Jim Kotcon in North and the rest of you down here.....I agree we need to seize the moment to go after Manchin on this....a short version of this story has gone around the country already.....the gazette article is far more detailed.....i sent it to a new york times reporter who covered west va in january.....we already knew Manchin was making millions from what in the past was described as a coal brokerage business.....this is way beyond brokering.....it relates directly to the motives for his opposition to EPA standards.......one opening appears to be the Senate reporting requirements.....there may be a reporting exemption for loans from a family member, but i'll be fifty cents that at least some of these loans/debts were to a corporate entity of some type--and were NOT exempt from reporting.....
*LEGAL FOOTNOTE: * The West Virginia Constitution provides for impeachment of an "officer of the state" as follows:
*4-9. Impeachment of officials. * Any officer of the state may be impeached for maladministration, corruption, incompetency, gross immorality, neglect of duty, or any high crime or misdemeanor. The House of Delegates shall have the sole power of impeachment. The Senate shall have the sole power to try impeachments and no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two thirds of the members elected thereto. When sitting as a court of impeachment, the president of the supreme court of appeals, or, if from any cause it be improper for him to act, then any other judge of that court, to be designated by it, shall preside; and the senators shall be on oath or affirmation, to do justice according to law and evidence. Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold any office of honor, trust or profit, under the state; but the party convicted shall be liable to indictment, trial, judgment, and punishment according to law. The Senate may sit during the recess of the Legislature for the trial of impeachment
*BOTTOM LINE: WE CANT LET THIS MOMENT PASS WITHOUT EMPTYING ALL AVAILABLE CARTRIDGES*.
*SEE BELOW FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE WEB PAGE ON COAL GOB -- THE WORST OF THE WORST*
-------------------- Waste Coal Burning Waste Coal is Much More Polluting than Burning Coal
[Printable PDF factsheet on waste coal http://www.energyjustice.net/files/coal/wastecoal/factsheet.pdf] [image: Nemacolin Gob Pile in Greene County, PA] Nemacolin Gob Pile in Greene County, PA What is waste coal?
Waste coals are the low-energy-value discards of the coal mining industry. Waste coal is called "culm" in the eastern Pennsylvania anthracite coal region and "gob" or "boney" in the bitiminous coal mining regions (western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and elsewhere).
Waste coal piles accumulated mostly between 1900 and 1970. The piles look like hills or small mountains that are dark and barren. Hundreds of millions of tons of waste coal and rock litter the landscape in mining states.
Why is it a problem?
Waste coal piles leach iron, manganese and aluminum pollution into waterways and cause acid drainage that kills neighboring streams. These piles sometimes even catch fire, releasing toxic pollution into the air. [image: Map of Waste Coal plants in the U.S.] http://www.energyjustice.net/coal/wastecoal/facilities Click here for a list of existing and proposed waste coal facilities http://www.energyjustice.net/coal/wastecoal/facilities Where is waste coal being burned?
There are currently 18 waste coal burning power plants, and 13 more that use it as a secondary fuel, with bituminous coal as their primary fuel. Fourteen of the 18 waste coal plants are in Pennsylvania. Over a dozen more are proposed, mostly in PA, WV and KY. There are also now proposals for coal-to-oil http://www.ultradirtyfuels.com refineries, some of which would use waste coal to produce liquid fuels.
Low energy value
Nationally, waste coal has an average of 60% of the BTU value (British Thermal Units, a unit of energy) of normal coals. It can take up to twice as much waste coal to produce the same amount of electricity. This means that -- in most places -- waste coal burners can only be economically built where huge volumes of waste coal exist. It would cost too much to truck far-away low-BTU fuel to a centralized burner. Consequently, even if waste coal burning were a clean solution, it wouldn't deal with the problem of more isolated waste coal piles.
Waste Coal has More Mercury
Waste coal has higher concentration of mercury than normal coals. In West Virginia and nationally, gob has 4 times more mercury than bituminous coal. In Pennsylvania, gob has 3.5 times more mercury than bituminous coal. Culm has 19% more mercury than anthracite coal.
Bituminous waste coal also has higher levels of sulfur (see chart below http://www.energyjustice.net/coal/wastecoal#sulfur).
[This is based on thousands of samples collected in 1999 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Click here for more details on mercury content in coals and waste coals http://www.energyjustice.net/coal/wastecoal/epa-icrdata.html.]
Data on other metals in waste coal is sparse, but evidence from single metals tests on Pennsylvania culm and gob show both to have about 4 times as much chromium and 3 times as much lead.
More Mercury Per Megawatt
Since more waste coal must be burned to produce the same amount of electricity as normal coal would, this means that -- in the states most affected by waste coal burning -- *over 6 times as much mercury must be fed into a waste coal burner to produce the same amount of energy* as a traditional coal power plant. For culm vs. anthracite coal, it takes nearly twice as much mercury.
Where Does the Mercury Go?
Older coal power plants could not handle waste coal. In the late 1980's "circulating fluidized bed" (CFB) style power plants were built which could burn the low-energy waste coal. Because they were built after the 1970 Clean Air Act, these CFB power plants have pollution control equipment that the old ones don't have. This makes it easy for the waste coal industry to make the claim that their air emissions are cleaner than 1950s-era coal power plants.
Comparing apples to apples, it is more accurate to compare air emissions from waste coal burners to the new coal power plants being proposed. The currently proposed Longview http://www.nolongview.org bituminous coal power plant in Fort Martin (near Morgantown, WV) would have lower emissions than the currently proposed gob burner in nearby Nemacolin http://www.truthaboutgob.org (Greene County, PA).
Other Air Emissions
Combustion creates problems that simply don't exist if the waste coal is left unburned. Anytime you burn coal or waste coal, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) http://www.dhfs.state.wi.us/eh/ChemFS/fs/PAH.htm are created that were not present in the unburned waste coal. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons http://www.checnet.org/healthehouse/chemicals/chemicals-detail-print.asp?Main_ID=395 have a range of toxicity. Any time you burn anything with less than complete combustion, you also create nitrogen oxides (NOx) http://www.scorecard.org/chemical-profiles/summary.tcl?edf_substance_id=EDF-110 and products of incomplete combustion (PICs). Since the number of possible PICs is unlimited, the potential toxicity of the PICs is uncertain.
[See studies on how fluidized bed waste coal burners release more cancer-causing PAH's http://www.energyjustice.net/coal/pah/ as well as 15% more global warming pollution and increased carbon monoxide than conventional burners.]
Toxic Ash
Burning waste coal doesn't make the waste go away. If 100 tons of waste coal are burned, 85 tons will remain as waste coal ash.
Since far more mercury and other toxic contaminants enter a waste coal burner to produce a given amount of electricity, these high levels of toxic contaminants have to come out somewhere. Toxic metals cannot be destroyed by burning them. To the extent that they are captured in pollution controls (protecting the air), they are then concentrated in the highly toxic ash that ultimately threatens the groundwater wherever this ash is dumped. Waste coal burners have cleaner air emissions than antiquated coal plants due to their better pollution controls, but this only means that the ash is far more toxic, since the highly toxic particulates captured in pollution control equipment end up in the ash. The industry claims that 99.8% of the mercury in the fuel is captured and ends up in their ash.
Waste coal ash is dumped in communities not far from the waste coal burners, threatening the groundwater with leaching lead, mercury and other poisons. Power plant waste is allowed to be dumped without the basic protections (landfill http://www.ejnet.org/landfills/ liners) that are required for dumping household trash. When burning any solid fuel, the resulting ash has a higher surface area than the raw, unburned material. The dangers of toxic leaching from ash can be expected to be greater than from the unburned waste coal. Just like with coffee, running water over coffee grounds leaches far more coffee out than if you ran water over whole coffee beans.
The industry claims that by injecting limestone into the ash, the ash becomes impervious to leaching. However, this has not been proven and it seems likely that the alkaline affects of the lime would afford only temporary protection, especially since the region where most of the waste coal burners are (Pennsylvania, West Virginia) suffers from the nation's worst acid rain http://nadp.sws.uiuc.edu/isopleths/maps2001/phlab.gif.
The waste coal burning industry's own data shows that waste coal ash does in fact leach metals into groundwater, despite their public assertions. Ash at 2 of 12 facilities studied in Pennsylvania were shown to contain levels of arsenic higher than the maximum allowable concentration set forth for land application of sewage sludge http://www.ejnet.org/sludge/. Of 221 samples of leachate from waste coal ash at the ash dumps, lead contamination in 23 samples (10.4%) exceeded a level 10 times higher than EPA's maximum contaminant level (MCL) for drinking water. Six samples exceeded this "10 times the drinking water standard" level for cadmium, as did single samples for chromium and selenium.
Click here for a list of waste coal ash dumps in the U.S. http://www.energyjustice.net/coal/ashdumps
http://www.erosioncontrol.com/ec_0007_beach.html Beach Grass: the Safe and Affordable Alternative to Burning Waste Coal
Researchers at the Natural Resources Conservation Service found a very cheap and viable alternative to the conventional waste coal pile remediation method of grading, topsoiling, seeding and mulching. They found that beach grass, native to sandy beaches, thrives in waste coal piles and can establish enough plant cover to enable native plants to take root. This method has been shown to bring life back to long-dead waste coal piles for only 6-10% of the cost of conventional methods. Within a few years, beach grass enabled native plants to take over, allowing organic matter to accumulate around plants, forming a plant layer that stopped erosion, held water, cooled the surface, and looked better.
http://www.erosioncontrol.com/ec_0007_beach.html Gob Pile Recovered by Planting Beach Grass
For more details, read:
- Beach Grass: Bringing the Seashore to the Mountains http://www.erosioncontrol.com/ec_0007_beach.html (*Erosion Control* Feature Article, July/August 2000). - Succession on a Coal Mine Gob Pile Stabilized With 'Cape' American Beachgrass http://www.energyjustice.net/coal/wastecoal/beachgrass
The waste coal industry is pushing aggressively to include their proposed facilities in the Pennsylvania Renewable Portfolio Standard http://www.actionpa.org/cleanenergy/, despite the fact that waste coal is not renewable energy and that waste coal power plants are dirtier than coal power plants.
The waste coal industry argues that the best solution to waste coal piles is burning them, while other cleaner and safer alternatives exist.
Rather than liberate the toxic contaminants by burning them, it is preferable to remediate the waste coal piles in a way that reduces the problems associated with the piles without creating new problems. ------------------------------
Energy Justice Network, 1434 Elbridge St, Philadelphia, PA 19149 | 215-743-4884 | niaby@energyjustice.net | Site Map http://www.energyjustice.net/sitemap
On Sat, Jul 26, 2014 at 7:59 AM, William V. DePaulo, Esq. < william.depaulo@gmail.com> wrote:
[image: Print]http://www.wvgazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20140724/GZ01/140729522/1419&template=printart Thursday, July 24, 2014 Sen. Manchin’s brother sues him, other brother over $1.7 million loan By Kate White http://www.wvgazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=staff&template=staffProfilePages&staffID=g028, Staff writer Gazette file photo Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., talks during a meeting in Charleston in January 2013. The senator and his brother were sued by another brother this week over an allegedly unpaid loan of more than $1.7 million.
- Manchin v Manchin Complaint pdf file
http://www.wvgazette.com/assets/PDF/CH6201725.pdf
FAIRMONT, W.Va. — U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin’s brother has sued the senator and another brother over more than $1.7 million that allegedly was loaned to keep a family business afloat decades ago.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday by Dr. John Manchin against his brothers, Joe and Roch Manchin, in Marion County Circuit Court.
According to the lawsuit, Joe and Roch Manchin requested the money in the 1980s from their brother “in response to Manchin Carpet Center’s distressed financial condition.”
John Manchin loaned them more than $1.7 million, all of which was provided to the business’ primary creditor, Community Bank and Trust, according to the lawsuit.
Joe and Roch Manchin promised to repay their brother on repeated occasions, most recently in July 2012, according to the lawsuit.
The loan does not appear on Sen. Manchin’s financial disclosure forms https://efdsearch.senate.gov/search/view/annual/a50e409b-350b-4056-b0bf-1651c0a604d9/, filed with the U.S. Senate. The Senate Ethics Committee requires disclosure http://www.ethics.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=60916d73-412d-4e35-be2b-460741d3627c of any debt valued at more than $10,000, but there is an exemption for a “personal liability” owed to a close family member, including a brother.
The July 2012 “funds sharing agreement” attached to the lawsuit describes how money from a proposed power plant in Greene County, Pennsylvania, would be split among the three Manchin brothers. The Nemacolin plant was being developed by Wellington Development, a Fairmont-based company.
Under the 2012 agreement, Sen. Manchin would deduct what he put into the project, and then John Manchin would get the first $1 million of profit. Any subsequent profit would be divided among all three brothers for as long as they survive.
The agreement was signed by Joe and Roch Manchin, and sent by Kirtan Mehta, chief counsel to the senator. It was dated July 25, 2012, with a U.S. Senate letterhead.
Jonathan Kott, a spokesman in Manchin’s Senate office, said Friday afternoon that Mehta did the personal work for Manchin at home, after hours. It was a mistake that the agreement was printed on Senate letterhead, Kott said.
“The senator feels it was a mistake, and we’ve notified the Ethics Committee to see if there’s anything we need to do,” Kott said. “They haven’t responded, but we already self-reported it.”
Morgantown lawyer Michael Benninger, who filed the lawsuit on John Manchin’s behalf, did not return multiple phone calls Thursday or Friday. Reached at his clinic in Fairmont on Thursday, John Manchin referred questions about the lawsuit to his attorney,
Since at least the early 2000s, Wellington had been working on a proposal to build a 525-megawatt power plant along the Monongahela River at Nemacolin. According to court records, the facility was being designed to burn a mixture of newly mined coal and coal wastes that would have been recovered from “gob” piles from the former Nemacolin Coal/Buckeye Coal facility. Promoters touted their belief that the project would clean up nearly 3,000 acres of degraded former mining property. Court records say the plant, if built, would have been “the largest waste-coal-fired facility” of this type in the country. A challenge from the Sierra Club and other groups was thrown out and, as recently as December 2012, the company was trying to obtain required Clean Water Act authorization from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
In early February of this year, though, Wellington wrote to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to withdraw its state permit. Wellington official Stanley Sears wrote that “present conditions, as witnessed throughout the U.S., make it virtually impossible to finance and construct this kind of facility.” The letter complained about environmental groups that opposed the project and thanked “all of the many citizens, groups and local government agencies that supported this project over the years.”
In his lawsuit, John Manchin also claims that:
| According to the July 2012 agreement, if there was a delay in paying him back, he was entitled to one-third interest in coal reserves and brokerage businesses and other incorporated businesses owned by Joe and Roch Manchin.
| Manchin Brothers, a company formed by the three brothers, was terminated without John Manchin’s knowledge or consent. According to the lawsuit, John Manchin believes its funds, assets and property were transferred to Wholesale Carpet Inc., which Manchin Carpet Center was reorganized into in the early 1990s. John Manchin claims that assets from Manchin Brothers were transferred to Manchin Enterprises — controlled by Joe Manchin and his son, Joseph Manchin IV — and others.
| On numerous occasions, John Manchin’s brothers falsely represented to him that he was one-third owner of Transcom Inc., which was incorporated in 1988. Transcom is now Farmington Resources.
Sen. Manchin owns stock and accounts in Farmington Resources worth between $200,000 and $500,000, according to financial disclosure forms filed in May with the Senate.
Sen. Manchin’s net worth is between $3.8 million and $11.5 million, according to his most recent financial disclosure forms. The wide range is because the forms require only a broad estimate of the value of each asset owned by the senator, not an exact amount.
The lawsuit asks that John Manchin be compensated for what he’s lost and awarded one-third ownership interest in all coal reserves and businesses incorporated, formed and owned by his brothers during the time Manchin Brothers’ and Manchin Carpet Center’s funds, property and assets were being used.
Mary Manchin, mother of the brothers, died in May at age 91. The family is from Marion County.
A Gazette reporter obtained a copy of the lawsuit from the Marion County Courthouse on Friday. The previous day, employees in Marion County Circuit Clerk Rhonda Starn’s office had refused to provide a copy of the lawsuit. Starn told her employees “to transfer all incoming calls regarding this case directly to her,” a clerk in Starn’s office said Thursday morning.
Starn did not return a phone message and did not answer several phone calls throughout Thursday.
Starn’s office has a policy that lawsuits remain private until a defendant is served, according to the clerk. Another clerk in Starn’s office had said Thursday that the lawsuit might not be public for 20 to 30 days.
The Gazette notified officials with the West Virginia Supreme Court about the county’s policy. Officials with the Supreme Court, which oversees all circuit courts in West Virginia, contacted Starn’s office.
At about 4:45 p.m., Robin Tucker, Starn’s deputy clerk, called the Gazette and said the clerk’s office had closed at 4:30 p.m. and that a reporter could obtain a copy of the lawsuit at 8:30 a.m. Friday for $1 a page. The amount must be paid by cash or money order before a copy is provided, Tucker said. Circuit clerk offices throughout the state usually provide information and, if they charge anything, send a bill.
“Honey, we don’t bill. We have no way to bill,” Tucker said. “All of the information is in our system. You’re welcome to look at it in the morning.”
Staff writers David Gutman and Ken Ward Jr. contributed to this report.
Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazette.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @KateLWhite on Twitter.
- See more at:
http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20140724/GZ01/140729522/1419#sthash.RA5uey9...
-- William V. DePaulo, Esq. 179 Summers Street, Suite 232 Charleston, WV 25301-2163 Tel 304-342-5588 Fax 304-342-5505 william.depaulo@gmail.com www.passeggiata.com