Title:  Alaska Coal Organizer

Location: Palmer, AK, Homer, AK, and Anchorage, AK (2 positions available)

Position Description: Alaskans for Energy Freedom is seeking to hire a team of four dedicated organizers that will work with AEF campaign partners to build support for our unified goal of keeping Alaska’s coal in the ground.  Organizers will be placed with different host organizations around the state to provide grassroots organizing support for existing campaigns. Organizers will be in charge of building and mobilizing new constituencies through grassroots outreach tactics including canvassing, tabling at public events, phone banking, net-roots activism and hosting large publicity events.  While stationed in diverse locations throughout Alaska, organizers will regularly coordinate with each other and will frequently work in conjunction with other campaigns and organizations.

Campaign Overview:
Alaska posses nearly ½ of all U.S. coal resources and 1/8 of the world’s coal lies within the soil of The Last Frontier.  Rising global demand for energy, particularly in Asian markets, is driving a new wave of proposals to access and export that coal to be burned in coal-fired power plants.  The production, transport and use of Alaska’s coal would result in trillions of tons of global warming emissions and have a devastating impact on Alaska’s economy and natural resources.  Alaskans for Energy Freedom (AEF) is a coalition of fishing and hunting organizations, tribes, businesses, property owners, consumer, and conservation groups working to prevent the impact of Alaska’s coal on global climate change and on Alaska’s environment.

AEF works to support the efforts of our campaign members to stop coal mining projects across Alaska through grassroots organizing, media outreach, technical analysis and a robust legal campaign.

Duties include:

• Broaden the AEF’s base of support through grassroots organizing and constituency outreach including canvassing, phone banking, net-roots activism, tabling, etc…
• Plan and hold large public events to generate media attention and recruit new campaign supporters;
• Represent AEF coalition members at public meetings and summer outreach events
• Recruiting and developing new volunteers
• Create and distribute engaging public outreach materials to educate Alaskans on the dangers of coal development.

Qualifications/Skills/Required Training:

• Outgoing, self-starting personality;
• Ability to work independently and manage large projects with minimal supervision;
• Willingness to frequently work long hours and weekends;
• Verbal skills, with the ability to communicate complex information to the general public.
• Interest and experience in grassroots political organizing and campaign tactics;
• Ability to work with diverse partners to engage a sometimes unfriendly public on energy and mining issues;
• Basic knowledge of politics and the legislative process;
• Passion for protecting natural resources;
• Willingness to travel extensively and frequently camp outdoors.  

Duration:  Twelve weeks, start date: Late May/ Early June

Financial Support: Stipend of $300 per week

OTHER:  Alaska’s diverse natural resources make it a place unlike any other.  AEF is dedicated to ensuring that your experience will be exciting, unique and fun.  Organizers are strongly encouraged to recreate in and enjoy the Alaskan environment they are working to protect.

Submit your cover letter, resume and three references to jobs@alaskacoal.org by APRIL 15, 2011.  If you have any questions you can contact us at (907) 276-4060.

Chugach Electric Association (CEA) and Municipal Light and Power (ML&P) are currently negotiating the Power Purchase Agreements with CIRI, the developer of the wind project on Fire Island. CEA and ML&P need to know its customers are behind Fire Island Wind and other renewable energy projects. Integrating wind power into the electric grid will take some effort, but so did the Bradley Lake hydro project twenty years ago, which now provides the cheapest power on the grid. Alaska needs to be a leader in renewable energy and Fire Island Wind is the first step.

Coal ash is the material that remains after coal is burned.  Several different types include:

• Fly ash: fine material that travels up smokestacks in the air
• Bottom ash: the size of sand or gravel, material that falls to the bottom of a power plant’s boiler
• Boiler slag: crystallized material that forms after molten ash is cooled with water

Coal Ash and Your Health

A sign at the UAF coal fired power plant warns workers to wear a mask when working with coal ash.

Aside from heavy metals and radioactive elements, coal ash may also contain both sulfate and mercury, which can be stored as toxic methylmercury in fish.  Coal ash also contains particles small enough to inhale that may contribute to public health problems.

What happens to Coal Ash?
Alaska has six coal-fired power plants located between Healy and Fairbanks.  Coal ash from facilities in Fairbanks is either dumped in landfills or reused, sometimes as fill in public spaces, university grounds, and residential neighborhoods.

Across the US, about 70 million tons of coal ash are produced annually, often stored in holding ponds or landfills.  About 40% of coal ash is reused, primarily as an additive in construction materials like cement, drywall and asphalt, or as structural fill.  With improper coal ash storage, Alaskans will be exposed to the health risks associated with coal ash storage, contacting reused material, inhaling of particulates, drinking contaminated water or consuming contaminated foods or fish.

How can Coal Combustion and Coal Ash affect Public Health?

Cancer: People living near coal-fired power plants may have a higher risk of lung, laryngeal, and bladder cancer.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that cancer risk due to arsenic exposure from contaminated drinking water was up to 1 in 50 for people living near unlined coal ash storage facilities!

Genetic Damage: Human cells exposed to coal ash can show genetic mutations and damage—most often in coal plant workers.

Developmental Delays: Pregnant woman can inadvertently expose their unborn children to coal ash and that exposure can lead to lower scores in motor skills and language development in toddlers.

Respiratory and Cardiovascular Health Effects: Inhaling coal ash particulates is linked to decreased lung function, aggravated asthma, chronic bronchitis, irregular heartbeat, heart attacks and premature death in people with heart or lung disease.  Radium from coal ash may also can lead to airway lesions and increased infections.

Reducing Your Exposure
You can take simple steps to reduce your exposure to potentially toxic coal ash:

• Avoid using coal ash as filler material at home:
  • Use organic fertilizers such as compost tea for enriching soil.
  • Use gravel as fill for driveways instead of coal ash.
  • Beware of so called “green” cement or bricks that may contain coal ash; instead use bricks that do not contain radon, lead, or arsenic.
• Buy produce that has not been grown in coal-ash enriched soil.
• Use a water filter that removes toxic chemicals, including heavy metals and radioactive elements.

Coal is a dirty business.  At every stage – from mining, transportation, combustion, and disposal – coal development threatens human health.  Pollutants from coal harm all major organ systems in the human body and contribute to four of the top five causes of death in the United States: heart disease, cancer, stroke, and chronic lower respiratory diseases.

A good neighbor does not contaminate your drinking water, pollute the air, or threaten your health and the health of your loved ones.  For people in Alaska’s Interior, coal-fired power plants do all this and more.  One of the most overlooked aspect of coal fired power plants: the waste they produce. The second largest waste stream in the US comes from coal ash.

Regulation of Coal Ash

The Problem with coal ash does not end with its toxicity, coal ash is not considered a hazardous waste even though it is toxic in some cases. Instead it is considered a solid waste and primarily regulated by individual states.  However, after the 2008 disaster in Kingston, TN, the US EPA is taking steps to protect human health.

Now the EPA proposes two options to classify coal ash and also how to regulate it.  We need strict controls the federal government can enforce.  We need to enact the Option 1 under “Subtitle C” of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).  Here are the two options:

Option 1 – Subtitle C
This option is overwhelmingly more protective of human health and the environment.
Subtitle C would effectively regulate coal ash as “special” waste subject to hazardous management standards with the better storage, handling, transport, and disposal safeguards to protect public drinking water and more.

Option 2 – Subtitle D
Continues lax “solid” waste regulations that do not set up uniform, federally enforceable standards.  We would have the same patchwork of inadequate state regulations that fail us now.

“Subtitle C” is our best option to protect the public.

EPA is acting based on compelling evidence:

• Of at least 584 coal ash impoundment (strorage/disposal) sites, a third have hazard potentials with this breakdown:
  • 49 units are “high hazard”: a failure would likely kill people
  • 60 units are “significant hazards”: a failure would lead to widespread destruction
• Many of the communities at greatest risk from hazardous impoundments have higher-than-average poverty rates.
• In 1999, EPA found that just over half of coal ash waste landfills are lined to prevent leaching and less than half have systems in place to monitor toxic substances that leach out of the waste.
• Of a sampling of 89 coal combustion waste impoundments, 80% were either proven environmental hazards or a potential environmental hazard, based on ground and surface water contamination.

What you can do:

Send comments to the EPA, asking the agency to issue strong, federally enforceable safeguards to protect communities from toxic coal ash by enacting “Subtitle C” of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Please submit your comments.

Download a Fact Sheet about coal ash and your health here.

The Mat Valley Coalition is a coalition of concerned property owners working to protect the quality of life in the Matanuska Valley.  They are committed to protecting their community and the economic future of the Matanuska Valley from the permanent negative impacts of coal mining.

Usibelli Coal’s proposed Wishbone Hill coal strip mine is located approximately 5 miles west of Sutton, Alaska and 10 miles north east of Palmer, Alaska. Although there were some mining activities in the early 20th century, Wishbone Hill is now surrounded by residential communities in Alaska’s fertile Matanuska Valley.  Usibelli Coal Mine finalized the purchase of 7,434 acres of Wishbone Hill leases in 1997.

Usibelli is planning an open pit mining operation within ¼ mile of established homes.  According to the Mat-Su Borough, there are 128 families within less than a mile on the down-wind side of the proposed site.  Studies irrefutably show that property values drop drastically near open put strip mines.

Usibelli plans to sell all of the coal to overseas buyers, leaving the Mat Su Valley with decreased property values and the permanent impacts of open pit coal mining while China, India, and Korea use Alaska’s coal to power their economies.

For more information, visit the websites of these local groups working to protect the Mat Su Valley from the permanent impacts of coal mining.

Mat Valley Coalition at www.matvalley.org

Castle Mountain Coalition at www.castlemountaincoalition.org