The Front Porch Blog « Appalachian Voices

Tennessee Tuesday: What Do We Do Now?

Tuesday, April 30th, 2013 | Posted by JW Randolph

This is a post about how we can improve life for Tennesseans, protect an American culture that has endured for centuries, and promote our beloved Appalachian Mountains that once stood higher than the Himalayas, and are now threatened by mountaintop removal coal mining.

Tennessee Tuesdays is a new weekly feature on the Appalachian Voices Front Porch blog. While our main goal is to end mountaintop removal, we also hope to spread the gospel of hope, bring light to issues facing Tennesseans, and offer solutions on how we can move our state toward a cleaner and more energy efficient future.

Are you from Tennessee or nearby? Introduce yourself in the comments and let us know what you’d like to hear about. For now, welcome! Have a cup of coffee and take a minute to enjoy your Tennessee Tuesday.

Tennessee's magnificent Elk Valley, just up the road from Tennessee's largest surface coal mines.

What’s been happening in Tennessee lately?

Tennessee Legislature 2013
My home state has been in the national news a lot the last few months and not for the greatest reasons. Our legislature was constant fodder for late night comedians (catch Daily Show and Colbert’s greatest Tennessee hits here, here, and here) and was generally considered a bumbling embarrassment for most Tennesseans who don’t respond to “Senator.”

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“I’m Here Because I Love Mountains:” Watch a speech by Appalachian Voices’ JW Randolph

Tuesday, February 12th, 2013 | Posted by

On Feb. 8, Appalachian Voices Tennessee Director, JW Randolph, spoke to members of the state legislature, the media and the environmental community. Below is a video and the transcript of his speech in support of the Tennessee Scenic Vistas Protection Act, a bill to protect the state’s virgin ridgelines from mountaintop removal coal mining.

Hello, my name is JW Randolph, and I’m proud to serve as the Tennessee Director for Appalachian Voices. I’m here to speak with you for a few minutes about efforts to protect Tennessee’s mountains, but first I want to thank the members that have joined us here this morning. Chairman Southerland and Representative Gilmore have both supported the Scenic Vistas Protection Act, and we’re happy you’re here. We’re thankful to you both and look forward to continuing to work with you to pass this important legislation. I would also like to thank those in attendance for engaging in the democratic process, and finally I’d like to thank the Tennessee Environmental Council, Gretchen Hagle, John McFadden and your team. You guys are great leaders in this movement here in Tennessee and for us here on Capitol Hill, we all appreciate you and the work you do.

I’m here because I love mountains. I grew up in a log cabin my father built in the woods, on the banks of the Tennessee River. And like many of you, I got to know my family, my place, and our history through walking the beautiful woods and waters of middle Tennessee, fishing, hiking, and 4-wheeling. The time spent in these mountains taught me about freedom, responsibility and self-reliance. This was where I learned the best of home, the best of our state, and the best of what our country has to offer. As I got older, I learned that not too far away, near our ancestral land, coal companies were blasting apart the mountains, and poisoning the streams that we ran through.

My daughter will turn two years old this month. When I was her age, there were 500 mountains across Appalachia that are no longer there. Since then there have been 2000 miles of streams buried by mining waste, and 125-square miles of The Cumberland Plateau that has been altered irrevocably. That is why its important that Tennesseans join the effort to pass the Tennessee Scenic Vistas Protection Act.

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AV, Citizens Groups Oppose TVA’s Rush to Judgement

Friday, October 19th, 2012 | Posted by JW Randolph

>>>Proud to join Sierra and TCWN on this important effort. It’s a simple choice. TVA should be putting money into energy efficiency programs rather than trying to extend the life of an expensive, inefficient, dirty coal plant like Gallatin. – jw<<<

TVA would give the public only thirty days to weigh in on project that could raise bills

Nashville, TN – Yesterday afternoon the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) announced it will issue an Environmental Assessment (EA) for proposed upgrades at its Gallatin Fossil Plant outside of Nashville, Tennessee. The Sierra Club, Tennessee Clean Water Network and Appalachian Voices responded by calling on TVA not to sink over $1 billion into the aging plant for new scrubbers without fully considering cleaner and cheaper options and without adequate public input in the process.

The draft EA issued by TVA gives members of the public only thirty days to weigh in on the massive project with no opportunity for a public hearing. Instead, local and national groups are urging TVA to complete a much more comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement, extend the comment period, open up the discussions for public hearings and provide key background documents supporting its assumptions.

“With cleaner, safer, and more affordable energy options available to us, it is vital that the TVA takes steps to fully examine a proposal that affects not just the air we breathe and the water we drink, but also how much money its customers have to pay to fund these unnecessary and hugely expensive upgrades,” said JW Randolph, Tennessee Director of Appalachian Voices. “TVA says it wants to be a leader on energy efficiency but it’s investing in more pollution. This project is taking us in the wrong direction.”

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A One-Two Punch in the Fight for Clean Water

Thursday, August 23rd, 2012 | Posted by Brian Sewell

It has been a week of good news in the fight for stronger protections against coal ash pollution. A court settlement in South Carolina and a major decision regarding the 2008 TVA Kingston coal ash spill make for a one-two punch against the poorly regulated toxic waste.

A federal court found that the Tennessee Valley Authority is ultimately liable for the December 2008 coal ash spill. The failed pond at TVA's Kingston Plant released more than one billion gallons of toxic coal ash and covered 300 acres.

This morning, a federal court ruled that the Tennessee Valley Authority is liable for the massive coal ash spill at its Kingston Plant in December 2008. In his written opinion, U.S. District Judge Thomas Varlan ruled that the spill resulted ultimately from TVA’s “negligent nondiscretionary conduct” — far from the unpredictable geologic event that TVA lawyers claimed was the cause during the trial.

In fact, we know more than ever just how preventable the catastrophic spill was. In the months following the event, an engineering firm hired by TVA issued a report that identified the unstable layer of soil beneath the coal ash which had gone undetected for decades as TVA continued to pile on larger amounts of the toxic waste. Subsequent reports revealed internal agency memos that contained warnings that could have prevented the spill. And in his ruling, Varlan was sure to mention that had TVA investigated and addressed the unstable pond, the spill might have been avoided.

Shorty after the coal ash pond failed, it became clear that the Kingston spill would become the worst environmental disaster of its kind in American history. TVA initially estimated that 1.7 million cubic yards burst from the pond and into the Emory and Clinch Rivers. They later had to revise that estimate to more than 5.4 million cubic yards — more than a billion gallons and 100 times larger than the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

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TVA Can Negate Coal Plants, Save Billions

Monday, August 20th, 2012 | Posted by JW Randolph

Energy Efficiency can lead TVA to Cost, Energy, and Emission Reductions. Soon!

An exciting new Synapse study shows us that TVA has much better options than continuing to operate and retrofit its dirty, aging fleet of coal-fired power plants. TVA currently operates 39 boilers, which would cost nearly $12 billion to retrofit. These costs do not reflect potential controls for carbon pollution. If TVA does choose to pursue retrofits on these boilers, the study finds that 33 of those 39 boilers will be “deeply non-economic on a forward going basis.” That is, power from these boilers will be more expensive than market based electricity, thus rendering them uneconomical to operate.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) must soon decide whether it will, in the next few years, spend nearly $12 billion to retrofit its aging fleet of coal-fired power plants in order to meet modern pollution standards, plus billions more to run those plants into the future. The majority of these plants are far in the red: with the projected required pollution controls, they will cost more to run than they bring in in revenue. Rather than passing billions in expenses to ratepayers to keep these plants online, TVA should be exploring ways to retire these non-economic plants as quickly as possible.

And there are some excellent job-creating, energy reducing retirement strategies for TVA to pursue. In fact, the data suggests that TVA could save billions and curb pollution by making common sense, achievable investments in energy efficiency. TVA themselves identify a 1.2% energy reduction as their “high achievable” energy efficiency reduction. Synapse took this number and applied it to potential cost savings vs coal plant retrofits. It turns out that 1.2% energy reduction could meet all projected demand growth until 2030. The study also looks at particular coal plants in the fleet, such as Galatin. The numbers they found are astounding…

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