Environmentalists say they're tired of being ignored
by legislature
Feb 25 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Andy Mead The Lexington
Herald-Leader, Ky.
In one hearing room, legislators listened to report by a director of the
Harvard Medical School warning that coal, from mining to moving to
burning, is killing Kentuckians.
One legislator responded by noting that obesity also kills people, and
wondered if food should be banned.
Then, a little while later in an adjacent room, a group of
environmentalists led by author Wendell Berry said they were fed up with
the General Assembly.
"We have petitioned, marched, sung, written, lobbied, testified and
pleaded -- all to no avail," Berry said. "But today we declare that
business as usual in Frankfort -- long intolerable -- has now become
unacceptable."
The environmentalists, members of Kentuckians for the
Commonwealth (KFTC), took turns reading a Declaration of
Independence-type statement.
It called on the state's political leaders to break their close ties
with coal, remove legislators with ties to coal companies from
leadership positions, and call for an end to "extreme and sometimes
violent speech" directed at people who speak out against coal in the
coalfields.
Their message: Coal production and demand is ebbing, but Kentucky is not
taking steps toward new energy sources and jobs.
Environmentalists characterized the declaration as a major step, but its
effectiveness is doubtful.
The declaration specified, for example, that Rep. Jim Gooch,
D-Providence, should be removed from chairmanship of the House Natural
Resources Committee. A "stream-saver" bill that would curtail
mountaintop removal mining in Eastern Kentucky is introduced every year,
but can't get a hearing before Gooch's committee, the environmentalists
said.
House Speaker Greg Stumbo later said he had no plans to replace Gooch.
Both men have close ties to the coal industry.
In speaking of what they characterized as hostile feelings against them
stirred up by the coal industry, several environmentalists mentioned
Haven King, the Perry County clerk. He is director of Coal Mining Our
Future, an industry-sponsored non-profit that was formed to oppose the
stream-saver bill.
A KFTC document listed several instances of hostility, including an
unnamed coal company in Harlan County that was forced to shut down
because it has put too much sludge in a pond. It laid off workers and
gave them the names of people in the community who had complained about
the pond, the document said.
King, contacted later, ran down a long list of charitable deeds done by
his group, sometimes in concert with KFTC members.
"We're out here helping the community," he said. "We're not trying to
intimidate nobody."
Asked about the report from the Harvard Medical School about the health
effects of coal, King said this:
"I have all these people saying these things like global warming, I
guess that's why they're having this much snow now."
The report was by Dr. Paul Epstein, associate director of the Harvard
school's Center for Health and Global Environment.
It was presented to the House Committee on Health and Welfare. There was
no bill on the issue before the committee. KFTC's Kevin Pentz said the
group would like to see the legislature back a study of the overall
costs of coal, but had little faith that would happen.
Epstein's report said the public health costs of coal are immense.
"Each step of the coal lifecycle -- extraction, processing,
transportation, burning and waste storage -- generates enormous public
health burdens.," he wrote.
The committee gave KFTC 20 minutes to present Epstein's report and
another by a West Virginia researcher, then moved on to other matters.
Reach Andy Mead at (859) 231-3319 or 1-800-950-6397, Ext. 3319.
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