Sierra Club Takes Aim at Coal Plants in East Texas
FAIRFIELD, Texas — Staring across a lake at the oldest coal-fired power plant in Texas, Mayor Roy Hill thinks back to the early 1970s, when his father helped bring the plant to the area.
“Quite honestly, this plant saved Fairfield,” Hill said. Should it close, he said, the economic impact would be “catastrophic.”
But closing Big Brown, as it is known, and two other 1970s-era coal plants in East Texas has emerged as a top goal of the Sierra Club. The group is escalating a campaign against the plants’ corporate owner, Dallas-based Energy Future Holdings, whose subsidiaries include the state’s ...
Comments (19)
Carolyn Moon via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Charming landscape picture
Paula Browning via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Then the Sierra club needs to go after the Formosa plant in Port Lavaca because it releases mercury and other pollutants in the bay and has done so for years. Usually, the company pays the fines and that is the end of it.
Mac Mcclure via Texas Tribune on Facebook
You know wind turbines kill 440,000 birds every year, don't think a coal powered plant has killed a single bird.
Jeff Scroggin via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Yes because we need birds for clean air?
Papa Ray
While I'm for clean energy, solar and wind are decades away from being practical or even possible in the amounts that would be sufficient. Texas has a power problem now, in the amount of power produced and the grid to carry it.
Natural Gas is the only possible alternative now and for decades to come.
Where are the Feds and their subsidies for NG? You won't see them under Obama's Administration. There has been almost a billion dollars of our taxpayers money already lost already giving subsidies to wind and solar.
That is not only a disaster, but a disgrace.
Neil Moyer via Texas Tribune on Facebook
where are the SO2 scrubbers and PM bag houses??
raffaele cafagna
Organizations such as the Sierra Club, the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC), Greenpeace, and the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) ,SET THE EXAMPLE : Stop driving your SUVS, CADILLACS, LAND ROVERS and RANGE ROVERS, MERCEDES 500, your personal JETS , AF 1 and 2 , turn the lights OFF on your Estates and Mansions ; Ride a BURRO or DONKEY or HORSE , a Bicycle or WALK ; DO ALL THIS, SET THE EXAMPLE and do not tell me: do what I tell you don`t do what I do ( you )
that is Brainwashed Socialist Corrupted Liberals Mentality ( Sierra Club ) ; until you do that Shut the hell up (Sierra Club ). THE SAME applies to all of you here complaining: that is Turn off your Heat , AC, Water Heater , Stoves , Stop driving , Stop Flying and on and on ; and see how you feel .
Set the Example for all of us to follow . Here in the U.S. we have Pollution Control devices ; you need to see what China , Asia , Korea and the rest are doing. Please no intention to offend anyone here , just telling the Truth.
Rob D Wiltzius via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Coal isn't a bad thing. If the Sierrra Club had its way, we'd be living in mud huts and eating fresh vegetables out of our sustaining garden and have all our bullets taken away so no animals could ever be harmed.
Anya Khan
The SIerra Club, who got a great deal of pork funding, is being ran by Dr Almendariz now. The one who didn't care if companies were guilty or not, but was going to "crucify" a few to make the others follow along with the party plan. Almendariz is an embarrassment to the dem party and why centrist have to take the party back.
In case you forgot what this troll said, here it is from the NYT:
“It is kind of like how the Romans used to conquer villages in the Mediterranean — they’d go into a little Turkish town somewhere and they’d find the first five guys they saw and they’d crucify them,” Mr. Armendariz said on the tape. “Then that little town was really easy to manage for the next few years.”
C.g. David via Texas Tribune on Facebook
We are currently in the same weather cycle as the Dust Bowl era. These groups are trying to get rid of their competition as they are heavily invested in alternative energy. i would like to know what mode of transportation they went to East Texas? We also have to remember that the computer technology that they use is made in environmentally unfriendly countries with horrible labor laws.
Craig Bennett Sr. via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Great documentary no matter which side of coal you are on
www.switchenergyproject.com
raffaele cafagna
Any solution will cost money, and rate payers will bear the burden.
EPA will, most likely, get its way, no matter what it means for Americans
Dustin T. David via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Know lots of good folks that work out there. Many families will hurt if these people are laid off. Welcome to Obamanomics #fo'mo'yurs:(
Brian Ortego via Texas Tribune on Facebook
If successful, I would hope that their anti-coal campaign informs Texans of how to manage frequent rolling black-outs, and how to charge your E-Car when the largely fossil-fueled electrical generation grid is down!
Cliff McSparran via Texas Tribune on Facebook
"Blue Cross Cares," "Apply Head-On Directly to the Forehead to Get RId of Your Headache," and "Clean Coal" are all advertising slogans which describe the opposite of reality.
Bruce Nilles
This article misses the central issue in this case. TXU aka as Luminant or Energy Future Holdings is heading towards bankruptcy and that means all of us, except TXU's Wall Street backers, lose. The community loses, the workers lose, and the environment loses because it will further delay retiring and replacing these coal plants with clean energy. It is hard to find any corporation in the country that has done worse by its workers (ending their pensions), their host communities (sued to reduce properties taxes), or environment (top mercury and climate polluter in Eastern Texas).
While the rest of Texas continues to lead on investment in clean wind power, TXU/Luminant continues to hold onto its aging, filthy coal fleet. And while there may have been "some" argument that they were good for Texas when they were using Texas lignite, now they are shipping in millions of tons of coal from Wyoming, i.e. shipping Texas ratepayer monies to coal barons in Wyoming. As the press keeps reporting elsewhere, the company is insolvent and is heading for what the Wall Street Journal has said will be among the largest bankruptcies in US history.
Since 2007 when the massive Wall Street firms of KKR and Goldman Sachs took over TXU, this company has been at the forefront of going backwards. We had hopes that this would reform the company but it went from bad to worse, and they continue to be the worst of the worst. The Economist magazine has pointed to this Wall Street takeover as the poster child for what not to do.
And their behavior when asked to clean up the air is shameful. Last year EPA proposed a program to cut pollution across the United States, and while other companies complied, TXU led the fight to block the rule and avoided cleaning up their coal plants, again. They continue to pour money into lawyers instead of investing in cleaning up their coal plants, and now are facing three lawsuits from EPA and my organization (Sierra Club) because of their flagrant violation of the federal clean air act. And this is just the beginning as we pull back the covers on their filthy operations.
To anyone considering investing in this company as it teeters t/w fiscal ruin - beware, they have gutted the company and have a huge mountain of environmental liabilities that we predict will take years to clean up and billions of dollars to make right. We had hoped that with a new CEO TXU may start acting more responsibly, but to date there have been no signs that should inspire much optimism for the workers, the communities, and the breathing public.
Matt Taylor
This article has been linked on thejavelina.com
Cris Sleightholm
I like the inconsistencies of Sierra Club's focus. It's acceptable for refineries, chemical plants to spew, into the air and waters tons of known carcinogens making Galveston, Harris and other surrounding counties have the highest cancer rates in the nation, and nothing is mentioned or done about those, yet they instead focus on coal operating power plants with smaller emissions trying to close those down.
I smell a payoff.
Rudy Gonzales
Old Coal-fired, electricity generating plants should be re-tooled or replaced as newer methodologies have been developed to provide the same service. The EPA has set out new guidelines to follow and every effort to comply must be made. Sadly, the Texas Governor and state Legislature are dragging their feet and fighting federal rules and regulations because the money it too good for their pockets. Texas' state leaders do not want to comply and it will take people power to get action. Let's get together and change the mix in the Texas House and Senate to get real legislation done for the middle class. "Sweep the HOUSE CLEAN....in 2014"