In West Virginia, some are beginning to discuss life after coal. “We’re in it. We’re in the transition. It’s going to get worse before it gets better."
The landfill was sending liquid waste to a local sewage treatment plant, causing it to release contaminants including radium into the Monongahela River.
One reason: less coal mining means less money to clean up the 300,000 acres of abandoned mine lands and the 5,000 miles of waterways polluted from coal mining in the state.
Freshwater Accountability Project will collect air and water quality data near schools, and daycare and senior centers close to the site in Belmont County.
Wolf wants to reduce carbon emissions by more than a quarter by 2025 and 80 percent by 2050, but the ethane cracker in Beaver County will make that harder to achieve.
A conversation with the journalist who wrote the Rolling Stone article based on his two-year investigation into the industry, worker safety and the regulatory blackhole that leaves people at risk.
One thing the report found was that the information system to track impacts dates back to the 1990s. Another finding is that coal companies are buying up land that they are mining under.
