Is the Environmental Protection Agency promoting dirty industries?
The EPA is busy conducting educational workshops on how fly ash from coal-fired power plants can be used in concrete and other building materials. Fly ash is the stuff that was released from a retention pond in Tennessee in a nasty spill in December. According to the Tennessee Valley Authority, it could take months, if not years, to clean up the 5.4 million cubic tons of potentially toxic fly ash.
By encouraging the use of a waste product from dirty power plants, the EPA is enabling our addiction to coal. Shouldn’t the EPA’s job be to reduce the use of fossil fuel energy and encourage a shift to renewable electricity sources, rather than looking for “beneficial” uses of ash from power plants?
I hope Obama’s EPA will support more sustainable policies.
An (anonymous) concerned citizen
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Thank you for another fine issue of the Journal (Autumn 2008). But the article I read on the butterfly industry (“All Aflutter,” by Adam Federman) did far too little justice to the whole issue of biodiversity and human exploitation.
I’m glad you at least emphasized Professor Oberhauser’s new position on the monarch butterflies; she should be applauded. People who raise butterflies for “green” weddings should be shamed (at the very least) into finding a more ethical way to make a living.
Alan White
San Clemente, CA
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