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We are a group of environmental advocates united in providing a one-stop source for Virginia's environmental news. We each focus on different issues, but share the vision of a Commonwealth that preserves and protects its natural resources. Please join us!
In the heated debate over offshore drilling, policymakers have only addressed "how much": how much gas and oil, how much tax revenue, and how many new jobs they think it would create. Yet, from the standpoint of healthy oceans, they've largely ignored the coastal environment and economies that would be subjected to potential harm from new offshore drilling such as off Virginia's coast.
Sometimes as an aside to their calls to "drill, baby, drill" comes the condition that drilling be done in an "environmentally safe manner." But what does that mean?
Lost in the debate is the realization that drilling has not occurred off our Atlantic coast for almost 30 years, and thus information on the possible effects of Atlantic drilling "is 30 years out of date," as Interior Secretary Ken Salazar points out.
Revealed at a Department of Interior workshop in Williamsburg in December 2008, large data gaps exist when it comes to endangered and protected species, fish and fisheries, the benthos and biology of the ocean floor, the ecosystems found in Virginia's offshore ocean canyons and coral reefs, as well as physical and geological oceanography.
In the interest of thorough environmental study, Salazar is rightly resistant to the rush to drill that is currently sweeping Virginia. For not only are there huge gaps in the scientific information needed to evaluate the impact of drilling off Virginia's coast, but Virginia's offshore zone is a small microcosm in a much larger coastal and oceanic ecosystem.
Rather than singling out a small area off a single state for an environmental study, the Atlantic coast as a whole needs to be studied. Tidal flows, ocean currents and winds often carry oil spills far from their source. Popular beaches, protected wetlands, sensitive marine habitats, and commercial and sports fishing all up and down the East Coast could be threatened by a large spill in Virginia's offshore zone.
Offshore oil and gas platforms continue to experience catastrophic failures despite the technological advances touted by drilling advocates. The recent blowout on the barely 2-year-old oil platform off the coast of Australia spilled an estimated 6-9 million gallons of oil during the 10 weeks it took to cap the well. Growing to almost the footprint size of New Jersey and observable from space, the spill has now contaminated Indonesian waters with its 5,800-square-mile spread.
It is disturbing that in their rush to drill, oil and gas drilling advocates in Virginia would oppose prudent studies on the impact of drilling on our precious Chesapeake Bay, our sensitive coastal wetlands, and our highly lucrative tourism and fishing industries that are completely dependent on clean beaches and healthy ocean waters.
Offshore drilling advocates cannot have it both ways. If they are being honest when they call for drilling to be done in an environmentally safe manner, then they should endorse Salazar's insistence on thorough studies of the environmental impact of drilling. If, instead, they oppose those studies in their rush to drill, then it is clear that they have failed to appreciate the bounty we have in coastal Virginia and how much we stand to lose if oil drilling were to occur irresponsibly.
"The fact is, these things happen", said Louisiana's Sen. Mary Landrieu, amazingly trying to dismiss the overwhelming risks associated with offshore drilling. Standing in front of a large poster of the flaming Australian oil platform at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last week, she even went as far as to accuse drilling opponents of lying and scare-mongering!
"All we did was testify about real things that have really happened, to make the point that despite advances in technology, mistakes are still made and accidents still happen - and with offshore oil production, the consequences still can be severe", writes Sky Truth's John Amos who was invited to testify on several significant oil spill incidents they've investigated over the past few years.
These investigations include "the recent Montara platform blowout and spill in the Timor Sea off Western Australia; this summer's spill in the Gulf of Mexico from the Eugene Island Pipeline operated by Shell; and the spills from hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, and Ike in 2008, that exposed the Achilles heel of offshore production: the vulnerability and severe spill risk posed by the coastal infrastructure - especially pipelines and storage facilities - that is necessary to support offshore drilling."
Sky Truth was also commissioned to produce the image depicting the Australian oil spill off Virginia's coast. Click here to view image.
As an LTE in today's Virginian-Pilot points out (not online yet - see below the fold), politicians hinge their support of offshore drilling on its capacities to be done in an environmentally safe manner. The Australian spill especially shoots that pro-drilling argument to hell. The truth hurts and thus the knee-jerk reaction of people like Sen. Landrieu saying basically "shit happens".
Why in the world do we want shit to happen off our Virginia coasts?
Yesterday, on day #46 of the devastating oil spill that continues to dump oil into Australian seas, the Sierra Club Virginia Chapter released images of that spill plotted off Virginia's coast.
The images were commissioned from SkyTruth who used NASA and other government generated satellite images to depict the Australian oil spill that as of September 3 has grown to almost 9,900 square miles - larger than the square mile size of Vermont. The simple overlay of the Australian spill originating at a hypothetical well in the Lease Area 220 shows an oil spill of this size reaching Virginia Beach, Virginia's Eastern Shore and the northern Outer Banks.
"Supporters of offshore drilling have been saying there is no risk of a spill in Virginia waters with modern drilling technology. What is happening in Australia right now with a new rig built in 2007 proves that claim wrong," added Besa. "Plotted off Virginia's coast, the Australian oil spill should give Virginia great pause" said Glen Besa, Sierra Club Virginia Chapter Director. "All it takes is one spill to virtually shutdown Virginia's coastal economy, both tourism and fisheries, for years. Oil is still disrupting the natural environment in Prince William Sound 20 years after the Exxon Valdez spill."
The drilling rig involved in this disastrous offshore blowout was built in 2007. The oil platform used was constructed in 2008. These are the same rigs that the oil industry is suggesting for use off Virginia's shores.
The scale and duration of this huge spill should be an ongoing lesson to which we in Virginia pay close attention. Even new drilling technology is not safe, in spite of the oil industry's claims. The risk of spills still exists and even just one spill would levy disastrous impacts on our Virginia coastal economies and environment.
Worries about the oil spill off Australia's north west coast are now being worsened by fears about the chemicals being used to control it. The spill at the West Atlas drill rig in the Timor Sea started more than three weeks ago, and no-one believes it will take less than three more weeks to plug the oil. The slick is now so big it can be seen from space, and a light sheen has crept within ten kilometres of Ashmore Reef. Fishermen say a fifth of their waters have been polluted by the oil and they're worried that fish could be poisoned.
The above graphic produced by SkyTruth illustrates a "what if" that blowout occurred off the coast of Florida. Granted, Florida currents are different than Australia currents. This graphic is provided only to give you a sense of the size of this spill. The purple blob which depicts the size of the Australian oil spill and superimposed on the Florida coast was taken from NASA satellite images dating back to Aug. 30. Satellite images of the Timor Sea taken on Sept. 3 reveals the area of slicks and sheen more than doubled in size in just 4 days, from 2,500 sq miles on Aug. 30 to 5,800 sq miles on Sept. 3. That's larger than the state of Connecticut at 5,544 square miles.
Dramatic remote-sensing photographs provided by NASA and other federal agencies are available to view online at SkyTruth.
Why, Virginia, why??? Why would we even remotely consider drilling off our shores? So much risk while so little return.
As the oil rig blowout near Western Australia enters its 19th day of uncontrolled release of oil into the sea, the extent of the spill is now the size of the State of Connecticut, at approximately 5,800 square miles and growing.
A NASA satellite image of the Timor Sea taken on September 3 reveals the area of slicks and sheen more than doubled in size in just 4 days, from 2,500 sq miles on Aug. 30 to 5,800 sq miles on Sept. 3. Dramatic remote-sensing photographs provided by NASA and other federal agencies are available to view online at http://blog.skytruth.org/.
The Australian government also announced yesterday that it has launched a major investigation into the cause of the blowout and resulting spill.
The West Atlas drilling rig involved in this offshore blowout was built in 2007. The Montara oil platform was constructed in 2008.
Controlling the flow of oil from this rig blowout is expected to take at least seven weeks. Officials estimate that until the spill can be brought under control, between 300 and 400 barrels of oil continue to spill into the ocean each day.
"This so-called modern offshore drilling operation has allowed a tragic oil spill in Australian waters. Even industry's best available technology cannot stop it for weeks," said Richard Charter, Co-Chair of the National Outer Continental Shelf Coalition.
"Offshore drilling is risky business. This spill shows what could happen if we open more of America's coasts to drilling," said Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope.
Last year, the nearly 30-year-old congressional and Presidential ban on offshore drilling in the lower 48 states was lifted. In November 2008, the Bush Administration designated a 2.9 million acre area off the Virginia coast (Lease Sale 220) for oil and gas drilling.
"The scale and duration of this huge spill should be an ongoing lesson to which we in Virginia pay close attention," said Eileen Levandoski, Hampton Roads organizer with the Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club. "For despite new drilling technology, the risk of spills still exists and even just one spill would levy disastrous impacts on our Virginia coastal economies and environment."
"The whole world is watching," said Charter. "We face votes very soon in the Florida and California legislatures, as well as the U.S. Senate, that will determine whether or not this same type of drilling rig will be allowed to operate in long-protected coastal waters here."
A new Washington Post/ABC poll shows broad support (57%) for the Obama Administrations efforts at energy reform.
In addition to the findings in the chart above, some other key findings:
Around 75% support energy conservation requirements for consumers and businesses
91% support development of new wind and solar projects
80% support requirements for greater fuel efficiency
Efficiency and renewable energy have the potential to transform our economy and Americans get it. We want to be able to take advantage of energy efficiency to save money and help the environment at the same time. We also need and want leadership from our leaders in Washington and candidates running in Virginia.
Visit ConservationMajorityVA.org to learn how to get push this positive vision for Virginia's clean energy future during the 2009 Election season.
Here's a painfully funny video from the Alaska Wilderness League to support a petition drive to President Obama to protect America's Arctic.
"Isn't it finally time to protect the treasures of America's Arctic from destructive drilling? Last year, there were more than 90 oil spills per day in the United States.
All of America's polar bears live in the Arctic Ocean, migratory caribou still roam free in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and birds from around the globe congregate at Teshekpuk Lake in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. These are natural treasures that belong to us all. We have a duty to protect them."
(Richmond, VA) Lawyers for the Wise Energy for Virginia Coalition told a state judge today that Dominion Power's 585-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Wise County violates the Clean Air Act on several grounds, and asked the court to invalidate the environmental permits.
During the four-hour hearing before Judge Margaret Spencer in the Virginia Circuit Court for the City of Richmond, Cale Jaffe and John Suttles, attorneys with the Charlottesville-based Southern Environmental Law Center, presented a detailed explanation on how the permits fail to adequately limit emissions of (1) carbon dioxide, a chief contributor to climate change, (2) small particles of soot, which has been linked to lung cancer, heart disease, increased asthma rates, and premature death, and (3) mercury, which can cause severe neurological deficits in infants, fetuses and young children.
The State Air Control Board issued two permits to Dominion in June, 2008, one for hazardous pollutants including mercury and approximately 60 other toxics, and one for other emissions such as particulate matter. SELC, on behalf of the Wise County-based Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, Appalachian Voices, Chesapeake Climate Action Network and Sierra Club, challenged both permits.
Several residents of Wise County traveled to Richmond to attend the hearing, including Kathy Selvage, a coal-miner's daughter who has been the public face for the statewide effort to stop the coal plant, end the practice of mountaintop removal coal mining that is ravaging Appalachia, and compel Virginia to embrace clean energy sources, including efficiency and renewables.
"It seems no coincidence that Wise County was all over the news recently for the free medical clinic that drew thousands of people from my part of the state, many of them with breathing disorders. Coal dust from mountaintop removal mining operations hangs in the air every day, as does pollution from one of the oldest coal-fired plants in the state. Now Dominion is building another polluting power plant in our community. That's why we are in court today - to fight for the right to breath clean air, as well as to drink clean water and to keep our mountains whole, as God made them."
Over the last several years, the Wise Energy for Virginia Coalition has raised a host of concerns about the Wise County coal plant, including air pollution and the health of the local community, water quality, mountaintop removal coal-mining, and the impacts of global warming. They were joined by 42,500 Virginians from across the state who signed petitions and sent letters and comments to state and company officials opposing the project.
North Carolina citizens have a chance to comment on their perceptions of the risk from a rise in sea level and what to do about it.
The state Division of Coastal Management said the online poll will help identify perceptions held by the public as it develops a policy on the issue.
Tancred Miller is the primary author of the survey and says the state is seeking everyone's perception regardless of their knowledge about the topic or whether they believe it.
The survey is here at www.nccoastalmanagement.net. Curious as to the questions, I took the survey - of course identifying myself as a resident of Virginia Beach and the Sierra Club as my affiliate organization. The survey is on the flip. What's interesting is the items suggested as possible adaptations and mitigation. I wonder how well a survey such as this would go over in Virginia.
Ison Rock Ridge extends from Black Mountain on the Virginia/ Kentucky border and runs southeast toward the Town of Appalachia. A&G Coal Corp. wants to destroy 1,200+ acres of this mountain that borders several communities and hundreds of homes, putting lives at risk and impairing ecosystems for generations to come. Despite federal action intended to block this proposed mine, we have reason to believe that state agencies still intend to allow the destruction of Ison Rock Ridge, with only minor changes to the scope of the permit.
This message is going out across the Commonwealth today and is part of a coordinated effort to pressure the Governor to take action. Sierra Club, Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards and our allies are working hard on this two-year long struggle to protect Ison Rock Ridge from total destruction.
Ison Rock is the last ridge of Black Mountain in Virginia that hasn't been totally decimated by mountaintop removal strip mining--and for good reason. Along its flanks lie several communities, home to hundreds of people. Because of this, and the cumulative impact of other strip mines in the area, the EPA took action earlier this year by directing the US Army Corps of Engineers to suspend the federal permit required to create valley fills.
This action attracted national media attention, but it's not enough to save this mountain. The mining company now wants to go forward with a revised mining plan, and that application is currently pending before the state agency.
With U.S. Senator Mark Warner at his side both at a press event in Roanoke and later via conference call, Democratic candidate for governor Creigh Deeds yesterday announced "a comprehensive plan to create jobs and renew Virginia's economy through targeted tax cuts for small businesses, innovative partnerships to generate new jobs in the alternative energy industry, creative initiatives to jump-start an economic recovery in rural regions, as well as a commonsense approach to finally solve Virginia's statewide transportation challenges through responsible, bipartisan leadership".
"Virginia led the nation in telecom in the 1980s, we helped lead the Internet revolution during the 1990s, and I firmly believe that the next generation of jobs and wealth will be found in the 'green' economy," Senator Warner said. "Creigh has put together a road map that allows Virginia to grasp that opportunity and take advantage of all of those possibilities if we prepare Virginians to take a leadership role in the alternative energy field."
"Virginia must take advantage of opportunities in rapidly expanding fields like biomass production,
wind power generation, and clean coal research", he writes in his plan. "By developing innovative ways of reducing fossil fuel consumption, Creigh will create thousands of new jobs in the Commonwealth and attract millions in new investment from private and public sources".
Standing out within his economic plan is a call for creation of a strong business environment for green energy companys.
"Green energy companies are attracted to states that have made a firm commitment to alternative energy. Creigh believes that we cannot afford to lose opportunities to create good-paying jobs in this high-growth industry, simply because our policies lag behind."
To this end, Deeds proposes expansion of the Solar Manufacturing Incentive Grant (SMIG ) program to all "green energy-related industries". He wants to offer competitive grants to green energy companies that invest at least $50 million
and create at least 200 jobs.
Believing that Virginia's current voluntary RPS is "simply not enough to keep Virginia competitive with states like Ohio, which passed a law requiring that utilities produce 25% of their energy from renewable source by 2025, and neighbors like Maryland, which has a 20% by 2022 mandatory requirement", Deeds proposes a mandatory RPS of 15% by 2020 and 22% by 2025.
The Renewable Electricity Standard as it stands right now within the Waxman-Markey (aka ACES) bill that just passed Congress calls for a 20% standard by 2020. This RES target is a national floor. States are allowed to set higher standards. Virginia's current standards are voluntary and call for 12% by 2022. The Governor's Commission on Climate Change recommended increasing that voluntary call to 15% by 2025.
Click here to read Deeds' entire economic plan. Click here to read how Virginia can easily meet a Federal RES of 25% by 2025.
Right outside of Richmond VA, in Midlothian, Mrs. Estes' Robious Middle School sixth-grade science class has been studying clean energy. Recently posted online, their conclusions are breathtaking.
If a 6th grader gets it, what does that say about our Congressmen? In these debates, time and time again, we have found legislators and reporters who just don't know the facts...maybe we ought to send them to Mrs. Estes' class!
Check it out:
I am a simple sixth grade student at Robious Middle School. I want to tell you about how you can help spread the news about how Midlothian can become a cleaner, greener, more efficient area. If we switch to renewable energy resources we can become one of the leaders in the revolution to become green. I'm sure you've heard this pitch or variations of it before, but I'm here to explain how, why, when and what these renewable resources can do. We can optimize our use of bio-fuel, geothermal, hydroelectric, wind and solar energies by combining our knowledge and using these energies for what they are most useful...
Congressman Perriello would love for you to join him at a town hall meeting with US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu this Saturday, July 18, from 1:30 to 2:30. Please come and ask questions, listen to answers and spend some time with your neighbors.
During their visit, the Secretaries will see first-hand the potential our communities have for being on the forefront of the new energy economy. We hope to impress upon them--and upon those who hear about our region through this visit--that we have the vision and the capacity to realize this potential right here. Central and Southern Virginia served as the cradle of American liberty and also the economic driver of the Commonwealth for more than a century. We can be that again as we blaze a trail toward energy independence and a clean technology future.
I hope you can join us. The town hall will take place on the farm of Buddy Mayhew, on Carters Lodge Road in Chatham, Virginia. Buddy's farm is just 1.5 miles off of Route 29 south of Chatham. Turn on Carters Lodge Road, bear right at the fork and his farm will be 1.5 miles ahead on your left.
What's the "Rural Tour"? "The Rural Tour will crisscross the country so that we can listen to residents in small towns and get their thoughts on how to best rebuild and revitalize America", writes Agricultural Secretary Tom Vilsack. "Our communities, big and small, are struggling, but President Obama and I are committed to doing what we need to to create jobs and stimulate local economies."
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"The fact is, these things happen", said Louisiana's Sen. Mary Landrieu, amazingly trying to dismiss the overwhelming risks associated with offshore drilling. Standing in front of a large poster of the flaming Australian oil platform at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last week, she even went as far as to accuse drilling opponents of lying and scare-mongering!
P R E S S * R E L E A S E
With U.S. Senator Mark Warner at his side both at a press event in Roanoke and later via conference call, Democratic candidate for governor Creigh Deeds yesterday announced "a comprehensive plan to create jobs and renew Virginia's economy through targeted tax cuts for small businesses, innovative partnerships to generate new jobs in the alternative energy industry, creative initiatives to jump-start an economic recovery in rural regions, as well as a commonsense approach to finally solve Virginia's statewide transportation challenges through responsible, bipartisan leadership".
The USDA's Rural Tour comes to Chatham, Virginia this Saturday!
