PRAIRIE FLYER The newsletter of the Sierra ClubPrairie Group, East Central Illinois

August, 2016

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1 Chair’s CornerIt’s a lively time for the Prairie Group. What’s beenhappening?

First, farewell to Lori DeYoung. She has served on theExcom for the last year, bringing her energy and longexperience in Vermilion County. Good luck to her – in-cluding to her effort to make household recycling avail-able in that county, which seems to have paid off! – andmay we have a chance to work together in future.

And, delighted to welcome Nancy Dietrich, who has for-mally joined the Prairie Group Excom, as well as JackiePotter who is working actively with us!

We’re also extremely glad to collaborate with Pam andLan Richart of the Eco-Justice Collaborative. They’ll bepresenting at the Sep. 14th showing of “This ChangesEverything”, the Naomi Klein film, which Nancy has ar-ranged. And, see Pam and Lan’s article below on press-ing Dynegy to move their coal ash heaps away from thebanks of the Middle Fork.

Alice Englebretsen single-handedly organized a localmeeting of the Chapter Excom in July, at Anita PurvesNature Center. This is the day-long bimonthly gather-ing of representatives from each of the member Groupsin Illinois, and this time it was our turn to host. NancyDietrich attended it too – any SC member is welcome toobserve at these meetings.

Political endorsements: We are happy to renew our en-dorsement of State Rep. Carol Ammons. And, congratu-lations to Scott Bennett, running for State Senate in the52nd district (parts of Champaign and Vermilion Coun-ties), as he’s now been officially endorsed by Sierra Club.

Clean Jobs: We’re still helping the Illinois Chapter pro-mote the IL Clean Jobs Bill – one of several competingbills which would define our state’s participation in theUSEPA Clean Power Plan. Alice, Jackie, and Rachel,along with Lan Richart, ran our Urbana Farmer’s Mar-ket booth in July. They gathered almost sixty signatures

from people agreeing to be “100% Clean Energy Voters”.That is some way to engage people – theirs will be a hardact to follow. Come by the Market in August (8/20) andsee what’s up then.

On July 30th, the WATCH Clinton Landfill group led ameeting at Champaign Library about coal ash, ClintonLandfill, and protecting the aquifer, from many points ofview. About 50-60 people attended; the talks should bebroadcast on UPTV and posted on Youtube soon (we’llannounce to the IL-Prairie-Alerts list). We heard fromCarol Ammons’ staffer Michelle Jett about the risks ofcoal ash, the likelihood that Clinton Landfill may wel-come millions of tons of it, legislation that can be writ-ten to restrict that based on the Mahomet Aquifer’s re-cent Sole Source Aquifer designation, and the need tomobilize citizens to push their legislators to support it.(See their article below.) There’s an ongoing Coal Ashgroup, including Ammons’ office, the Eco-Justice Collab-orative, and others, involved in planning the legislation.Sen. Scott Bennett spoke on legislation to protect theMahomet Aquifer.

Oil pipelines? Canadian oil company Enbridge’s networkof pipelines includes “line 61”, slated to carry 1.5 millionbarrels of tar sands oil per day – twice what Keystone XLwould have – and with further expansion planned in thenext few years. Line 61 runs through Wisconsin down toFlanagan, IL, near Pontiac, and connects there with an-other pipeline running past Bloomington – near the Ma-homet aquifer recharge area – and down to Patoka. Somepeople are working to oppose the pipeline expansion. Ifyou live near the area and would like to join that oppo-sition, please let us know – scprairiegroup01@gmail.com.

Activist training: We hope, perhaps in November, tohave Caroline Wooten of the Chapter office lead us insome kind of activist training. Anyone interested maytake part. More about this as the time comes closer.

Please do sign up for the IL-Prairie-Alerts e-mail list, orwatch our Facebook page, for updates.

Stuart Levy

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2 Upcoming Events in brief

Sunday, August 14, 2 pm Visit to Pollinatarium

Saturday, Aug 20, 8 am-noon SC at Urbana Farmer’s Market. We’ll have a few copies of the book, “ThisChanges Everything”, if you’d like to buy one.

Sunday August 28, 1-4 pm Picnic! at Lake of the Woods, Swiss Valley Shelter

Sunday, September 11, 1 pm (location TBA) Prairie Group Excom meeting. Any member may attend.scprairiegroup01@gmail.com for more info.

Stuart

3 A Film Screening of “This Changes Everything”

• Wednesday, September 14th 6:30 pm• Channing-Murray Foundation, 1209 W. Oregon,

Urbana - corner of Oregon & Mathews, on the Uof I campus

• Free and open to the public - Refreshments will beserved

• Followed by discussion & avenues for action

What if confronting the climate crisis is the best chancewe’ll ever get to build a better world?Inspired by Naomi Klein’s book, This Changes Every-thing: Capitalism vs. the Climate, this film presentsseven powerful portraits of communities on the front linesof the climate crisis, and Klein contends that “we canseize the existential crisis of climate change to transformour failed economic system into something radically bet-ter”.

A short trailer and more information about the film canbe seen here:Film Trailer

Thank you to our co-sponsors:Channing-Murray Foundation, Students for Envi-ronmental Concerns (SECS), Eco-Justice Collabora-tive, Faith In Place, Social Action Committee/GreenUUs of the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Urbana-Champaign, IL Environmental Council, WATCH (We’reAgainst Toxic Chemicals), Just Foreign Policy, AWARE,C-U Friends Meeting, University YMCA, WesleyMethodist Church Green Team, Central IL Chapter ofJobs with Justice, Prairie Rivers Network, ChampaignCounty Health Care Consumers

Copies of Naomi Klein’s book, “This Changes Every-thing: Capitalism vs. the Climate”, will be availablefor purchase.

Please join us to call attention to the most important environmental issue of our time.

4 One of Illinois’ Coal-Ash Problems

IEPA Set to Leave Residents and Illinois’ only National Scenic River With 3.3 MillionCubic Yards of Coal Ash

By Pam and Lan Richart, Eco-Justice Collaborative, August 1, 2016

Most everyone would agree that coal ash storage and recreation are not compatible. But if power company Dynegy-Midwest Generation has its way, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) will approve a plan thatwould permanently leave 3.3 million cubic yards of toxic coal ash waste in the floodplain of the Middle Fork ofthe Vermilion River, Illinois only National Scenic River. Eco-Justice Collaborative and Prairie Rivers Network areworking on a coordinated campaign calling for the IEPA to require Dynegy to move its coal ash out of the floodplainto a properly-constructed, lined facility on its property, away from the river.

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The Resource Under ThreatThe Middle Fork is a quick 5-minute drive west of Danville.This clear, gravel-bottomed stream has been acclaimed asone of the most biodiverse in the state, supporting anabundance of fish, mussels, and other invertebrates. TheMiddle Fork River and its surrounding area provide habi-tat for 57 types of fish, 45 different mammals, and 190kinds of birds. Twenty-four species are officially identifiedas State threatened or endangered.

Over a million people visit the area each year, with thou-sands paddling this section of the river in canoes, kayaksand inner-tubes. Vermilion County plans to capitalizeupon the recreational and scenic potential of the river cor-ridor for tourism and economic development, and the Cityof Danville is revitalizing its downtown by developing theadjacent riverfront, just 12 miles downstream from the coalash pits.

Leaking Waste, Eroding River Banks Coal ash is thematerial left over after burning coal to generate electricity.It contains toxic metals that have been shown to causebirth defects, cancer, and neurological damage in humansand as well as harm wildlife. From 1956 to its closure inMarch of 2011, Illinois Power and its successors operatedthe Vermilion coal-fired power plant along the west bankof the Middle Fork River, depositing over 3.3 million cubicyards of toxic coal ash in three pits next to the channel, inthe river’s floodplain.

Two of these pits are unlined and leaking into the ground-water and the river. The third is lined, but was constructedover mine voids. Meanwhile, the natural forces of the riverhave seriously eroded the riverbank, moving the channelcloser and closer to the walls that hold back the toxicwaste. In fact, the meandering river has so severely erodedthe banks of the newest coal ash pit that, at one location,just 10 feet separates the river from the toe of the coal ashembankment.

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“If a breach of these coal ash pits occurred, and just a little over 1% of Dynegy’s coal ash entered theriver, it would be comparable to the volume released in Duke Energy’s 2014 Dan River spill that sentcoal ash 70 miles downstream.” - Lan Richart, Eco-Justice Collaborative

About the Prairie Group

The current Prairie Group Excom consists of Alice Englebretsen (a.englebretsen at comcast.net) and Bob Illyes(illyes at illinois.edu), and our newest appointee Nancy Dietrich, whose terms end in December, 2017; Don Davis(zoots2005 at gmail.com), Eva Jehle (ejehle at sbcglobal.net), Stuart Levy (slevy at ncsa.uiuc.edu) and RachelVellenga (rlvellenga at yahoo.com), whose terms end in December, 2016. Usually we have an election towards theend of each year, but if there are no more candidates than positions to fill or if a position becomes vacant, the currentExcom may appoint people for those positions. It has been difficult to recruit candidates and we would be extremelypleased to have more people come forth with an email to any of the current members.

The Excom has the responsibility to decide on all activities and expenditures of the Prairie Group. Usually thesedecisions are taken at the regular Excom meetings, which occur 6 times each year in the odd-numbered months ona Sunday afternoon. In January of each year we decide on who will be the elected officers and designated activitypositions. Membership in the Excom is open to any Prairie Group member, but ordinarily we have been unable torecruit anyone outside of Champaign-Urbana, mainly due to the long distances required to attend the meetings. TheExcom meetings are usually held at one of the Excom members’ homes. They are open to the public but not usuallyactively publicized.

The current officers areChair: StuartVice-chair: Don DavisTreasurer: Alice

Some activity positionsSecretary: Dick BishopDelegate to Chapter Excom: Alice

Alternate Delegate: DonOutings: Rachel Vellenga

Sales of Calendars: Trent ShepardEditor of this newsletter: Dick

(richardl.bishop at gmail.com)

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