Climate Lunch and Learn Series

From West Virginia Rivers Coalition, June 1, 2020

West Virginians are seeing the effects of the changing climate and researchers across the state are studying what it means for West Virginia. WV Rivers is highlighting these scientists and their research through our virtual Climate and Water Lunch & Learn Series. During the live webinars, you’ll learn first-hand from the researchers on the front line of the climate crisis.

Join us for our next webinar on June 5, 11:00 am. Dr. Nicolas Zégre is the Director of the Mountain Hydrology Laboratory at West Virginia University. He’ll be sharing his research on water security and climate change from a West Virginia perspective. Register here.

########################

Federal Threat to Net Metering & States’ Rights

From Solar United Neighbors, June 1, 2020

Protect Your Solar Rights!

A message from our partners at Solar United Neighbors

A secretive group of special interests are trying to strip away solar rights. If they succeed, families and businesses won’t be fairly credited for the valuable solar energy they produce.

>> If you already have solar, it could cost you thousands of dollars.

>> If you don’t yet have solar, it could limit your ability to go solar in the future.

>> If you’re a solar installer, it could mean fewer jobs and less revenue.

This group has asked federal regulators to seize states’ ability to ensure you receive fair credit for the electricity you produce.

Join Solar United Neighbors & Vote Solar to take action to stop the threat to net metering and states’ rights. Please go here to take a quick action and speak out in support of solar!

https://www.savesolar.org/

#########################

See also: WV Citizens for Clean Elections

Your Vote is Your Voice, June 1, 2020

#########################

See also: West Virginia Environmental Council Newsletter

Vivian takes positive approaches to problems ....

From the “Appalachian Advocate Award” Announcement, March 6, 2020

ATHENS, OH – This week, the Women of Appalachia Project™ (WOAP™) announced that Vivian Stockman, executive director of OVEC, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, is the recipient of the 2020 Women of Appalachia Project™ Appalachian Advocate Award.

This award is given annually to a woman who has dedicated herself to enhancing the well-being of Appalachian culture, Appalachian women’s health, Appalachian families or Appalachian land issues. Since arriving in a small West Virginia community in the 1990s, Stockman has stood with local communities against well-heeled industries to fight for mountaintops, forests, water, and air.

According to nominator Susan Truxell Sauter, “Vivian Stockman serves as the person who links it all together—if it means coaching women living in coal communities on how and where to speak about the health impacts of such industry whether at a county commission meeting or even at the United Nations. She jumps the synapse, providing names, education, and media support. She meets people on their own ground, repeatedly, making a personal connection—while amplifying their truth with emails, tweets, essays, op-eds, newsletter articles, and award-winning photographs.”

Former OVEC Executive Director Janet Keating notes, “Vivian has developed long-term, trusting relationships with people in communities impacted by injustices of the coal industry. For example, she remains close to the Miller-Caudill family whose ancestral land and homeplace was surrounded and threatened by mountain top removal.”

“The coal company had gone to court forcing the family to sell their land. Fortunately, the WV Supreme Court overturned the lower court’s decision. Vivian attended relevant hearings, communicated with family members and stood in solidarity with them. To this day, Vivian is invited to the Miller-Caudill annual family reunion.”

According to Kari Gunter-Seymour, executive director of the Women of Appalachia Project, WOAP is proud to lift up women such as this year’s award recipient, Vivian Stockman of OVEC.

Gunter-Seymour says, “Women often go unsung as they go about their work with passion and purpose, knowing what they do is truly for the good of all. Vivian is a prime example of someone who goes well beyond punching a time clock. Her dedication to the land is remarkable and should be celebrated.”

The award will be presented at Athena Cinema on March 28, 2020 at 6 p.m. during the annual WOAP™ “Women Speak” performance, a juried presentation of poetry, story and song, showcasing twenty Appalachian spoken word artists from seven states throughout Appalachia.

Statement from Vivian Stockman on winning this award:
https://ohvec.org/2020-appalachian-adovcate-award/

Contacts: Kari Gunter-Seymour, WOAP, gunterseymour@gmail.com
Sarah Carballo, OVEC, 304-522-0246, sarah@ohvec.org

#######################

See also: Man who hiked 2,180-mile Appalachian Trail 18 times headed to Hall of Fame – Penn Live, March 5, 2020

Warren Doyle, of Mountain City, Tennessee, has hiked the entire 2,180-mile Appalachian Trail 18 times, including nine thru-hikes. He also led eight group thru-hikes of the AT, seven of which saw a 100 percent completion rate among the hikers. But there’s so much more on Doyle’s resume that has earned him a spot among the Appalachian Trail Museum’s 10th class of inductees into the Appalachian Trail Hall of Fame.

Note potential hub locations encircled in red

Letter submitted by Eric Engle to Parkersburg News & Sentinal, October 20, 2019

An October 2nd editorial, “Storage Hub: Legislation should be a priority,” states West Virginia’s congressional delegation should continue making the Appalachian Storage Hub a top priority and supports recent legislation from West Virginia’s U.S. House of Representatives delegation to direct the Appalachian Regional Commission to provide funding to aid in creation of the Hub. This is dangerous nonsense for several reasons.

First off, the editorial itself mentions a reason why the storage hub shouldn’t be built anywhere: “having about 95 percent of U.S. ethylene production on the Gulf Coast is risky business.” Why does the writer think that is? Well, maybe it has something to do with the increased intensity of hurricane and precipitation events in the Gulf of Mexico caused by anthropogenic global climate change.

Warmer air holds more moisture and warmer ocean surfaces provide energy to increase hurricane intensity. This is well-documented climate and atmospheric science. Why does this matter for the hub? Because the storage hub plays a huge part in the continued extraction and use of fossil fuels, contributing to the climate crisis. Methane, for example, is released at every stage of oil and gas development and use, even use for the petrochemicals industry, and methane is 86 times more efficient a heat-trapping greenhouse gas over a 20-year period than carbon dioxide.

Then there is the storage of natural gas liquids. The proposed hub involves storage of these liquids (i.e. butane, ethane) in underground caverns around and even under the Ohio River. These liquids are highly combustible, for one, and the Ohio River is a drinking water source for 5 million people and already the most contaminated waterway in the country for the last 7 years running. Do we really want these highly combustible liquids stored under or near our already highly contaminated river and transported via pipelines to cracker plants up and down the Ohio River Valley?

And who really benefits from all of this liquid natural gas (LNG) production? The people of West Virginia? That MOU from China we’re not allowed to see for $84 billion might clarify, but I’m highly skeptical that the value-added benefits go to the people of our state. Our state’s history with extraction industries would suggest otherwise.

Finally, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re a world drowning in plastics that we cannot safely dispose of. The storage hub is not about energy production, as the editorialist obviously knows, it’s about the production of more plastics and polymers. No matter how you spin the industry-provided jobs and revenue numbers, that plastic will end up in our oceans and other waterways and landfills and, well, everywhere (microplastics have been found in the deepest depths of the oceans and the most remote corners of the Arctic).

Can we completely do away with plastics tomorrow? No. But 40 percent of the plastics market consists of single-use plastics we can do away with and engineering biodegradable plastics substitutes is the kind of thing Appalachian Regional Commission funds ought to go toward, not a massive increase in plastics production.

We need to say no to the Appalachian Storage Hub! For vital information on the hub and other oil, gas and petrochemicals issues, visit the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition website at ohvec.org.

>>> Eric Engle, Parkersburg, WV

Ethane would be pumped underground to likely spread and disappear

Dustin White of OVEC speaks at press conference

Contacts: Dustin White, OVEC-Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, 304-541-3144, dustin@ohvec.org; Deb Smit, Breathe Project, 412-760-7677

MORGANTOWN, W.Va.—Today more than 50 people representing more than a dozen grassroots groups from West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania gathered to show their opposition to the Appalachian Storage and Trading Hub, a petrochemical mega-complex build-out proposed for the Ohio and Kanawha river valleys.

The group gathered outside the Marriott at Waterfront Place as the West Virginia Manufacturers Association was hosting the Marcellus and Manufacturing Development Conference, where the Hub was to be a main topic.

Among those gathered was Melcroft, Pa., resident Ashley Funk, a community organizer for Mountain Watershed Association, who said, “We are standing together to show the shale gas and petrochemical industries that, unlike the plastics from which they want to profit, our communities are not disposable.”

The end products of a Hub would be plastics, and its feedstock would come from an increase in regional fracking, which is already wreaking havoc in some north-central West Virginia counties. The infrastructure related to a Hub would stretch along more than 400 miles of the Ohio and Kanawha rivers, and reach into 50 counties in West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky.

A Hub would include underground storage caverns for volatile natural gas liquids, six major pipelines (new pipelines in the region have already exploded*, resulting in destroyed buildings including a home, property damage, livestock deaths and evacuations), thousands of miles of feeder pipelines, and huge polluting factories including fractionators and cracker plants, like the one being built in Beaver County, Pa.**

“It is of upmost importance that people see these current and proposed petrochemical projects in Appalachia for what they are: a scheme that the oil and gas companies are using to bail themselves out of debt. Appalachia has been exploited enough. Every stage of the life-cycle of plastic is toxic and harmful to human health and the environment—from the extraction of the natural gas liquids to the manufacture and use of the products, to the disposal of them. The tide needs to shift to alternatives to plastic, rather than creating more,” said Bridgeport, Ohio, resident, Bev Reed, who attended today’s event. She lives near the site of one component of the Hub, the planned PTTG ethane cracker plant.

Participants in the protest worried about the human health aspects of the Hub. They spoke about the warnings they are receiving from their allies who live in petrochemical regions of Louisiana and Texas known as “Cancer Alley,” and cited the recent petrochemical fires near Houston as reason enough to question the proposed Hub. They talked about Bayou Corne sinkhole, an ongoing incident in Assumption Parish, La., where residents who had been living near a collapsing storage cavern operated by Texas Brine Company and owned by Occidental Petroleum have been evacuated.

Due to the direct human health impacts and the potential for deadly and costly disasters, participants in today’s protest questioned the wisdom of government loans and tax breaks aimed at facilitating the construction of components of the Hub. Given the likelihood of a dramatic increase in regional greenhouse gas emissions from Hub-related infrastructure, participants also questioned the sanity of the Hub.

“It’s nuts for our state to bow down to another round of abuse from fossil fuel corporations,” said Dustin White, project coordinator with OVEC, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, which is based in Huntington, W.Va. “We deserve a diverse and sustainable, community-led economy that is not dependent on fossil fuels with all the associated health and safety risks. Workers deserve better than more toxic jobs.

“The ASH scheme is an unimaginative regression to 1950s era economic development. Why can’t we have real innovation? Development focused on tourism and cottage industries could allow our area to be part of real progress, toward a world we’d want our grandchildren to live in,” White added.

“West Virginia is commonly referred to as ‘almost heaven’ and I could not think of a better way to describe it myself. The places and people here are what makes West Virginia like no other, and for far too long large corporations have plundered our beautiful land and harmed its people,” said Abby Minihan with WVU Sierra Student Coalition. Another coalition member, Ethan Cade, added, “As a young West Virginian, I can say that we are tired of dealing with the negative economic, environmental, and health consequences of corporate pollution and are coming out to fight for a cleaner, better West Virginia.”

“Our oceans are drowning in plastic waste. According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, up to 1 million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles die each year from eating our plastic garbage,” said Brenda Jo McManama, a campaign organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network. “Recycling has become a convenient myth as facilities shut down across the U.S., and other countries close their ports to our garbage. We are literally burying our future in discarded plastic. We are here to demand: No more plastics, no more petro over people! Greed and hubris is destroying any hope of a healthy and safe future for the generations to come.”

Groups involved in the planning of this event include OVEC-the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Concerned Ohio River Residents, Indigenous Environmental Network, Sierra Club WV, Sierra Club OH, Center for Coalfield Justice, Breathe Project, Mountain Watershed Association, and Climate Reality Project: Pittsburgh.

*For April 2, 2019 aerial photos of the site of September 10, 2019 Center Township, Pa., pipeline explosion

**For April 2, 2019 aerial photos of the Beaver County, Pa. Shell cracker plant construction site on the Ohio River

===============================

For more photos and an article on the Morgantown conference see:

WV MetroNews Downstream opportunities touted at annual Marcellus and Manufacturing Development Conference. – WV MetroNews

Join in the protest of fossil fuels to climate change !!!

From Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OVEC), www.OHVEC.org

Details — The WV Manufacturers Association is hosting the Marcellus Manufacturing Conference at the Marriott at Waterfront Place/Morgantown Event Center. The conference will promote the Appalachian Storage and Trading Hub/petrochemical complex, which would mean a huge increase of fracking in our region, six large pipelines running along the Ohio River, thousands of miles of smaller pipelines, underground storage caverns for natural gas liquids, huge, polluting cracker plants and fractionators, and other infrastructure—all for an end product of plastic.

We want to show up for two reasons. First, to stand in opposition to the petrochemical hub and the threat to human health it would bring to our region. Second, the WV Manufacturers Association is responsible for pressuring the WV Legislature to pass state water quality standards without making important updates to protect human health.

—
Press Conference 12:00pm-12:30pm – Behind the WVU Visitors Resource Center

Join us as we start the action with a press conference at 12:00pm at the Singing Tree of Diversity mosaic, behind the WVU Visitors Resource Center (beside the Marriott) along Caperton Trail. We will have speakers from WV, OH, and PA who are fighting the petrochemical threat.

Protest Action 12:30pm-3:00pm – In front of Marriot at Waterfront Place along Don Knotts Blvd.

After the press conference, we will move to the sidewalk out front of the Marriott/Event Center along Don Knotts Blvd. for a visible protest with signs, etc.

Co-Hosts Include: Center for Coalfield Justice, Indigenous Environmental Network, Sierra Club, Breathe Project, Mountain Watershed Association, Climate Reality Project, and more!

Some ideas for signs: Honk if you *heart* Water/Air, People Over Petro, People Over Profit, People Over Plastic, Keep Your Greed Out Of Our Water/Air, Every body deserves clean water, No Cancer Valley, No Petrochem Poison, No Toxic Jobs

** Since the purpose of this monster petrochemical complex is to make more new plastics in a world already drowning in plastic pollution, make your own monster from plastic trash to bring too! Find ideas here.

Schedule · Tuesday, April 9, 2019 — 12:00 PM – 3:00 PM

Press Conference – Behind WVU Visitors Resource Center (Tree of Diversity Mosaic), Noon to 12:30 PM

Protest – In front of Marriott at Waterfront Place along Don Knotts Blvd. 12:30 – 3:00 PM

Action Network Page: https://tinyurl.com/april9action

See also: https://www.facebook.com/events/morgantown-marriott-at-waterfront-place-hotel/actionpress-conference/690196644733959/

Photo by Vivian Stockman, OVEC

Contact: Robin Blakeman, OVEC, 304-840-4877, robin@ohvec.org

What: Ohio River Rising, a “Rise for Climate, Jobs and Justice” Sister Rally and March in Huntington, WV

When: Saturday, September 8 — Tabling and community gathering at 10:00; rally 10:30 a.m.; march to follow in Huntington, WV

Where: Heritage Station, 210 11th Street, Huntington, WV

Who: Organizers of this event include:
— OVEC (Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition)
— Huntington Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL)
— Marshall University Native American Student Organization (NASO)
— Tri-State Indivisible
— Four-Pole Creek Watershed Association

Speakers include:
— Bob McCollister, certified by the Climate Change Project
— NASO’s Genenahgehneh Lee and others
— Lynn Goodman, Aquatic Biologist
— OVEC, MU NASO, Four-Pole Creek Watershed Association and other participating group leaders will speak briefly on local issues associated with climate change

Find the event on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/338056580264182/

What else: Family friendly activities, speakers, information on local, regional, national, and global climate issues. Come out to Heritage Station and join in the march around the downtown area. Come celebrate your love for Huntington, the Ohio River, and the Earth!

Why: In solidarity with people gathering around the world for other Rise for Climate, Jobs and Justice events, we are holding a locally focused sister rally and march in downtown Huntington, WV. Solidarity marches are taking place around the nation, and internationally.

Here are some others happening in our region:
Ohio: https://www.facebook.com/events/1625470990913921/
Kentucky: https://www.facebook.com/events/654050051647432/

West Virginians and Tri-State area residents are urged to find the march nearest to their homes and join in. Carpool with friends and family.

The Huntington march has the potential to send a powerful message to our elected representatives, especially in light of recent decisions made by our elected leaders on the Clean Power Plan and other regulatory protections.

We are all threatened by climate change, and the only way to avert the worst consequences is to halt new fossil fuel projects, and transition rapidly to a clean, renewable energy economy—which will also generate more jobs than the deadly fossil-fuel-based business as usual.

We in Appalachia know all too well what it is to have safe drinking water threatened—or destroyed—by fossil fuel projects. We know how it feels to watch our elected officials and agencies scramble to defend the energy corporations—not us. We know how it feels to be regarded as a low-class, low-population culture whose health is a low priority. We, therefore, stand in solidarity with people worldwide who are demanding an end to climate denial and immediate, widespread climate change action, especially for those who are already experiencing dramatic, even catastrophic effects of climate change in their communities.

Flier: Ohio River Rising/ Huntington Rise for Climate, Jobs and Justice flier is available via a PDF link here: https://ohvec.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Ohio-River-Rising-Flyer-2018.pdf

Note: OVEC hosts its annual meeting and Treehuggers’ Ball on September 15th. Details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1958686907528479/ and here: https://ohvec.org/events/ovecs-annual-meeting/

###

Rogersville Shale 9 to 10,000 feet deep in KY, 12 to 14,000 in WV (Up to 1000 feet thick)

OVEC — 2015 Recap and a Look Ahead with an End of Year Appeal

From Vivian Stockman, et al, OVEC Staff, December 28, 2015

Source: http://ohvec.org/end-of-year/

As we celebrate the successes, we recognize the challenges ahead.

For instance, while OVEC has been at the forefront of the movement to end mountaintop removal coal mining for nearly 20 years, our work must continue in 2016. Our persistent efforts have stopped some MTR mines altogether, slowed others down and forced mining companies to spend nearly $500 million on treating toxic mine pollution. And, as coal markets have declined, MTR mines have been shutting down faster. But Big Coal is still blowing up mountains and burying streams.

Peoples’ lives and health are still being destroyed by this egregious MTR mining method. Nearly 30 peer-reviewed health studies link MTR and coal toxins to many illnesses including cancer, heart disease, and birth defects, contributing to lower life expectancy. Sadly, none of this has made one iota of difference to most WV politicians, whose top priority continues to be “saving coal.”

As coal revenues decline, our politicians now are looking at yet another dirty fossil fuel to make up the difference. Oil and gas companies have targeted Cabell (where OVEC’s office is located), Wayne, Putnam and Lincoln counties for a land grab, for fracking — drilling down very deeply for the Rogersville Shale. Our concerns have already been validated by citizens with whom we work in north-central WV who face serious environmental and health problems; fracking for the Marcellus Shale has been underway there for several years.

With your continued investment in OVEC, we promise to push back against the power structure that gives outside corporations the “right” to pollute our water and air. Please, consider donating to OVEC. You can donate here today. Your contribution is tax-deductible.

We truly appreciate you, and thank you for making our work possible in 2015. Here’s to 2016!

#  #  #  UpComing Activities

January 9: 3-6 p.m. WV Rivers Coalition hosts the Safe Water For West Virginia Public Forum at the Culture Center, State Capitol Grounds in Charleston, WV.

January 19: 7-10 p.m. WV Environmental Council’s Legislative Kick Off Party at the Charleston Woman’s Club.

January 21: 6-8 p.m. Shale and Pipelines: What the Frack is Going On in Putnam County? OVEC will host a community forum on Rogersville Shale and the Mountaineer Xpress Pipeline at the Eleanor Presbyterian Church, 205 Eleanor Circle, Eleanor, WV in Putnam County.

#  #  #  #  #  #  #

Some Words of Wisdom from Bill Moyers

In The Plutocrats Are Winning. Don’t Let Them!, a recent op-ed, Bill Moyers writes:

As we are reminded by this season, there is more to life than politics. There are families, friends, music, worship, sports, the arts, reading, conversation, laughter, celebrations of love and fellowship and partridges in pear trees. But without healthy democratic politics serving a moral order, all these are imperiled by the ferocious appetites of private power and greed.

So enjoy the holidays, including Star Wars. Then come back after New Year’s and find a place for yourself, at whatever level, wherever you are, in the struggle for democracy. This is the fight of our lives and how it ends is up to us.

With your support, OVEC works to quell the ferocious appetites of private power and greed. Thank you very much for your work and assistance. See you in 2016.

#. #. #. #. #.

See also: “Rogersville shale information sheet“