By Adam Windram & Andrea Van Wyk
Baltimore’s Beyond Coal team has been hard at work this summer on several fronts in our battle to clean up Baltimore’s dirty air, transition from our antiquated and poorly-regulated coal-fired power plants, and grow cleaner, greener energy sources. We’ve been working to pass stronger pollution control protections on nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide, devising a strategy for building our relationships with Baltimore’s diverse communities and growing the capacity and diversity of our volunteer base in Baltimore, attending and testifying at stakeholder hearings, and planning for a major outing and demonstration in August.
Our progress on reducing smog met an unexpected challenge this past winter, when newly-elected Governor Larry Hogan, on his first day in office, blocked publication of signed and finalized regulations by the MDE that would have significantly cleaned up our air. These protections required the state’s dirtiest coal plants to limit their nitrogen oxide emissions by modernizing their pollution controls, repowering to fracked gas, or shutting down. The Governor has instead moved forward with “emergency” regulations that merely require existing power plants to consistently operate their currently installed control technology. Given the significant air quality impact that emissions from these coal plants have in Maryland, the emergency rules are only a stopgap measure. They simply do not adequately address the smog that regularly blankets Baltimore’s skies during the summer, worsening asthma and other respiratory diseases, especially among vulnerable populations. Therefore, we’ve been gathering petitions (750 to-date), with a goal of sending 1500 petitions to Governor Hogan’s office, showing him that there’s a broad base of support for stronger pollution controls on our coal plants. In addition, we’ve been handing out information on asthma and air pollution to Baltimoreans at a number of festivals in the area, including the Charles Village Festival, DunFest, Amazing Grace Spring Fling in the East Baltimore Community of McElderry Park, and the upcoming ArtScape (July 17-19), where we’ll be canvassing on foot for more petitions.
In addition to our continued canvassing and public education efforts, the Beyond Coal Working Group is undertaking a new initiative in community outreach. We have been building a database of community associations (Baltimore has over 800) that we plan to visit as part of a new public education and base-building strategy. The group plans to coordinate with community associations and schedule presentations at meetings to educate attendees, collect signatures on our community association sign-on letter about coal plant clean up, and engage some new volunteers in the community. We will also focus on listening to the members of these communities, learn what their concerns are about public health, the environment, and Baltimore’s social and economic inequality, and what policy changes they wish to see in Baltimore, and would be passionate about advocating for going forward. The long-term goal of this strategy is to build lasting relationships with the communities we visit, gain insights into the challenges they face, and both build our volunteer base in Baltimore and our capacity to work with other activist groups with complementary interests and focus issues.
The Bloomberg Foundation has injected another $40 million into the Beyond Coal campaign, and has charged Sierra Club with shutting down half of the U.S. coal fleet by 2017. This is a tall order, and brings into sharp relief the need for the Sierra Club to be a major presence at upcoming stakeholder hearings. Powerful and relatable testimony from our volunteers and members of the community has the ability to show regulators and legislators alike the kind of future that the public wants, but only if we outshine the inevitable counterarguments of coal industry interests at the majority of these hearings. The coal industry often uses a “divide and conquer” strategy, pitting environmentalists against low-income and minority communities with their speeches about “jobs, jobs, jobs” and downplaying the impact of air pollution on public health and productivity. The reality is that renewable energy has the potential to create far more jobs than dirty coal ever could, and air pollution has a measurably disparate impact on low-income and minority communities in Baltimore, due to their proximity to the sulfur dioxide plumes of the Crane and Wagner plants and the city’s trash incinerators. By working with our community partners such as Interfaith Power and Light, the NAACP, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, and other organizations, we can help bring testimony and a presence to the ongoing stakeholder process for the NOx and SO2 regulations, and get the strongest safeguards possible to restore breathable air to Baltimore. We know that more public meetings and hearings on clean air are right around the corner, so be on the lookout for exciting new opportunities to make your voice heard loud and clear. Attendance at hearings can make a difference, as we saw at the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) stakeholder meeting on June 29th, where volunteer activists gave powerful testimony in rejecting the weakened regulations on nitrogen oxide put forth by the Hogan Administration. Read about it here.
There’s so much going on with Beyond Coal in Baltimore over the coming months that it can seem overwhelming, especially given Hogan’s backsliding on clean air protections, but we need the support of our dedicated volunteers now more than ever, and have many opportunities to get involved.
If you are interested in joining in on the planning and implementation of our new community outreach strategy, please feel free to join us on Monday July 27th from 6pm- 8pm at the Baltimore Sierra Club Office, for our first community association outreach team meeting. We will discuss specific goals for this project, and a plan of action for the next 3-6 months. Any questions? Feel free to contact Andrea at andrea.vanwyk@mdsierra.org, or 443-955-8438.
If you have the soul of a writer, and would like to make your voice heard on behalf of the environment, we have a great opportunity with our Letters to the Editor (LTE) team! If interested, please contact Kevin Kreischer at kjkriescher@hotmail.com.
Passionate about energy issues and want to replace dirty coal with clean wind and solar? Join the Energy Committee of the Maryland Chapter of the Sierra Club! We meet on the first Wednesday of every month, from 7-9pm. If interested, please contact the Energy Committee co-chairs, Rich Reis or Marion Edey, at rich.reis1@gmail.com and 59bae6d1@opayq.com respectively.
Love clean air? Want to make it a reality in Baltimore? Join the Maryland Chapter Energy Committee’s Beyond Coal Working Group! We’re leading the charge on shutting down Maryland’s dirty coal plants, and would love for you to join us! If interested, please contact the working group’s co-chairs, Charlie Skinner and Adam Windram, at charles.skinner@mdsierra.org and adam.windram@mdsierra.org respectively.
If any of the above volunteer opportunities interest you, please take a moment to fill out this volunteer survey. It lists different focus areas of the beyond coal campaign, as well as types of volunteer involvement. You can select your interests on the survey, and once it’s submitted, Sierra Club will get in touch with you about how you can get involved!
Last but not least, we have an exciting event coming up on August 1st! The Sierra Club will lead a kayak outing along the Gunpowder River near the CP Crane coal plant. It’s a great opportunity to meet other Sierra Club volunteers, members of our community partner organizations, enjoy nature, and learn more about our campaign to stop dirty coal. The cost is $25 per person, and includes kayak rental and a guided kayaking trip. http://kayakbeyondcoal.eventbrite.com or contact our volunteer coordinator, Bill Deysher, for more details at wdeysher@gmail.com.
As always, thanks goes out to our volunteers for the hours put in canvassing, working phone banks, writing LTEs, and attending meetings. Just this past week, it was announced that Unit 2 of the Wagner coal plant is slated for closure in 2020. Your efforts help make achievements like that possible, and with your continued support, we can expect many more!