter said. “And Copenhagen would have been more impressed had we moved further. But Copenhagen will be impressed at least that we have the resoluteness to move ahead now.”

Here’s more on Specter and climate, as written by Kate Sheppard on 20 July 2009:

Specter’s role as a swing voter on climate legislation didn’t change when he made his surprise switch to the Democratic Party in April. While he has spoken in favor of acting on climate, he has opposed measures he thinks are too strong.

In 2007, he introduced a modest climate bill with New Mexico Democrat Jeff Bingaman.  In 2008, he voted against the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, arguing that it was too stringent.  This year, he was one of 66 senators who rejected the option of using the budget reconciliation process to pass a climate bill.

“I think we ought to have a bill which is as aggressive as possible, subject to two criteria,” Specter told Grist in April. “One is that it has a realistic chance of passage, and second that it establishes goals which are within current technical know-how.”

Track the debate and take action >>>

Speaking at a town hall meeting at Drexel University in April, he said, “I believe that it is more effective to choose something which can be legislated at the present time, which is within the reach of our current technologies ... The standards of the Lieberman-Warner go beyond the current technology.” (Note that the Lieberman-Warner bill was weaker than the Waxman-Markey bill that the House passed in June.)

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:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

What to make of the new climate poll

Obama administration officials grateful for early spring

Robert CaseySen. Robert Casey sent this letter to a Grist reader in early October in response to questions about his stance on climate legislation.  He affirms that climate change is a serious problem and that he intends to work toward legislation to curb greenhouse-gas emissions.  He also talks up “clean coal” and touts his efforts to get funding for carbon-capture-and-sequestration technology.

Dear [Constituent]:

Thank you for taking the time to contact me regarding global warming. I appreciate hearing from all Pennsylvanians about the issues that matter to them most.

The international scientific community concluded human activities that add a large amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, to the atmosphere are a leading cause of global warming. I believe Congress must take action to reduce and eventually reverse the hazardous effects of global warming, including extreme weather, famine, population displacement and the escalated spread of disease.

The House of Representatives recently considered global warming legislation. H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, introduced on May 15, 2009 by Representative Henry Waxman of California and Representative Ed Markey of Massachusetts, takes a comprehensive approach to reducing greenhouse emissions through a number of proposed programs, such as capping carbon emissions, renewable energy requirements and energy efficiency standards. H.R. 2454 passed the House on June 26, 2009. When this bill comes before the Senate, it is likely that the Senate will divide the contents into two separate pieces of legislation, one focused on global warming policy and one on energy policy.

As the Senate considers global warming legislation, I will continue to advocate strongly for the people and the economy of Pennsylvania. In fact, I have introduced a bill focused on climate policy, S.1134 the Responsible Use of Coal Act, focused on carbon capture and storage technology. I am also working on a program which provides assistance to workers as they train for new clean energy jobs in a transitioning economy. In addition, I introduced a budget amendment for funding to help accelerate research and development of carbon capture and storage technology in the fiscal year 2010 Budget. Throughout the upcoming debate I will continue to fight to ensure that clean coal is included in the national strategy to reduce carbon emissions, and that affordable electricity and assistance to ratepayer programs remain available. It is of great importance to me that American families are not left behind as the country addresses the challenge of global warming.

As a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, I am also closely monitoring international negotiations leading up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this December. I believe that a global agreement is necessary to alleviate rising energy prices, to transform the world economy, and to protect our national security.

If done properly, our national global warming policy will reverse the global environmental impacts of man-made greenhouse gas emissions while cultivating new clean energy jobs, re-energizing the manufacturing sector in Pennsylvania, and revitalizing the national economy. Please be assured that I will keep your views in mind as I continue to work with my colleagues in the Senate to develop climate legislation that will help Pennsylvania’s workers and economy.

Again, thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future about this or any other matter of importance to you.

Track the climate debate and take actionIf you have access to the Internet, I encourage you to visit my web site, http://casey.senate.gov. I invite you to use this online office as a comprehensive resource to stay up-to-date on my work in Washington, request assistance from my office or share with me your thoughts on the issues that matter most to you and to Pennsylvania.

Sincerely,
Bob Casey
United States Senator

Do you know what your senators think about climate legislation?  Ask them, then tell us what you find out.

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

What to make of the new climate poll

Obama administration officials grateful for early spring

Rep. Mike Doyle chats with Grist.Photo: G20VoiceDuring last week’s G20 Summit in Pittsburgh, Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Penn.) was out and about networking with climate-action advocates and talking up the city’s green cred.  A southwestern Pennsylvania native, Doyle comes from a steelworking family and has been a friend to the industry during his nine years in Congress.  But he’s also an outspoken proponent of the greening of Pittsburgh, where environmental cleanup, green jobs growth, energy-efficient building, and cleantech R&D have transformed a dying steel town into a lively pioneer of 21st century urban revitalization.

Doyle, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, was an early critic of the Waxman-Markey climate and clean energy bill.  But he eventually emerged as a major supporter of the legislation, brokering components that would benefit the industrial and manufacturing sectors and whipping up votes that helped the bill squeak to passage in June.  With Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), Doyle crafted a compromise measure that in the bill’s first 10 to 15 years would give away a mass of greenhouse-gas pollution credits to heavy industries facing intense overseas competition (such as steel, natch), as well as to power distribution companies serving local electric utilities.

While Doyle’s amendment angered some climate advocates, others feel he played a critical role in swaying enough of his fellow “Brown Dog Democrats” to pass the bill.

During the G20 last week, Doyle sat down for a quick chat with Grist about congressional climate politics, clean energy jobs, and the greening of Pittsburgh.

——-

Q. Let’s jump right in: From your perspective, what’s it going to take to get a carbon cap-and-trade measure through the Senate?

A. Hopefully the House bill hasn’t set the ceiling, and the Senate bill is going to set the floor.

It remains to be seen.  The ultimate work is going to get done in the conference, as we put the House and the Senate bills together.  I think the message we’re trying to convey to the Senate, and to others who were initially skeptical about whether this could be done in a way that didn’t devastate the economy, is that this can be a win-win situation.

Q. By win-win, you mean climate and economy, right? Your district is rich in coal and steel, and yet you brought many important constituents around to supporting the House climate and energy bill.

A. When this bill was first introduced in the House, I heard from the industries, and they were panicked that this was going to devastate the steel industry [and] jobs in western Pennsylvania.

I remember telling John Surma, the CEO of U.S. Steel, that he could either be at the table or on the menu.  We were moving forward, and I wanted him to come to Washington, D.C., sit down with Ed Markey [D-Mass.] and Henry Waxman [D-Calif.] and those of us on the [Energy and Commerce] Committee, and talk about how reducing carbon emissions impacts his industry [in relation to] other countries that don’t have [climate] regimes yet and are his competitors, and how we could fashion legislation in such a way that we could have a win-win situation.

It was really out of those discussions that the Doyle-Inslee amendment [PDF] was born in the House, which basically says to our industries that if they become more efficient and lower their carbon footprints and do that better than the sector average, we would reward that, and we’d do it in a way that was WTO [World Trade Organization] compliant.  We’re saying to steel, “We’ll give you the level playing field you need until such time that we get agreements with other countries that you’re competing with.”

Q. Being a hometown boy must have helped.

A. I get a certain amount of street cred, just ‘cause I grew up here, and my dad and my grandpap—we’re a steel family.  So it’s sort of like, “He wouldn’t screw us.  He’s one of our guys.”

Q. The major competitor is China, which, as a developing nation, is not required to take on binding emission-reduction targets under the Kyoto climate treaty.

A. We’ve always had this debate in the Congress: “We don’t want to do anything ‘til the Chinese do something.”  For eight years, we had a president who said, “We’re not doing anything until the rest of the world does something.”  And we did nothing. 

Well, we all understand that America’s going to have to lead this; that when we lead, then it gives President Obama and future administrations the leverage they need to say to developing countries, “Join us.” 

Q. I think it was surprising to many people beyond the Beltway that there was so much Democratic resistance to the Waxman-Markey bill.

A. It’s almost regional. [In] states like Pennsylvania and Ohio and West Virginia, where coal is king and supplies our electricity, we had to say, “How do we approach these early targets?”  Our target is 80 percent reductions by the year 2050, but the toughest part is getting started.

Part of the strategy in the House bill was to mitigate some of these impacts early on, in areas that were coal-intensive, until we can get technologies on board to help them reduce emissions.  Because under the early scheme, they’re not going to meet the caps, because there’s no carbon-capture-and-sequestration technology deployable as we speak today.  So they’re going to have to buy credits.  The theory [being promoted by opponents] is that they’re going to buy these credits and pass them right through to the ratepayers, and everybody’s going to pay more.  We solved that problem in the bill.

Q. But there’s still a massive amount of misinformation going out to the American public about all of those measures.

A. No question.  Last week, one of [Pittsburgh’s] two major papers did two editorials, one calling the whole idea of climate change “junk science,” and then just a few days later, saying how [climate legislation] could bankrupt this region.  It gets hard to have a rational discussion with those people who think climate change is a hoax. 

[But there are also] those people who think, “You know, I’m not sure it’s the end of the world.  But just in case it is, we should err on the side of caution.”  I think that’s where most western Pennsylvanians are.  Not everybody hears Al Gore, but a lot of people are saying, “Hey, we’re talking about our kids and our grandkids.  And if these people who say it’s a hoax are wrong, then we’ve really hurt the next generation.”

Q. Can people in your district picture a role for themselves in a low-carbon economy?

A. People that used to work in the mills come to me and say, “Mike, I didn’t go to college.  I’m not a scientist at Carnegie Mellon.  What does all this mean to a blue-collar guy?”  And they start to see that as you build these wind turbines, there’s jobs for people at all different levels in this green economy.  So people are slowly coming around. 

We like to build stuff.  That’s the other part that intrigues people from our part of the region.  They want to work with their hands.  People can get their heads around building solar panels and wind turbines.

That’s how a blue-collar kid that came from a steelworking family can go to Congress and support a clean-energy bill.  Where a lot of people think this would be a natural “no” for me, it’s really become not only an easy “yes,” but something we can go back home and talk about.

Q. Some climate activists are arguing that the ethical dimension to climate change is getting lost in the economic cost-benefit analyses.  Is that a case that would resonate with your voters, or voters in general?

A. The ethical argument verses the economic?  You know, I don’t think so.  Because people aren’t sure whether [climate change is] real or not.  I think if they were sure, then the ethical argument would be a no-brainer; of course we have to do something.  But since they are uncertain, the economic argument is really the only way to approach them.

It makes a compelling argument.  I told a lot of my colleagues—and some of them are in tougher situations than I’m in—that I really think you can go back home, and this is something that people will understand, if you take the time to sit down and explain it to them. 

Q. What’s your answer to people who say the government has no business mandating carbon pricing and green building standards? 

A. We have building standards for earthquakes in the West Coast, and building standards for hurricanes in the East Coast.  Why don’t we have building standards for having buildings that produce energy, instead of using so much energy?  Because energy isn’t cheap any more. 

Q.Going greener has helped Pittsburgh retain manufacturing jobs and revitalize the city’s economy—cleaning up brownfields, reclaiming the waterfront for the public, building green, and now bringing wind power jobs to the steel industry.  What’s next?

A. We have a national energy lab.  We have Alcoa.  We have PPG doing some state-of-the-art things in photovoltaics.  Right at Carnegie Mellon, Volker Hartkopf is constructing a [six-story, 7,500-square-foot] building that will be a net energy producer, not user [PDF].  He’s using a lot of the materials and research that’s coming out of institutions right here in Pittsburgh to do that.

We see this going on in our region, and we say, “Why shouldn’t Pittsburgh be the place where we do this kind of stuff, and produce these materials?”  We’re starting to get our heads around these ideas of the future. 

Related Links:

Obama administration may (finally) offer greenhouse-gas targets

Winning the clean energy race: a new strategy for American leadership

George Voinovich (R-Ohio) [UPDATED]

The word “family” serves as code so often in political discourse that it can be tough to know what it really means. In the case of a Pennsylvania coal-industry group, it seems to mean, quite clearly, “not families.”

Families Organized to Represent the Coal Economy (FORCE, naturally) does not allow families to join, according to a 2007 version of its website:

Under, “Who Should Join FORCE?” the site states, “Any Pennsylvania company doing business with the coal industry should be a member of FORCE.” (Hat tip to Sourcewatch for linking to the archived site and to Miles Grant at National Wildlife Federation for pointing it out.)

The organization’s current site provides even less information. It doesn’t even explain the group’s name clearly: “Families Organized to Represent the Coal Economy, Inc. (F.O.R.C.E.) better known as F.O.R.C.E. - families for PA coal is an organization dedicated to promoting the importance of Pennsylvania's coal …”

The group lists mining companies and related businesses as its “signature sponsors” for 2009. A crop of billboards along the state's highways promoting “clean coal” bear the group’s name, writes Grant.

I called FORCE’s headquarters to ask about the membership policy and about why it would use a misleading name if, in fact, the group is comprised of businesses, not families. FORCE manager Jeanine Rainone told me she wouldn’t be able to talk today, or tomorrow, or anytime soon, sorry for the inconvenience.

Not to worry—I found something better than an explanation. Much, much better: FORCE has a propagan-tastic children’s coloring book, “Eyes for Frosty.”

Related Links:

Ask Umbra on ditching dirty things

Climate Hope: Inspiring 2009 Books for Clean Energy

What Do Coal and Dirty Dorm Rooms Have in Common?

Pennsylvania environment officials are investigating another natural gas well leak, after residents near the town of Roaring Branch complained last month that rust-colored water was flowing from a spring and two small creeks were bubbling with methane gas.

The incident is the latest in a string of more than 50 similar cases related to gas drilling in the state, and comes as ProPublica published an article last week reporting that such events were more frequent than officials said.

According to the Department of Environmental Protection, at least four homes in the rural north-central part of Lycoming County are now being supplied with drinking water and 18 are having their water tested or their homes monitored for gas while the investigation continues. At least one woman was temporarily evacuated from her home last week as a precaution, according to Robert Yowell, north-central regional director for the DEP's oil and gas bureau.

Officials suspect that a well casing on one of three natural gas wells drilled by East Resources failed, allowing the gas to migrate into the ground and the streams, according to Yowell and a statement e-mailed to ProPublica from DEP headquarters. The wells were drilled into the Oriskany geologic formation, not the Marcellus shale, where much of the state's new development is targeted. The department is analyzing water and gas samples and has promised to post the results on the DEP Web site by the end of the week.

The well casing consists of several layers of steel pipe and concrete that surround a well structure and is intended to protect groundwater supplies from the gas and drilling fluids inside of the well. Unlike many other gas drilling states, Pennsylvania doesn't have regulations that require this concrete and casing be tested to confirm its strength.

East Resources referred questions to its general counsel who was not immediately available for comment.

According to Yowell, the company has temporarily shut down the suspected problem well by filling it with drilling mud, a slurry of the waste produced from the drilling of the well hole, and has been working to reduce pent-up pressure inside its wells that could be forcing stray gas out of cracks in the casing. To release that pressure, East Resources flared -- or burned off gas -- from two of the suspected wells.

"It looked like the sky was on fire," said Margaret Yaggie, a Roaring Branch resident who can sit on her porch and see the East Resources wells a few miles away. Yaggie said the flames stretched hundreds of feet and carried fumes and smoke. "It's above the trees, on the side of a mountain. It looks like hell."

It appears the measures have been effective in slowing the gas leak.

"One well that was suspect has been plugged and killed," Yowell said, adding that the plugging dramatically reduced pressure. "The readings (of methane) around the stream have gone down. We believe things are getting under control but [they're] certainly not abated yet."

Though Pennsylvania has more gas wells than any state other than Texas, Lycoming County hasn't seen such development until recently. According to Yowell, who only began to oversee oil and gas operations in April when the state established a regional headquarters to handle the rush to drill, the Roaring Branch contamination is the first of its kind in the area.

In a weekend article in the Wayne Independent, a local newspaper, East Resources spokesperson Douglas Mehan — who later referred ProPublica’s questions to the company’s attorney — was quoted as saying "the gut feeling of everybody is that this is very, very rare — a unique incident."

ProPublica has documented a series of cases in seven other Pennsylvania counties and across the nation in which methane has leaked from natural gas drilling operations. On Friday ProPublica published an article challenging Pennsylvania officials' claims that such cases were "an anomaly," noting that the state has hired a full-time inspector dedicated to stray gas problems and has recorded at least 52 cases similar to the one in Lycoming County. In several instances houses exploded as a result of the gas leaks. In one case, three people were killed.

Asked whether these cases constituted a pattern, the Department of Environmental Protection official who first described methane contamination as an anomaly, Craig Lobins, told ProPublica that the number of safely drilled wells in Pennsylvania far outweigh those that cause problems. "We are just dealing with a very small percentage," he said.

Related Links:

Water, conflict, and security on the banks of the Hudson

Salvadoran mudslides: A plea for climate change solutions and holistic water policy

Rally at Penn State: Students Taking Lead on Clean Energy

The green-building news is coming so fast and furious it can be hard to delve deeply into each story. So here’s a survey of a few of the shiniest, brand-spankin’-newiest, innovativest projects taking shape:

Related Links:

More NYC farmers markets accept food stamps and sales soar

Is there a tradeoff between economics and the environment?

This Friday, don’t just Buy Nothing—use nothing!

John SoleyAfter a long struggle with cancer, my friend Mr. John Soley died at his home in Carbon County, Pa. on Saturday, June 20. He was only 62, which is too young to die of natural causes. But then, neither John nor I believe he got sick from natural causes. We believe he and many of his neighbors were poisoned by pollution, and that the perpetrators should be held to account.

Outspoken in the local grassroots struggle against environmental injustice, Mr. Soley was a resident of Quakake Road north of Hometown, the rural Appalachian village where I grew up and where my mom still lives. Located where Carbon, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties converge in Pennsylvania's anthracite coal mining region, Quakake Road is a continuation of Ben Titus Road, where residents have reported an unusual number of cases of the rare blood malignancy polycythemia vera as well as other cancers and chronic illnesses. Last year, researchers with the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry confirmed a cluster of polycythemia vera in that area and believe it is caused by something in the environment.

Indeed, the valley where Mr. Soley lived lies below what may be the most toxic mountaintop in America. Broad Mountain is home to McAdoo Associates, a former Reading Co. coal mine that in the 1970s became an illegal chemical waste incinerator and dump used by some of the most prominent corporations in America, including BASF, Johnson & Johnson and a company that today is part of petroleum giant BP. The property is now a Superfund toxic waste site that was once considered one of the country's most dangerous. The first federal investigators on the scene reported finding massive sheets of cancer-causing benzene on the property and dead animals and birds scattered around chemical drums. The smell from the place was so sickening that we used to roll up the car windows and hold our breath when driving past.

Today that Superfund site sits next to the heavily polluting Northeastern Power cogeneration facility, one of seven such power plants in the tri-county area that burn waste coal and waste fuel. Adjacent to the cogeneration plant is what's known as the Big Gorilla -- an old strip mine that since 1997 has served as a dump for the toxic combustion waste created at the power plant. Click here for a photo I took of the cogeneration facility through the gates of the Superfund site.

To give you a sense of how close Mr. Soley lived to this toxic mess, click here for a Google Earth image, where his property is marked with the square in the upper right. The large water body in the center is the Still Creek Reservoir, which provides drinking water for Hometown and the nearby borough of Tamaqua; the black area in the upper left is the old mine site; the lighter-colored area to its right is the Big Gorilla; the white triangle between the black ash pit and the road is the Superfund site; and the industrial facility on the lower edge of the ash pit is the cogeneration plant. The road running along the left edge of the image is Pa. Route 309. The highway roughly follows the Little Schuylkill, the Schuylkill River's northernmost headwaters, which originate on the mountaintop.

The community also lies a a couple of miles northeast -- that is, downwind -- of the Air Products plant, a manufacturer of electronics specialty gases and one of the few domestic producers of toxic fluorine gases. According to the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory, the facility reported emitting to the air in 2007 alone more than 3,400 pounds of toxic hydrogen fluoride as well as more than 2,300 pounds of dichloromethane or methylene chloride.

Methylene chloride is a solvent known to cause cancer in humans, and it has a characteristically sweet odor. Coincidentally, during my last visit with Mr. Soley at his home this past October, he noted a weird smell coming from Air Products that he likened to bubble gum.

Welcome to Cancer Valley

I first met John Soley several years ago at a borough council meeting we attended in Tamaqua. It turned out that he knew my father, Dan Sturgis, as they worked together at the former Atlas Powder Co., where Mr. Soley was an electrician. My dad, a draftsman by training and an explosives expert, was first diagnosed with kidney cancer in the mid-1980s and died from it in 1998. The experience of helping care for him in his final months and seeing how many of our neighbors were also sick inspired me to undertake a research project that eventually led me to start a blog called Hometown Hazards.

When I visited him last fall, Mr. Soley had been on kidney dialysis after years of suffering from multiple myeloma, a cancer of the blood plasma cells that are formed in bone marrow and that play an important role in immunity. He wanted to walk with me along the Still Creek Reservoir to show me the areas along the shore where the vegetation was dead. Those areas reportedly coincide with springs coming off the mountain, one of several pieces of evidence that suggest the toxic chemicals dumped into the mine on the top of the hill are seeping into the wider ecosystem. But he was too sick to go walking on that day, so instead we sat at his kitchen table and talked.

"We need our story to be told," he said. "Welcome to Cancer Valley."

Mr. Soley told me harrowing stories about his own long battle with cancer as well as the health problems of others in his community. One of his neighbors was diagnosed with a rare form of liver cancer at age of 18. In another nearby home, two people were both suffering from brain tumors. Another neighbor had stomach cancer. And Mr. Soley knew of at least one child in the area who had leukemia, and whose uncle lived nearby and died of leukemia as a teenager.

Mr. Soley first moved to Quakake Road in 1978 from Tamaqua's Dutch Hill neighborhood. An outdoorsman and hunter with a deep love for Brittany spaniels, he got a good deal on the land, where he soon opened a kennel. It was only a few years after Mr. Soley moved in that his young neighbor was diagnosed with the rare liver tumor. About a year after that, Mr. Soley's own health problems began.

Suffering from chronic fatigue that began soon after the move, Mr. Soley was being treated by his doctor for Epstein-Barr syndrome but wasn't getting any better.

He eventually saw an Epstein-Barr specialist who did additional testing and discovered problems with his T cells, key parts of the immune system. The tests also turned up serious problems with Mr. Soley's blood cells, which he described as looking like "tapeworms ... all stuck together."

It was in 1997 that Mr. Soley was diagnosed with multiple myeloma.

After his diagnosis, he went through a four-month round of chemotherapy and later received a bone marrow transplant from his sister, Joan Yacobenas of Hometown. He was in the hospital at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore for a couple of months and then lived for a few more months in nearby lodgings for cancer patients so he could be close to his doctors.

Three days after he finally got home, he started bleeding from his bladder -- a reaction from one of his cancer drugs. This required operations to clear up blood clots.

When Mr. Soley returned home from that ordeal, he found he couldn't eat and started losing weight, dropping from 205 pounds to 145.

"I got so skinny when I looked in the mirror I cringed," he recalled. "I wanted to cry. I could only manage to eat one cookie a day."

As if that weren't awful enough, he then started bleeding from his rectum and had to be flown from the Lehigh Valley Medical Center to Johns Hopkins, where doctors diagnosed him with an infected bowel. They wanted to cut out a section but were afraid the operation would kill him. With no other options, they treated him with antibiotics but were not particularly hopeful about his chances.

He recalled how one morning three doctors came into his room and announced -- incredulously -- that somehow his bowel infection had cleared up.

"They told me I must have had a lot of people praying for me," Mr. Soley said. "They called it divine intervention."

After that ordeal, Mr. Soley was able to eat again, and his health gradually improved. But then in June of 1998, tests revealed there was still cancer in his body. He underwent an experimental therapy at Johns Hopkins that involved taking lymphocyte cells from his sister's body and infusing them into his own intravenously. When that treatment ended in January 1999, he finally felt good again for the first time in a long time.

"I was a completely different person," he said. "I felt 150 percent."

His relatively good health lasted until October 2006, when he woke up one morning with a strange feeling in his chest. A neighbor drove him to the hospital in Hazleton, where they found blockages necessitating heart surgery.

While Mr. Soley was undergoing rehab for the surgery, blood tests showed he had abnormally high creatine levels, indicating his kidneys were shutting down. In May 2007, he went on dialysis.

'This isn't normal'

When he first got sick, Mr. Soley told me, he figured it was just bad luck on his part. It was only later that he started noticing the patterns, with many neighbors all around him also sick -- with cancers of the liver, brain, prostate and blood, as well as thyroid disorders and other chronic illnesses. He lived not far from Betty and Lester Kester, a husband and wife who both died of polycythemia vera within the past two years.

"I said to myself, 'What in the hell is going on?' This isn't normal."

He soon began noticing strange things in the environment. The reddish-brown dust from the power plant that gathered on people's cars overnight. The strange chemical odors on the wind. The smell of sulfuric acid emanating from the hill leading up to the Superfund site. The thick white slime that coated the pump on his drinking water well.

A couple of years earlier, on the hillside close to his house, Mr. Soley also discovered what looked like spider webs of some sort of oily substance oozing out of the earth. He called his neighbor and friend, Ricky Johnson, who took photographs. They had a sample of the stuff analyzed at Wilkes University and found they were indeed petroleum products of some sort. The Pa. Department of Environmental Protection eventually sent out someone to take a look at the situation, but the person didn't even bring digging tools. Mr. Soley provided him with a spade to take samples, which according to DEP showed nothing unusual.

During our conversation, Mr. Soley expressed some bitterness toward local elected officials, who he felt failed to take adequate action to help area residents deal with the various environmental threats they're facing. For example, there's never been thorough independent testing of the water and sediment in the Still Creek Reservoir despite the obvious toxic threats. Nor has there been any widespread testing of people living along the reservoir for chemical exposures.

"It's been a joke," he said of official efforts to address the problems. "A farce."

Since Mr. Soley and I met, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) announced that he secured a $5.5 million federal grant to explore the cause of high rate of polycythemia vera in the area. But like me, Mr. Soley was already growing uneasy about officials' focus on polycythemia vera to the exclusion of all the other health problems suffered by local residents.

What about the people with multiple myeloma? Leukemia? Brain cancer? Prostate cancer? Thyroid disease? Would they be forgotten?

I know I won't forget my friend and what he went through. Perhaps the best way to honor yet another life lost too soon after great suffering would be to keep a question in mind as we continue our work seeking environmental truth and justice for the people of the Hometown area: What difference would our actions have made to John Soley?

(A version of this story originally appeared on the blog Hometown Hazards.)

Related Links:

Ask Umbra on ditching dirty things

Climate Hope: Inspiring 2009 Books for Clean Energy

Chuck Norris on Copenhagen

Some of the more than 1 billion gallons of toxic coal ash that spilled from an impoundment at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston power plant in eastern Tennessee last December is making its way to landfills in poor and black communities in Alabama and Georgia, as we reported last week at Facing South.

It turns out that TVA also looked into sending the waste to Pennsylvania for dumping into abandoned mines -- but that state's Department of Environmental Protection rejected the ash as substandard.

"This ash material was accidentally released from a disposal impoundment and mixed with unknown materials in the river water and bottom sediment," Pennsylvania DEP Secretary John Hanger announced last week. "DEP only certifies coal ash for mine reclamation in Pennsylvania that is not contaminated with other materials and can meet our stringent chemical requirements."

But experts say that Pennsylvania's toxicity standards for coal ash used in such projects are not particularly high -- at least not high enough to keep the ash from damaging water quality in the vicinity of the dump sites.

"PADEP is hurling boulders through their glass house with their public rejection of TVA ash as too contaminated for mine disposal," Earthjustice attorney Lisa Evans told Facing South.

Evans is one of the authors of a 2007 report that found widespread contamination of groundwater and surface water across Pennsylvania due to dumping of coal ash waste into abandoned mines as part of its land reclamation program. The report by the Clean Air Task Force found degraded water quality at two-thirds of the sites examined, with levels of arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, nickel, zinc and other pollutants found to exceed drinking-water and other water-quality standards.

A Pennsylvania newspaper reports that the material was apparently being considered as fill for an amphitheater construction project underway on abandoned mine lands in Hazleton, a predominantly white community in the northeastern part of the state that gained fame in recent years for its controversial efforts to drive out illegal immigrants.

The Hazleton Standard-Speaker quoted a TVA spokesperson as saying the federal company decided on its own against sending the ash to Pennsylvania because the site where it was to be used lacked a liner to prevent the material from contaminating groundwater. Abandoned mines where coal ash waste is being dumped across Pennsylvania typically lack liners -- one of the reasons why CATF's report found such widespread water contamination.

Instead, TVA is sending the spilled coal ash waste from Tennessee to landfills in in Taylor County, Ga. and Perry County, Ala. The choice of these communities for disposal of the waste raises environmental justice concerns, since almost 41% of Taylor County's population is African-American and more than 24% of its residents live in poverty, while Alabama's Perry County is 69% African-American with more than 32% of its population in poverty, according to the latest census data. Residents had no voice in the decision-making process, given that there was no opportunity for public comment.

The landfill officials have pointed out that their facilities have synthetic liners and systems to collect and treat the liquid runoff known as leachate in order to help prevent groundwater contamination. But even lined landfills with leachate collection systems provide no guarantee that the materials dumped into them won't eventually impact groundwater.

In fact, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency -- which is now overseeing cleanup of the TVA spill -- has acknowledged that all landfills eventually leak. The Environmental Research Foundation points to a Federal Register notice from EPA that states:

There is good theoretical and empircal evidence that the hazardous constituents that areplaced in land disposal facilities very likely will migrate from the facility into the broader environment. This may occur several years, even many decades, after placement of waste in the facility, but data and scientific prediction indicate that, in most cases, even with the applicaiton of best available land disposal technology, it will occur eventually.

Unlike many constituents of ordinary household garbage, the toxic elements in coal ash waste -- arsenic, lead and the like -- do not break down over time. That means that once the landfill liner deteriorates and springs a leak, those chemicals will be present to leach into the groundwater.

In addition, the leachate collection systems used in landfills are far from foolproof, ERF notes. For one thing, the systems have a tendency to clog up and/or corrode after a few decades. And as the fluid builds up and puts pressure on the bottom of the structure, it increases the likelihood of liner failure.

There's no doubt that TVA needs to clean up the spilled ash. The results of independent tests conducted on samples collected downstream from the spill that were released today found dangerous levels of toxic elements present in the water, sediment and fish, with some water samples showing arsenic levels 260 times and lead 16 times drinking water standards. The scientists also found fish with lesions and lost scales, which could be attributed to contaminated water.

But TVA's choice for disposing of the ash is not without its problems, either. Despite assurances by the company and government regulators that their plan is safe, the ash waste presents a very real risk to the communities where it's being sent for long-term storage.

At the very least, the authorities should acknowledge that fact.

Related Links:

Ask Umbra on ditching dirty things

Climate Hope: Inspiring 2009 Books for Clean Energy

Chuck Norris on Copenhagen

Related Links:

Environmental education in Guinea Bissau

It’s Getting Ha! in Here: Maria Bamford

Rally at Penn State: Students Taking Lead on Clean Energy

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:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

Related Links:

Chuck Norris on Copenhagen

The U.S.-India climate ‘partnership’

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Related Links:

Why won’t Lisa Jackson/Nancy Sutley visit a mountaintop removal site?

Rally at Penn State: Students Taking Lead on Clean Energy

Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) [UPDATED]

Related Links:

Ask Umbra on ditching dirty things

Climate Hope: Inspiring 2009 Books for Clean Energy

What Do Coal and Dirty Dorm Rooms Have in Common?

For more on Rust Belt cities, see our full feature on sustainability initiatives underway in Cleveland.

It may not be intuitive to link an area historically associated with steel mills, coal mining, and automobile assembly lines to sustainable development. But green growth is catching on in the Rust Belt, long an economically unendowed area of the country -- and its manufacturing-heavy past is coming in handy in emerging fields like biotech, nanotech, and hydrogen cars.

Here's what three cities are doing to green up their acts.

A new Destiny emerges in Syracuse.

Image: destinyusa.com

Syracuse, N.Y. In late 2007, Syracuse was named the "Go Green Large City of the Year" -- and this year, it will host the annual summit of the Go Green Initiative, which fosters sustainability in schools across the nation. Where was Mayor Matt Driscoll when the Go Green award was handed out? Why, he was leading a panel discussion on global warming at the U.S. Conference of Mayors summit in Seattle. Not bad for a city once best known for being a leader in the salt industry and home to the hardworking Erie Canal. In recent years, a push by city officials has seen Syracuse invest in green building and energy; its Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems unites businesses and institutions working on research and product development in clean-tech and renewable fuels. Destiny USA, a major mixed-used project powered by renewable energy, has garnered national headlines, and backers of a more local effort to revitalize the downtown corridor hope to create green-collar jobs and attract young workers. What effect will the green push have on this still-hurting city? Only time will tell.

Pittsburgh: good intentions, bad air.

Photo: nps.gov

Pittsburgh, Penn. The Smoky City has become a poster child of sorts for urban revitalization, although it still hasn't achieved the eco-notoriety of larger metropolitan areas. As home to the nonprofit Green Building Alliance, Pennsylvania's second-largest city has seen a boom in sustainable development, and it's been hailed as a leader of the green-building movement -- ranking third in the number of green buildings in the U.S., just behind Portland and Seattle. Efforts to redevelop riverfront brownfields have met with some success, and the city has gained new attention for its recreation access. But the challenges of its post-industrial legacy remain: The city was recently given the dubious honor of worst air quality in the nation, and sprawl is an ever-looming foe. Pittsburgh may no longer be "hell with the lid off," as it was once dubbed, but residents and advocates acknowledge that it seems to linger in a sort of purgatory.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett at last year's Mayor's Climate Summit.

Photo: usmayors.org

Milwaukee, Wisc. Once known as "the beer capital of the world," Milwaukee has lately seen an explosion in other types of comestibles. With the state seeing a 92 percent increase in organic production from 1997 to 2001, the city has built up its local food network; it now boasts several inner-city community-garden projects, a downtown public market, an annual campaign to encourage residents to follow a 100-mile local-food diet, and citizens' groups -- both organized and ad hoc -- pushing local food to the fore. A New Urbanist surge -- largely attributable to former Mayor John Norquist, now president and CEO of the Congress for the New Urbanism -- has seen downtown housing grow at a rate comparable to that of the 'burbs, with affordable options an important part of the mix. Current Mayor Tom Barrett's Green Team is working to keep sustainability at the fore, and has partnered with the Apollo Alliance to bring clean-tech jobs to the area. We'll drink to that.

Related Links:

More NYC farmers markets accept food stamps and sales soar

Home Economics of the JP Green House, Part 1

Slideshow: Reinventing the JP Green House

Related Links:

Rally at Penn State: Students Taking Lead on Clean Energy

Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) [UPDATED]

Climate psychology in cartoons: clues for solving the messaging mystery

Related Links:

Why won’t Lisa Jackson/Nancy Sutley visit a mountaintop removal site?

Rally at Penn State: Students Taking Lead on Clean Energy

Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) [UPDATED]

A decision by Pennsylvania agriculture officials that dairy products sold in the state could not be labeled as synthetic-hormone-free sparked a consumer outcry and a review by Governor Ed Rendell. Yesterday, officials more or less reversed that ban: dairies will be allowed to advertise that their cows aren't shot up with synthetic hormones, which increase milk production. However, dairies touting the non-injection of their bovines will not be allowed to use the language "hormone-free," as some hormones occur naturally in cows, and must also include a disclaimer that no significant difference has been shown between milk from injected and non-injected cows. Concerns about the hormones' effect on humans have been so far unsubstantiated, though the effects on the cows -- such as increased risk of udder infection and reduced number of pregnancies -- are better documented.

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

Pennsylvania agriculture officials have banned the use of hormone- and antibiotic-free labels on dairy products sold in the state, upsetting food-safety advocates and handing the chemically enhanced dairy industry a significant victory. The ruling takes effect Jan. 1 and would affect at least 19 companies that label their milk or other dairy products as having come from cows that are free of hormones, antibiotics, rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone), or rBST (recombinant bovine somatotropin). New Jersey and Ohio are considering similar label bans. Monsanto, the company that manufactures the most common growth hormone given to cows -- among other things -- defended the ruling. Michael Doane, the company's spokesflack, said that the hormone-free label "implies to consumers, who may or may not be informed on these issues, that there's a health-and-safety difference between these two milks, that there's 'good' milk and 'bad' milk, and we know that's not the case." Or didn't you people get the memo?

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science