Letter to the Editor - Observer - from Karen Kennedy

Treasure Beach Forum: TB Runnin's: Letter to the Editor - Observer - from Karen Kennedy
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Observer on Saturday, March 15, 2014 - 10:10 am: Edit Post

Here is a letter to the editor sent in to the Observer by Karen Kennedy.

Look Around US . . . While We Still Can


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Calabash Man on Saturday, March 15, 2014 - 10:50 am: Edit Post

"Only when the last tree is cut down,
The last river is poisoned,
The last fish is caught,
People will see that they can not eat money"


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Archie on Sunday, March 16, 2014 - 07:22 am: Edit Post

You can't make omelets without breaking eggs. These scare tatics are unbecoming. This country has languished in poverty for too long, and this fight against the proposed development is inimical to our interests.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Beth on Saturday, March 15, 2014 - 04:53 pm: Edit Post

Karen you speak for a great many of us. My guess is that government officials don't really have time to educate themselves or do their own research as they are too busy trying to get their photographs taken shaking hands with each other (with the usual wide grin of course) so they can be on the front page of the local newspaper. Self promotion is what they understand best.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By daniel on Saturday, March 15, 2014 - 04:44 pm: Edit Post

Thank you Karen, well said !


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By daniel on Sunday, March 16, 2014 - 08:05 pm: Edit Post

It seems to me ,more harm than good will come, if the environment is ignored . It is in the interest of all .


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By MikeyMike on Sunday, March 16, 2014 - 03:05 pm: Edit Post

Karen
I totally agree with you !
However, no matter what country it is, the old saying "money talks, bulls''t walks" is true.
ONE LOVE !!
Mike


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By So Sad on Sunday, March 16, 2014 - 10:22 am: Edit Post

They think it is a way out but it is a death sentence


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By turey on Monday, March 17, 2014 - 08:52 am: Edit Post

The country has languished in bad design resulting in poverty.

Poisonous farming.

Destructive development.

Poor diet from the food scientists.

A people divided by political opinion.

Etc.

There are other ways.

Who is ready to listen?


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By To Archie on Sunday, March 16, 2014 - 10:25 am: Edit Post

[edited by TB.Net] This is not "breaking eggs" but kill the goose: not necessary to make the omelets, dangerous if you want to continue to make omelets for (all) Jamaicans.

And thanks to Karen.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Karen Kennedy on Monday, March 17, 2014 - 09:51 am: Edit Post

If someone thinks Jamaica will do this better than either the U.S. or Canada, think again.

From the NY Times, March 15, 2014:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/us/north-carolina-investigating-another-duke-energy-site.html?_r=0

Questions as More Wastewater Flows in North Carolina

By TRIP GABRIEL, MARCH 15, 2014

An image provided by an environmental group shows a portable pump siphoning water from a coal ash pond owned by Duke Energy into a discharge canal leading to the Cape Fear River near Moncure, N.C. State regulators are investigating the action.
Duke Energy, the giant utility whose b{spill of toxic waste into a North Carolina river last month is under federal investigation, released wastewater last week from a second site upriver of Raleigh that state regulators said could be illegal.}

Aerial photographs of two Duke coal ash ponds at the head of the Cape Fear River show portable pumps and hoses that appear to be siphoning water into a canal leading to the river.

A spokesman for the state’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources said on Saturday that its inspectors noticed the pumping while on a site visit last week. “We are investigating the utility’s actions,” the spokesman, Drew Elliot, said in an email. “While routine maintenance is allowed under the permit, discharge of untreated wastewater could be a violation.”

A spokesman for Duke, based in Charlotte, said the pumping was intended to lower the water level in the ponds, which contain a slurry of coal ash with toxic heavy metals, as part of a “routine maintenance” program and was allowed under the site’s antipollution permit.

After a huge coal ash leak into the Dan River coated 70 miles of river bottom last month, state regulators cited Duke for violating water pollution laws at its plant in Eden, N.C., and five other sites, where ash from burning coal to generate electricity is held in large containment ponds.

The Dan River spill, the third-largest disaster of its kind on record, brought intense scrutiny to how Duke stored coal ash at 14 power plants throughout North Carolina, as well as to what critics called an overly cozy relationship with state regulators. But the state environmental agency, as well as Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican and former longtime Duke executive, has responded to public outrage by calling for tougher regulation of coal ash.

Duke said this month that it would move its coal ash at several sites to more secure pits farther from public waterways. It also said that at its retired coal plants, which include the Dan River and Cape Fear River sites, it would accelerate “the removal of water from the ash ponds” within 24 to 36 months after obtaining the necessary permits.

The two ponds at the Cape Fear River plant, near Moncure, N.C., have permits for vertical pipes that drain water from the top of the ponds when rain and runoff rise, similar to a bath sink’s overflow drain. The principle of a settling pond is that toxic material sinks to the bottom over time, leaving cleaner water on top. Pumping out deeper water risks removing impurities before they have settled.

Environmentalists said a possible motive for Duke to pump water from its ponds now, before it has obtained permits to drain them, is to reduce the volume of water requiring treatment, lowering its eventual costs.

“This is a way of disposing of that water without the state knowing, without the public knowing and without having any limits placed on that discharge,” said Lisa Evans, a senior counsel with Earthjustice, an advocacy group.

Peter Harrison, a staff attorney with the Waterkeeper Alliance, which took the aerial photos on Monday, said that if Duke were acting improperly, it was /b{an audacious move at a time when company officials and state regulators have been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury in Raleigh this week, which is investigating the Dan River spill.}

But Duke’s spokesman, Jeff Brooks, said that the activists were wrong, that the discharge was permissible maintenance and that state regulators had been notified by the power company. “They’re lowering the water to conduct the maintenance they need to,” Mr. Brooks said. He could not say what type of maintenance was being performed or when state regulators had been notified.

His statement appeared to contradict the environmental agency. Its spokesman said that inspectors had come upon the pumping during a site visit.

Mr. Harrison of the Waterkeeper Alliance scoffed at Duke’s explanation. “To label the secret, unmitigated, intentional discharges of untold amounts of highly toxic wastewater as ‘routine maintenance’ is beyond ludicrous — and it is a federal crime,” he said.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Karen Kennedy on Monday, March 17, 2014 - 12:14 pm: Edit Post

And from the Jamaica Gleaner, yesterday, March 16, 2014

Christopher Serju, Gleaner Writer

US Says It Will Not Support Any J'can Coal-Powered Activity

WASHINGTON DC, USA:Jamaica should not expect any support, financial or otherwise, from the United States (US) for any coal-powered energy initiative, now or any time in the future.

A high-ranking member of the US State Department's Bureau of Energy Resources last week used the start of a journalists' working tour in Washington to make it very clear that coal was a no-no.

"We have a US Government policy that we don't support World Bank or (other) international financial institutions' financing of new coal facilities abroad for reasons of climate change. I don't know if that applies to Jamaica," the State Department official said in response to a question from The Sunday Gleaner at the start of the working tour which is being done under the theme, 'The Future of Energy in the Americas'.

"I think it would," a colleague chipped in immediately, as the State Department official declared, "The US is not supportive of third countries that want those financing.

"The US government wouldn't support any foreign government that came and asked for international financial institutional support for a coal plant. Leave it like that ...," added the American official.

working tour

The comments came during a visit to the Bureau of Energy Resources by journalists taking part in a working tour sponsored by the US State Department's Foreign Press Centre and which runs until Friday.

The majority of journalists are from countries set to benefit under the Connecting the Americas 2022 initiative which came out of the Sixth Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia. At that summit the US joined Colombia and other leaders of the Western Hemisphere in committing to achieve universal access to electricity over the next decade through enhanced electrical interconnection.

Developed by Colombia, the initiative aims to increase access to reliable, clean, and affordable electricity for the region's 31 million citizens who are without it.

Another State Department official participating in the discussion last week explained that under Connect the Americas 2022, the US is in discussions with Jamaica to help identify the best energy options but cited a number of issues that would inform how the country benefits.

"It's a very different kind of issue than you see in Central America and South America where it's more advanced and they are interconnected. It's a landmass that's all interconnected but that said, there are still a lot of areas for improvement.

fossil fuel subsidy

"When it comes to fossil fuel subsidy, when it comes to the amount of particular losses when it comes to electricity sector, when it comes to which resources are deployed, what resources you have available to you," the official said, before questioning Jamaica's failure to attract investments in this field.

"Jamaica, like a lot of islands in the Caribbean, has spectacular renewable energy sources. Why aren't companies coming in? Why aren't those opportunities being taken advantage of? Why does it still have a strong dependence on importing fossil fuel for its energy, even when oil goes above US$100 a barrel?

"Those are the kinds of questions that we work to try and resolve."


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Diana McCaulay on Monday, March 17, 2014 - 04:05 pm: Edit Post

Sincere thanks to Karen for writing this letter. I think it has resonance because of her ties to Treasure Beach and Jamaica. Those of you concerned about this plan for one of our protected areas should make your voices heard too.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Archie on Monday, March 17, 2014 - 07:11 pm: Edit Post

We don't seem to appreciate the predicament in which we find ourselves. There are other environmental issues staring us in the face, but because they are not high profile ones they are being ignored. The plastic bags of garbage thrown into every gully are finding their way into the sea, killing marine life right around the island. Every street is littered with bottles, cans, paper and plastic bags. Why do we want to protect remote areas when the environment we live in is filthy? If we don't raise the populace out of financial poverty and poverty of the mind, we can stop worrying about the iguanas because they may be the only life that will survive. So we had better be careful that we are not doing more harm than good by our overzealousness.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Coach on Monday, March 17, 2014 - 10:13 pm: Edit Post

The Government of Trinidad and Tobago recently signed an agreement with The Chinese entity. Perhaps this may weaken their desire for Goat Island......Lets hope.