Environmental issues beyond Flynt
Why are our Dem candidates not speaking about environmental issues except for Flynt? Here's what's going on in the Potomac R. watershed, from Potomac Riverkeeper:
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/gov-mcauliffe-keep-toxic-coal-ash-out-of-potomac-river
Dominion Virginia Power recently acknowledged it dumped 33 million gallons of untreated coal ash waste water in May 2015 from its Possum Point Power Station into Quantico Creek, which flows into the Potomac River. Dominion then met privately with Virginia DEQ and revised its number to 27.5 million gallons, which is still more contaminated coal ash water than was spilled into the Dan River by Duke Energy in 2014!
Possum Point includes 5 coal ash ponds, four of which are completely unlined and all of which have been leaking contaminants into groundwater and Quantico Creek for over thirty years. Pond D, the largest of the five, has the capacity to hold over a billion gallons of toxic ash waste and water and is only partially lined. Coal ash, the waste produced from burning coal to generate electricity, contains a range of metals that are toxic at high levels, including lead, arsenic, chromium, selenium, vanadium, and other cancer-causing agents.
Coal ash is typically stored in unlined pits that become “ponds” when stormwater flows into them, causing the metals to continuously “seep” and leach out of the ponds, polluting nearby groundwater, drinking wells and public waterways. Levels of coal ash metals were found at levels far exceeding Virginia limits in groundwater around the Possum Point facility...more
Let's bring environmental issues up front and center in this election. Environmentalists are treated just as badly as Afr. American boys in hoodies, undocumented workers and women seeking abortions. The environment concerns issues of law, justice and enforcement just as the others are.
= new reply since forum marked as read
In the US, we're not murdered but we are jailed and marginalized. And if you think that incinerators, power plants, etc. are just plopped where they are, think again. They are deliberately placed in poor neighborhoods, usually those inhabited by people of color. It's called environmental (in)justice.
Locally and statewide, we are ignored, as are laws protecting the environment. I am currently battling a town issue where the town gave away public property without telling the landowners---the residents and taxpayers of the town---and when the illegalities were discovered, the town's repug officials got state legislation passed to validate their unlawful actions. The state won't lift a finger to help us, this in CT where we have a majority of Dems in the legislature and a Dem governor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_DeChristopher
Tim DeChristopher is an American climate activist and co-founder of the environmental group Peaceful Uprising. In December 2008, he protested a Bureau of Land Management oil and gas lease auction of 116 parcels of public land in Utah's redrock country by successfully bidding on 14 parcels of land (totaling 22,500 acres) for $1.8 million with no intent to pay for them.[2] DeChristopher was removed from the auction by federal agents and taken into custody, eventually serving 21 months in prison.[3][4]
https://news.vice.com/article/jailed-environmentalist-is-freed-because-the-fbi-withheld-evidence-during-his-trial
But McDavid's case, says Rosenfeld and some environmentalists, reveals a broader government program to survey, infiltrate, harass, and jail environmental activists across the country, oftentimes comparing them with radical Islamic jihadists. It's an episode that many environmentalists describe as the "Green Scare."
In 2010, a report from the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General found the FBI had improperly investigated individuals associated with domestic activist groups, including extending investigations without good reason and keeping domestic terrorism files on acts of nonviolent, civil disobedience. In one case, the agency kept details on a public antiwar rally in a "special events" file, against the guidelines of both the Attorney General and the FBI.
The situation became worse after September 11, Floegel said, particularly in cases where activism brushes up against corporate interests.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/mar/24/marie-mason-speaks-from-jail
She is serving the longest sentence of any convicted animal rights or environmental militant, including several activists responsible for greater destruction.
"It is obvious the government is trying to send a message – to have a chilling effect, not only on my action, which of course transgressed the laws, but also on 30 years of above-ground actions in the environmental rights spheres," Mason told the Guardian in her first interview since she was sentenced last month.
Mason was convicted on the evidence of her fellow arsonist and ex-husband, Frank Ambrose. He was jailed for nine years.
snip
Meanwhile, BushCo, Cheney and others responsible for the Iraq War and bringing the world to the economic brink of disaster are not even prosecuted.
