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August 26, 2003 To: KRC Members From: Tom FitzGerald
Here at the Council, we take your e-mail privacy seriously. We attempt to avoid spreading any computer viruses, and never send or forward frivolous messages. Due to the recent concerns with virus attachments, KRC will NOT send any attached e-mails to our general mailing list. Instead, as issues or work of interest is generated by KRC, we will send you a message noting that the work has been posted (here) to our website, www.kyrc.org. If you receive any message from KRC that claims to have an attachment, or includes a questionable "subject," PLEASE let us know immediately in order that we may take steps to correct the problem. Thank you. Tom FitzGerald KRC
There is an organization in Frankfort that will take old computers, as long as they are Pentium or above, and old printers and monitors. They will fix them, and in turn donate the equipment to needy families. The name of the organization is the Salvation Student Technology Center, 119 West Main Street, Frankfort, KY 40601. The phone number is 502/226-6062. Cartridges that contain ink for inkjet printers and toner for laser printers and copying machines are being accepted in Jefferson County at: # 595 Hubbards Lane. # 3520 Newburg Road. # 7219 Dixie Highway (beind the Southwest Government Center). # 9300 Whipps Mill Road (behind police station). # 7201 Outer Loop (behind the Central Government Center). # 10620 W. Manslick Road (behind the police station). The Salvation Army of Frankfort will also take some type of gear. KRC has moved. Our new street address is: 213 St. Clair St. Suite 200. Court Square, Frankfort, 40601. Our mailing address is still the same P. O. Box 1070, 40602. |
Click the headline to read more about the bills and resolutions that KRC supported, opposed, and tracked during the 2013 Kentucky General Assembly Regular Session. The Session adjourned on March 26, and unless called inrto Special Session, will reconvene in January, 2014. Click the headline to read more about the bills and resolutions that KRC is supporting, opposing, and tracking during the 2013 Kentucky General Assembly Regular Session, complete through March 13. The next edition will be published on March 27, the day after the General Assembly is scheduled to adjourn sine die (a latin term meaning "without day," denoting the final adjournment of a legislative session). Click the headline to read more about the bills and resolutions that KRC is supporting, opposing, and tracking during the 2013 Kentucky General Assembly Regular Session, complete through March 8. The next edition will be published on March 13, after the General Assembly recesses for the "veto days." With four legislative days remaining, we have removed the bills and resolutions that have not moved from the initial committee to which they were assigned. Click the headline to read more about the bills and resolutions that KRC is supporting, opposing, and tracking during the 2013 Kentucky General Assembly Regular Session, complete through March 1. Click the headline to read more about the bills and resolutions that KRC is supporting, opposing, and tracking during the 2013 Kentucky General Assembly Regular Session, complete through February 22. Click the headline to read KRC's comments on the draft permti renewal to the former Arkema Carrollton facility. Senate Bill 53 attempts to take management control over the Blackacre Nature Preserve from the state Nature Preserves Commission, and give it to the nonprofit Blackacre Conservancy. Click the headline to read KRC's letter to the Committee members in opposition to the bill, which was heard in Committee and then tabled. Senate Bill 88, drafted by AT&T, passed the Senate on a vote of 24-13 and is now in the Kentucky House of Representatives. At issue is whether AT&T, Windstream, and Cincinnati Bell must continue to offer basic home phone service on a stand-alone basis, the reliability of which is subject to regulation by the Public Service Commission. Click the headline to learn more. Click the headline to read more about the bills and resolutions that KRC is supporting, opposing, and tracking during the 2013 Kentucky General Assembly Regular Session, complete through February 8. Two related cases pending on motions for discretionary review before the Kentucky Supreme Court could determine whether they do. To read more, click the headline. The Board of Directors of KRC has unanimously endorsed the Biomass Campaign Platform developed by Dogwood Alliance and NRDC, which calls for a moratorium on "whole tree" utility-scale bioenergy projects. To read the Platform, click the headline. Click the headline to read more about the bills and resolutions that KRC is supporting, opposing, and tracking during the 2013 Kentucky General Assembly Regular Session. The next edition will be published on February 8, since the General Assembly has adjourned on January 11 until February 5. Though the Council does not charge for the advice, representation, and advocacy we offer on behalf of individuals, groups, and communities, we have been rewarded many times over by the kind words and support of those who we have worked with to improve environmental health, quality, and justice over these many years. We share with you some of their reflections on KRC and its work. Click the headline to read about the prefiled bills and resolutions that KRC will be tracking during the upcoming General Assembly Regular Session, which begins January 8, 2013. The Council received word today that Mary Jane Adams, long-time justice advocate, KRC member, and wife of Raleigh Adams, died today after a long battle with cancer. Looking back on the many years that he had the privilege and the honor of knowing Mary Jane and Raleigh, Fitz recalled above all else the courage that she exhibited, during the early years of the Fair Tax Coalition and across the years. Her tenacity, her intelligence, her endless energy and courage in “speaking truth to power” has been an inspiration to Fitz and to many others who had the privilege of working with them both. Mary Jane, was, in Marian Wright Edelman's words, "a tender, a worker, a help, and a catalyst for durable good." Mary Jane's legacy, reflected in the unmined minerals tax, in the end of the pernicious broad form deed, in the adoption of comprehensive reforms of waste laws to protect communities, in mentoring many others in how to be effective advocates for change, and in so many other tangible and intangible ways, will endure. Our sympathies are with Raleigh, Cam Nickell, and the family. Click the headline to read KRC's comments on revisions to 405 KAR 5:032, the Cabinet's noncoal mineral permitting rule. Click the headline to read a brief article by KRC Director Tom FitzGerald concerning the proposed constitutional amendment creating a "right to hunt and fish" that will be on the November 6 ballot in Kentucky. Click the headline to read KRC's comments on proposed amendments to the regulations governing the Kentucky Heritage Land Conservation Fund and Board. Click the headline to read more about the Council's comments concerning the proposed changes to the Kentucky Water quality standards. The Division of Water proposed these revisions as a result of their triennial review of the water quality standards. The Council is particularly concerned with a proposed redefinition of "eutrophication" that could lead to a reduction of protection of waterbodies from excessive discharges of nutrients. In comments submitted to the Division of Waste Management concerning a request to approve an expansion of a coal combustion waste landfill, the Council takes issue with the use of the TCLP leaching test to characterize the waste, recommending instead that a more appropriate leaching test be used to characterize the leaching potential of the wastes, and that water monitoring parameters be broadened to include all metals identified through such leaching tests. Click the headline to read more about why the TCLP test is inappropriate for characterizing coal combustion waste disposal in monofills. |
The Board and staff of the Council joined with Fred and Anne Joseph, the extended family, and with the community of Louisville, in celebrating the life of Dorothy "Dot" Joseph, who died on March 11, 2013 at age 96. Dot devoted much of her adult life to the field of mental health, and was instrumental in the founding of Bridgehaven, one of the first community-based halfway houses for the mentally ill in the nation. She served as Administratvie Assistant to two Commissioners of Mental Health in Kentucky, where she was instrumental in shaping the state regulations for mental health, alcohol and substance abuse. Her lifetime of service to community and family is a tradition carried on by her son Fred. In her memory and in Fred, Anne, and Alix's honor, we recommit ourselves to the work yet undone. The Board and staff of the Kentucky Resources Council joined with people across the state and nation in mourning the passing, and celebrating the well-lived life of Grady Clay, who died on March 17 at the age of 96. Keith Runyon, a long-time colleague and friend of Grady's and the former editorial page editor of the Courier Journal, captured the essence of Grady when he wrote: "For those of us who had the good fortune to know him, Grady was that rarest of persons: a visionary and a pragmatist, he had strong opinions but was still able to debate with you and to remain friends,” he wrote. “Grady’s stories picked up on some of the major domestic topics of the time: the impact of the interstate highway system, the post-war suburban housing boom, the urban renewal program and the decline of downtown as a community center and shopping destination. Grady viewed these trends with caution. He was among the first to articulate a reaction, what he called a “new urbanism” in an article he wrote for Horizon magazine. Those views drew him close to Jane Jacobs and others who understood the importance of street life, residential density, sidewalks and alleys, on-street shopping and mass transportation." Keith's commentary can be read at http://wfpl.org/post/grady-clay-urban-visionary. In Grady's memory, and in honor of his sons and of his widow, Judith McCandless, we recommit ourselves to the unfinished work before us. Click the headline to read KRC's wrap-up of the 2013 Kentucky General Assembly Regular Session. In a letter tendered to the Administrative Regulation Review Subcommittee, KRC has requested that the Subcommittee not allow the Division of Water to include significant revisions to the state selenium water quality standards due to lack of compliance by the state with federal standards for revising water quality standards. Click the headline to read the letter. KRC Director Fitz had the privilege of being part of a panel discussion at the Berry Center Conference themed "What will it take to Resettle America?" Click the headline to read the text of KRC's presentation. Fitz, Becky, and the KRC Board join in mourning the passing and in celebrating the remarkable life of Peggy Hyland, who died on March 5, 2013. Peggy began her career with the Legislative Research Commission of the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1976, two years before Fitz began advocating before the General Assembly on coal mining and other environmental issues. She began her career as a legislative analyst and staff for the environmental committees, and rose to become Deputy and Interim Director of the Commission. Co-author of the textbook "Environmental Science-Living within the System of Nature," Peggy retired in 2002 to continued to pursue her interests in environmental issues and social equality causes. She was a stalwart member of the Council. Peggy will long be remembered for her principled and thoughtful contributions to the evolution of the Legislative Branch as a co-equal partner in Kentucky's governance, and in using the LRC staff to assist legislators to be more proactive in identifying emerging issues and problems in order to prepare for and address those issues. Fitz will always remember Peggy for her kind words and encouragement during his early years as an environmental advocacy. In her memory, and in honor of her loving husband Keith and her stepchildren Chris and Laura, we at the Council rededicate ourselves to the unfinished work of restoring reason and sanity to our environmental policies. Senate Floor Amendments 1 and 2 to House Bill 370, approved last Friday by the Senate, would lift Kentucky's current moratorium on approval of new nuclear power plants until a national nuclear waste disposal strategy is in place. Click the headline to read KRC's letter to House Leadership asking that they refuse to concur with the Senate amendments. AT&T's disclaimer for its wireless home phone service notes that it does not warrant the service to be as reliable as wireline home phone service. One Kentucky family's experience with the service bears that out. Click the headline to read more about AT&T's Kentucky investment patterns in recent years, including AT&T's praise for the regulatory environment for telecommunications investment that it now complains is a drag on investment. Visit the KET webpage at http://www.ket.org/cgi-bin/cheetah/watch_video.pl?nola=WGAOS+014129&altdir=&template= to watch the House Tourism, Development and Energy Committee Hearing on SB 88 HCS, a House Committee Substitute for AT&T's phone deregulation bill. During a March 4 media press conference, KRC Director Tom FitzGerald voiced concern with any approach to resolving the power contract dispute between Century Aluminum and Big Rivers Electric Cooperative that would shift additional costs to the remaining ratepayers of Big Rivers in the event that Century Aluminum is allowed, either through or bypassing the utility, to purchase market power. To read the media release, click the headline. KRC has written to the legislation sponsors, suggesting options that would assist in keeping Century viable while protecting ratepayers from additional rate shock. Current mining laws contain a limited exemption for removal of sand and gravel in the aid of on-site farming. HB 165 would significantly broaden the exemption to allow strip mining of veing minerals, including limestone, in streams, wetlands, and other waterbodies on "farm lands" for "farm purposes." The bill is pending in the Senate. To read more on the bill, click the headline. On November 7, 2012, the same day that AT&T filed a petition with the Ferderal Communications Commission requesting that the publicly-switched telephone network be ended, AT&T announced an investment of $14 billion it intended to make over a three-year period. But how much of the $14 billion is new investment rather than routine construction and capital expense? Click the headline to read KRC's assessment. With apologies to the Letterman Show, here are the "Top Ten" reasons why AT&Ts bill to deregulate basic phone service and to end the obligation to offer that service to all residences within the service area, is bad for Kentucky. Click the headline to read the list. Click the headline to read KRC's letter regarding HB 211 and its Senate counterpart, which would allow the aluminum smelters in Hawesville to bypass the local cooperative and purchase less-expensive electricity from the marketplace. The Council believes that any costs incurred by the electric cooperative to support the "wheeling" of that power through the cooperative system to the smelters should not be shifted to the remaining ratepayer base, and that economic incentives should be used to assist the smelters to remain viable only where there are "clawback" provisions imposed to assure that those jobs will remain in Kentucky for a definite period of time, at the risk of having to repay any incentives if they do not. Click the headline to read KRC's written testimony in opposition to House Bill 165, which would exempt dredging and excavating of limestone, sand, gravel, and other minerals from "waterways" if done on farm land for "farm purposes." The potential for abuse of this ill-defined exemption is significant. AT&Ts "Wireless Customer Service" speaks volumes when it states that "AT&T does not represent that the [wireless home phone] service will be equivalent to landline service." Yet if Senate Bill 88 becomes law, basic landline local phone service could be replaced with wireless home phone service by AT&T, Windstream and Cincinnati Bell. To read more disclaimers from the AT&T Wireless Customer Agreement, click the headline. Click the headline to read more about the bills and resolutions that KRC is supporting, opposing, and tracking during the 2013 Kentucky General Assembly Regular Session, complete through February 15. In an 11th hour move, the state Division of Water proposed to amend the state water quality standards to include a new acute water quality standard for selenium more than 10 times less protective than the limit it had proposed to eliminate, and to change the chronic standard, when no notice was given that the agency was even contemplating changing that standard. The agency requested that the Administrative Regulation Review Subcommittee defer consideration of the changes, after the Subcommitee heard testimony critical of the state's actions from KRC and other groups. To read KRC's letter objecting to the last-minute efforts to effect major changes to the water quality standards, click the headline. The Division of Water has invited comments on the proposed standards, but unless the agency is ready to provide a Statement of Consideration for all comments received regarding the science behind the proposed selenium limits, and the enforceability of the new standards, the deferral of the legislative review of the regulation does not "cure" the violations of state law concering amendments to administrative regulations. Click the headline to read KRC's letter to the Senate members of the committee opposing SB 88. |
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