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From red to black: How Philly remade its transit system

by donseoo Posted on February 26, 2013

From red to black: How Philly remade its transit system

By Susie Cagle

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority has come a long way, baby. Back in the ’90s, it was mired in $75 million in debt and under investigation by the FBI. Now it’s being honored [PDF] as one of the top transit agencies in the nation.

dan_ol

The Philadelphia Daily News has the story of how SEPTA was turned around over the last two decades, in large part thanks to board chair Pat Deon. After years of operating in the red, Philly’s transit systems added revenue-generating advertisements, balanced its budget, and drove right into the black.

SEPTA’s chief financial officer, Richard Burnfield, said the Deon-era board’s commitment to running SEPTA like a business with balanced budgets has attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in government funding that riders enjoy through new Silverliner V regional-rail cars ($330 million), 440 new hybrid buses ($232 million) and beautifully rebuilt subway stations such as Spring Garden and Girard ($30 million).

There were also some notable cultural shifts at the agency.

A big accomplishment during Deon’s tenure has been the cessation of hostilities between the 15-member board’s 13 suburban members and two city members.

Rina Cutler, who was appointed to the board by Mayor Nutter five years ago, said, “It was very clear to me that the city and SEPTA spent a long time poking each other in the eye, and that this relationship was not useful.

“I came from Boston, where people have such a love affair with transit, they wear T-shirts with an MBTA [Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority] route map on them,” Cutler said. “That model didn’t exist here.”

Cutler said she and Deon “have a healthy respect” for one another and “we don’t poke each other in the eyes anymore.”

Deon told the Daily News: “When I first came here, this was just a pitiful operation. For myself and the board, it was like turning around an ocean liner. But we did it.”

Now Deon is pushing for a new smart-card system that would allow poorer transit riders without bank accounts to deposit their checks directly into the system, saving hundreds of dollars in fees and streamlining their rides. The city also plans to phase out subway tokens (!) by 2014.

The problems SEPTA has faced are more or less the same ones facing other regional transit systems that reach across poor urban communities and more affluent suburban ones (give or take an FBI investigation and some bus-related gunfire). If Philly can turn things around, perhaps there’s hope for us all.

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Blazing tires will no longer power Illinois homes

by RupertxMcmillan Posted on February 26, 2013

Blazing tires will no longer power Illinois homes

By John Upton

ShutterstockTires should not be burned for electricity.

Take a cloud of carbon monoxide. Mix in nitrogen oxide, sulfur oxide, and ammonia. Sprinkle it with a heap of soot.

That poisonous recipe is cooked up and released into the air when tires are burned. And it’s what residents of the heavily polluted, low-income, predominantly black community of Ford Heights, Ill., have been breathing, on and off, since a tire-incinerating power plant began operating in their neighborhood in 1995.

But relief has finally arrived: Following a string of air pollution citations and a federal civil rights complaint, Geneva Energy has agreed to stop burning tires to generate electricity at the sprawling Cook County facility.

“This settlement will eliminate the source of almost 200 tons of air pollutants each year, in a community that has historically been disproportionately impacted by environmental contamination,” EPA Regional Administrator Susan Hedman said in a statement on Monday.

The company began operating the incinerator in 2006. By 2010, it had been cited four times by state inspectors for pollution violations at the facility, at which point the EPA stepped in with the civil rights complaint, the Chicago Tribune reports. In 2011, the incinerator was switched off. In Monday’s announcement, the EPA said that it had reached an agreement that prevents the company from switching the incinerator back on.

The power plant’s history is as flavorful as the pollution it produces. From the Tribune article:

Throughout its troubled history, the Ford Heights plant had political patrons in Springfield pushing laws to make it financially viable.

The facility was built in 1995 amid growing debate about a state law that required power companies to buy electricity from incinerators at above-market rates. Lawmakers repealed the subsidies a year later, the original owners of the incinerator went bankrupt and the company defaulted on nearly $80 million in state bonds.

Another group of investors flourished during a Bridgestone/Firestone tire recall in 2000 but filed for bankruptcy after the incinerator’s turbine blew up in 2004.

In 2010, the same year the EPA’s Office of Civil Rights began its investigation, the Illinois House passed a bill that would have added tire burning to the state’s definition of green, renewable energy. The measure would have made the incinerator a player in a growing market for renewable energy in Illinois, where power companies must get at least 10 percent of their electricity from pollution-free sources by 2015 and 25 percent by 2025.

At the time, the incinerator’s owner told the Tribune that green energy subsidies would be “the difference between us making it or not.” The measure later failed in the Illinois Senate.

The closure of the plant is good news for anybody who breathes the air in Cook County, which encompasses most of Chicago. Tires should not be burned to generate electricity: There are eco-friendlier ways of handling the hundreds of millions of tires discarded every year by Americans, such as recycling them into paving and construction materials.

But a similar facility continues to operate in Sterling, Conn. It is now the nation’s only remaining tire-to-energy power plant, although it might soon have some company. A new one is proposed to be built in Pennsylvania, with controversial permit approvals currently tied up in court.

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Oil company executive swears at analyst, tries to get recording off the internet

by rikkiqlyons Posted on February 21, 2013

Oil company executive swears at analyst, tries to get recording off the internet

By Philip Bump

Encana is a Canadian oil and gas company that’s seen its share of troubles in recent years, as oil and gas companies are wont to do. One of its wells in Colorado exploded last August, killing a worker. In 2009, the EPA found evidence that its fracking fluid was contaminating water in Wyoming. In December, we learned that Encana has a permit from the EPA to do a little aquifer polluting, prompting a bit of blowback for both company and agency.

Encana executives, therefore, will be forgiven for feeling a little frustrated. They’re just trying to drill up oil and gas and sell it at a profit while letting your lungs and the atmosphere incur the cost of the pollution, is that so wrong? So when a reporter asked executives a question they found insulting, one responded more colorfully than would be generally recommended. From Reuters:

Encana Corp, Canada’s largest natural gas producer, apologized on Thursday because one of its executives cursed after an analyst asked about whether new Canadian investment rules would prohibit its takeover by foreign state-owned entities.

When asked the question by Canaccord Genuity analyst Phil Skolnick, interim CEO Clayton Woitas said: “The answer would be no.” Then, in a whispered comment that was clearly audible on a replay of the call, someone can be heard saying, “fucking asshole.”

The good folks at Boing Boing got ahold of audio of the comment in question.

Clearly the company is obsessed with gas-filled orifices.

A fuckin’ gashole in Pennsylvania.

Of course, oil company executives being what they are, Encana is now trying to have the clip removed from the internet. From The Globe and Mail:

Encana, in its request, says:

“Encana is the copyright owner of the Recording. It was expressly stated at the outset of the Conference Call that ‘this conference call may not be recorded or rebroadcast without the express consent of Encana Corporation’,” the letter states.

“The Recording has been posted without Encana’s consent. The unauthorized use of this Recording clearly constitutes copyright infringement. … Encana views this matter extremely seriously and requests that you respond to the undersigned on or before the close of business on Friday, February 22, 2013, failing which, Encana will have no other recourse but to take all actions as may be available to it to protect its proprietary rights.”

Ha ha, oh, Encana. Clearly modern technology is not your strong suit. Demanding a clip be removed from the internet is basically equivalent to standing on top of a mountain and screaming HEY INTERNET, LISTEN TO THIS. So: Hey, internet! Listen to this audio clip, conveniently embedded above!

And, in fact, that request is basically the only reason we wrote this post. You know what members of the media are like, after all. Fucking assholes.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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How one fracking company bullies residents and elected officials alike

by BayalaHillesland628 Posted on February 19, 2013

How one fracking company bullies residents and elected officials alike

By Philip Bump

chriswaits

Indeed.

When the EPA last year dropped its inquiry into methane seepage from wells fracked by Range Resources, it seemed like an unusual move. Texan Steve Lipsky’s water supply was bubbling over with the explosive gas, after all, which seemed like the sort of thing an agency built around protecting the environment should look into. But Range Resources threatened to pull out of a key fracking study, and the EPA backed off.

Because, according to a report from Bloomberg, that’s the game the frackers at Range Resources play: bullying, threatening, intimidating.

Critics say the Fort Worth-based company, which pioneered the use of hydraulic fracturing in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus shale, has taken a hard line with residents, local officials and activists. In one case it threatened a former EPA official with legal action; in another it stopped participating in town hearings to review its own applications to drill, because local officials were asking too many questions and taking too long.

“Range Resources is different from its peers in that it chooses to severely punish its critics,” said Calvin Tillman, the former mayor of Dish, Texas, and an activist who has been subpoenaed and issued legal warnings by Range. “Most companies avoid the perception of the big-bad-bully oil company, while Range Resources embraces it.”

The Bloomberg article outlines some of that bullying. A lawmaker who criticized Range had emails leaked to the local paper. And Steve Lipsky, he with the methane water, was sued.

[Range] argued in local court that Lipsky conspired to defame the company by getting his air and water tested by Alisa Rich, president of Wolf Eagle Environmental consultants, and taking that complaint to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and to the media.

“The object of the conspiracy was to make false and damaging accusations that Range’s operations had contaminated Lipsky’s water well,” the company said in its suit, filed in July 2011.

While the case is still being fought in court, Lipsky stands by his charge of Range’s culpability: “It’s ludicrous,” he said, referring to the case. “They’re ruthless.”

As Bloomberg notes, there’s a potential downside to alienating citizens and politicians for a company that relies on permitting and leasing land. Tangling with the EPA, however, seems to carry very little cost at all. At least to Range Resources.

Source

Texas fracker accused of bully tactics against foes, Bloomberg

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Leaked, useless report suggests fracking is fine for New Yorkers

by biglermyrta910 Posted on January 3, 2013

Leaked, useless report suggests fracking is fine for New Yorkers

By Philip Bump

The New York Times got its ink-stained hands on a report from the New York Health Department assessing the risks associated with fracking, the primary issue at play as the state considers whether or not to lift a ban on the practice. While the report suggests that fracking doesn’t pose risks, there are at least two gigantic caveats. From the Times:

The state’s Health Department found in an analysis it prepared early last year that the much-debated drilling technology known as hydrofracking could be conducted safely in New York, according to a copy obtained by The New York Times from an expert who did not believe it should be kept secret. …

The eight-page analysis is a summary of previous research by the state and others, and concludes that fracking can be done safely. It delves into the potential impact of fracking on water resources, on naturally occurring radiological material found in the ground, on air emissions and on “potential socioeconomic and quality-of-life impacts.” …

Emily DeSantis, a spokeswoman for the State Department of Environmental Conservation, said the analysis obtained by The Times was out of date. “The document you have is merely a summary, is nearly a year old, and there will be substantial changes to that version,” she said.

Can you spot the caveats? Yes, the report is an aggregation of existing research, not new reporting on any health effects. And, yes, it’s outdated.

Lazzarello

Last November, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo pushed out a deadline for making a final decision so that the state could do more research on fracking’s health effects. The release of this report makes clear why that was a natural next step: With only a cobbled-together set of data on how the practice could affect New Yorkers, it would be hard for Cuomo to make a strong case for lifting a ban. An upstate political blog spoke with a Sierra Club representative following release of the report.

“The position that the impacts of fracking can be regulated to ‘below levels of significant health concern’ is pure fantasy and it is understandable why (Gov. Andrew Cuomo) did not press forward with these baseless conclusions last year,” said Roger Downs, conservation director of the Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter.

The Times didn’t include the report in its coverage, but the site Journalist’s Resource has a good overview of existing research and reporting on the topic. Among the reports included there is one from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences which looks specifically at shale fracking in New York and Pennsylvania.

In aquifers overlying the Marcellus and Utica shale formations of northeastern Pennsylvania and upstate New York, we document systematic evidence for methane contamination of drinking water associated with shalegas extraction. In active gas-extraction areas (one or more gas wells within 1 km), average and maximum methane concentrations in drinking-water wells increased with proximity to the nearest gas well and were 19.2 and 64 mg CH4 L −1 (n ¼ 26), a potential explosion hazard; in contrast, dissolved methane samples in neighboring nonextraction sites (no gas wells within 1 km) within similar geologic formations and hydrogeologic regimes averaged only 1.1 mg L −1 (P < 0.05; n ¼ 34).

Emphasis added, to highlight the health risk. The area in New York considered in that research lies on the state’s southern border — the area most likely to see approval of the fracking process.

New York isn’t alone in its skepticism. Large cities across the country are beginning to ban the practice within city limits.

Some cities, even those in the heart of oil and gas country have moved to ban fracking within their limits. Tulsa, Oklahoma, (once the self-proclaimed oil capital of the world) has completely banned fracking within the city limits. Planning for the first ever natural gas well in the city of Dallas was blocked last week, and the town of Longmont, near Denver, is currently battling attempts to overturn its own fracking ban.

Meaning that even if Cuomo feels comfortable in lifting the state’s ban once a more thorough health assessment has been completed, the odds that we see fracking wells in Central Park remain pretty slim.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Coal keeps on selling, lawsuits and bad economics be damned

by Myrna Posted on January 2, 2013

Coal keeps on selling, lawsuits and bad economics be damned

By Philip Bump

Shutterstock

Vile scourge/cheap energy producer.

When I started writing this post, the ticker on the homepage of Peabody Energy, the largest private-sector coal company in the world, indicated that it has sold 970,470 tons of coal so far in 2013. Can’t find the ticker? It’s down there next to the “Environmental Responsibility” box. Yes, really.

An activist group has filed a lawsuit against Emerald Coal Resources, citing extensive pollution in southwestern Pennsylvania. From the Associated Press:

The Center for Coalfield Justice, based in Washington, Pa., filed the federal lawsuit Friday in Pittsburgh against Emerald Coal Resources LP, which operates the Emerald Mine in Waynesburg, Greene County. The citizens’ group is being backed by the Earthrise Law Center in Norwell, Mass.

The lawsuit contends Emerald Coal has violated pollution levels for iron, manganese, aluminum and other pollutants more than 120 times in the past 12 months and more than 400 times in the past five years. The group is basing those claims on violations the company has been self-reporting to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection under Emerald’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permit as part of the federal Clean Water Act.

The parent company for Emerald is Alpha Natural Resources, which recently announced plans to shut a number of mines.

972,199 tons … 972,283 tons …

In Virginia, meanwhile, a report outlines how the state’s investment in coal energy is not paying off.

From WAMU radio:

Environmentalists have long criticized Virginia coal companies for their impact on air quality, but a new report suggests there are economic reasons to stop mining.

In the report, Appalachian Voices, a nonprofit environmental organization, found Virginia gives coal companies more in tax breaks than the state receives from them in taxes.

Virginia pays a net amount of about $22 million to the coal industry every year, according to Appalachian Voices Director Tom Cormons. The figure takes into account all taxes the industry pays to the state, he said.

The full report [PDF] articulates how the state of Virginia helps keep the state’s remaining mines open.

Coal’s importance for Virginia is not likely to grow in the future based on the declining competitiveness of Virginia coal resulting from the depletion of the lowest-cost coal reserves. Additionally, new regulations and technology requirements related to air emissions and tighter restrictions on surface mining are also likely to impact Virginia coal production, although to what extent is unknown. Should this occur, coal’s contribution to the Commonwealth’s budget and state and local economies will likely diminish.

Strategies

Virginia’s increasingly poor investment in coal.

Peabody Energy sold 8,000 tons of coal in the time it took me to articulate today’s reasons why we shouldn’t be extracting or subsidizing coal at all. Take a look at Peabody’s ticker right now and share the current count in comments below. Then weep. 

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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From bike shares to urban farms, Philadelphia is on the rise

by biglermyrta910 Posted on December 12, 2012

From bike shares to urban farms, Philadelphia is on the rise

By Susie Cagle

It’s been a banner year for urbanism in the City of Brotherly Love.

A West Philadelphia project led The New York Times’ piece on brownfields redevelopment today, and a new report released this week finds that the city’s community development corporations are cleaning up blight, rehabbing houses, and adding millions to Philadelphia’s tax base.

Yesterday, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter (D) officially launched a city Office of New Urban Mechanics dedicated to city innovation and problem-solving. “New Urban Mechanics will have the flexibility to experiment, the ability to re-invent public-private partnerships and the strategic vision to create real change for Philadelphia. I am excited to establish the Office of New Urban Mechanics as a civic innovation tool for urban transformation,” Nutter said in a statement.

Like a lot of “urban innovation” initiatives these days, that is really vague! It could encompass everything from apps for tracking and fixing potholes to brainstorming around some of Philadelphia’s big projects still in the works.

One big project: a bike share! Philadelphia wants to get one rolling. From the local CBS affiliate:

The city envisions getting a business plan together by next spring, then selecting a vendor, with the first bikes hitting the streets in 2014.

“We will need $3 million of city capital money,” says deputy mayor for transportation Rina Cutler, “then we hope to raise an additional five or six million in federal, state, and private funds.” …

Cutler says they’re still working out how users will pay for the bicycles. Credit or debit cards might ensure that the bikes don’t get stolen, but she says they also want to figure out a cash model or cell-phone technology for payment that shows up on your phone bill, so they don’t eliminate low-income users.

Or the office could help set up a new city land bank to fight blight and grow Philadelphia’s urban core. In October, the Pennsylvania state legislature passed a bill paving the way for a Philly land bank. A recent surge in demand for central city housing has motivated the city — with its 40,000 vacant lots — to establish the bank. But there’s no telling yet if the bank will give preference to big developers or small nonprofits, or put everyone on a level playing field.

Things are looking great for Philadelphia! Except maybe (maybe!) when it comes to the city’s burgeoning urban agriculture scene. This summer, the city approved new zoning rules that acknowledge upwards of 350 community gardens and farms spread across 753 different parcels. From Next American City:

Recognizing urban agriculture as a legal land use category helps bolster support for its practice. [Allison Blansfield, farm manager at The Enterprise Center,] says that the real evidence that the zoning code works better is that more problems don’t come up. According to Amy Laura Cahn of the Public Interest Law Center, cultivated vacant parcels are no longer just vacant lots, but are now legally recognized as urban agriculture.

This represents a major shift in the dialogue on vacant lands. Cahn notes that on the whole, the new code is a very positive step, with details needing to be ironed out over the next year of implementation.

But of course, issues remain.

Obtaining permits to build necessary garden infrastructure like retaining walls and fences is still really difficult, and new pending amendments to the code might undo much of this year’s progress and jeopardize more than a fifth of the city’s already-operating farms and gardens.

As it relates to urban agriculture, the changes would outlaw community gardening and urban farming in areas designated commercial mixed use, i.e. commercial corridors … The new code that had made it simpler for gardeners and farmers to be in compliance might now have the barriers built back in.

Come on, Philly — adding extra red tape for urban farmers is not innovative at all. Dig in, get your hands dirty, and please come back with something besides more apps. Please.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

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Tobacco companies ordered to admit deception. Heads up, coal industry

by Myrna Posted on November 28, 2012

Tobacco companies ordered to admit deception. Heads up, coal industry

By Philip Bump

Yesterday, a federal judge ruled that tobacco companies will have to pay for an advertising campaign admitting that they lied for years about the health impacts of cigarettes.

From Reuters:

[U.S. District Judge Gladys] Kessler’s ruling on Tuesday, which the companies could try to appeal, aims to finalize the wording of five different statements the companies will be required to use.

One of them begins: “A federal court has ruled that the defendant tobacco companies deliberately deceived the American public by falsely selling and advertising low tar and light cigarettes as less harmful than regular cigarettes.”

Another statement includes the wording: “Smoking kills, on average, 1,200 Americans. Every day.”

The effect on consumers will be modest: Anyone who doesn’t yet realize that the tobacco industry spent years obfuscating its role in damaging public health is probably not a terribly productive member of society. But the case is notable both for holding the companies accountable — a very good thing — and for establishing precedent. In case, you know, other industries that wantonly damage public health lie about the effects of their products.

fried dough

The only thing you could ever burn that could damage your health.

On a completely unrelated note, did you know that the coal industry has a number of billboards up in Pennsylvania advertising how great coal is? Look, here are some examples. “Increasingly Green,” one says. “Clean & Green” is a common tagline. I’m not sure how the industry can trumpet coal as being clean, much less green, given that it has a demonstrable track record of being filthy and deadly when burned. The health effects are similar to those caused by tobacco use, in fact: lung disease, acute heart problems. (We’ll update this post in the year 2200 with the full body count from climate change, assuming things have settled down by then.)

The only way coal gets cleaner is if you filter out the pollution, which would be like, say, tobacco companies claiming that it’s safer to smoke cigarettes because of the improved filters they’re using. Coal doesn’t have any built-in filter, any way to be cleaner. Saying coal is cleaner because the EPA is making coal plants better filter the emissions is like tobacco companies saying cigarettes are healthier if you smoke them through a gas mask.

But anyway, the coal industry in Pennsylvania is littering the thruway with billboard after billboard falsely touting how clean its product is. I wonder if there’s any mechanism by which it could be held to account?

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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