Ask the Expert: Anti-Coal Activist Elisa Young
Why she is fighting the opening of more dirty power plants in Ohio.
By Jake Blumgart
March 22, 2009
Anti-coal activist Elisa Young. (Photo courtesy Elisa Young)Appalachia doesn’t exist in the same America as the one recognizable from the streets of New York, the cattle ranches of Texas, or the cornfields of Iowa. It is, to paraphrase Michael Harrington’s The Other America, where King Coal reigns supreme. Coal companies wield immense power over these mountains, and their right to rule is largely unchallenged. Neither political party has escaped coal’s influence, which makes it virtually impossible to legislate against the industry
But Elisa Young is trying anyway. She lives in Meigs County, Ohio, on the edge of what we call Appalachia. There she is the founder of Meigs Citizens Action Now*, a community group that tries to combat the social and environmental damage business interests have inflicted in the community. The area hosts four power plants, and there are plans to build another five as well as an underground coal mine. Such construction would make for the highest concentration of power plants in the country. It would also dramatically affect the health of the surrounding communities, which are already subject to one of the highest lung cancer rates in the state.
Working with students from Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, Young has fought against these new plants and the proposed coal mine. She has organized her community and raised awareness about their troubles throughout the country. Young has even received legal threats from American Municipal Power as a result of her actions.
Young attended Powershift ’09 late last month to speak on several panels, and Campus Progress caught up with her to ask her a few questions about the health effects of power plants, her local victories, and the fact that coal simply doesn’t lead to prosperity for the people of Appalachia.
Campus Progress: What are some ways have you tried to raise awareness about coal’s effect on your community? Have you had any victories?
Elisa Young: Back in 2006, I won an international women’s award from the Women of Peacepower Foundation that was for taking people on what we call “True Cost of Coal Tours,” and also for community organizing efforts. The tours were done for the specific reason of helping people witness what was going on in Appalachia at the hands of the coal industry. To show people that it is the entire cycle of coal that is causing problems. These companies have a parasitic relationship, sending power to places where they will never see the effects, where they will never get sick and die. It isn’t about doing one thing a little differently. If you don’t live there then you really don’t hear about those things, and if people don’t even realize there is a problem, then we’re never going to have any change.
I’ve opened up my farm, which has been in my family for seven generations, to touring groups. We will have groups stay overnight to do community service projects. It is absolutely critical that we raise awareness because one of the power plants that wants to come in to get their construction costs for the facility by socializing the costs and tying cities and municipalities into 50-year contracts. We took it upon ourselves to try to educate people about what a poor financial choice it was by visiting their city councils. Oberlin was one of those towns and ultimately they voted it down. The students got committed. They got involved in the election process and they got actively involved in getting people elected to their town council who would reflect the values of the city and vote against it. After we won, one of the city council members told me that before we came he had no idea that our community was suffering these impacts.
CP: Why don’t people hear more about it? Why do you think that all these things are happening to your community, and to communities like yours all over Appalachia?
EY: In general in Appalachia there is a lot of poverty, and there is a lot of money to be made from poor people. I think 70 to 80 percent of the coal fields of West Virginia are owned by absentee coal barons and they have no compunction and no commitment to the condition of the land after extraction. But I want you to understand that it’s all people have ever known. So there is desensitization or a general acceptance that your job may be dangerous, that your job may kill you, because that is all people have ever known. Things become so engrained its almost genetic, you don’t question it. You don’t even think about the reality that you live in.
Another piece of it is this: If you had someone who wanted to build a power plant in the Carson National Forest, you’d have people outraged. Once one power plant is there then you have people who are desensitized to it, so it’s easier to build a second one. We weren’t told about the health impacts, and we still aren’t. There is a huge disconnect between the illness we are suffering and the contaminants we are exposed to.
CP: What are the health impacts?
EY: Cancer. We have a lot of cancer—the highest lung cancer death rate in the state. I’ve had cancer. My best friend has had cancer. Both of our dogs died of cancer. I’ve had six neighbors die of cancer, [including one woman] who died of lung cancer, [even] though she never smoked. I had an epidemiologist down one time and he said we had cancer rates that were about double what he would expect.
People are afraid to talk abut it. We also don’t have the money to fight. We’ve been looking for legal representation going on seven years, no one will represent us. I’ve had to file appeals on my own. We’re politically isolated. Our state is 96 percent dependant on coal for our electricity. How do you fight against something that your whole state runs on? You ask why the site here and they typically site where people are poor, where they don’t have access to legal representation or media coverage.
CP: Why do people put up with this?
EY: The only reason people have put up with these facilities is because they think they may get jobs. That’s what you hear in the media. Coal equals jobs. But the first coal mine in our community was opened up in 1815. If we’ve had almost 200 years of this, and they’re trying to say that coal means economic prosperity, then why are we one of the poorest counties in the state? Why do we have such a high unemployment rate? I’ve seen our unemployment rates up by 23 percent. If coal brings prosperity maybe we should had a little of that by now.
CP: Is there a lot of support for you within your community?
EY: It was very divisive to start with, but as people aren’t seeing the benefits from coal companies, we are getting more support. Really the underground coal mining was the unifying issue, because it is a direct assault on your home and your land. The power plants are more of a slow death. You die by inches. At first it was just me going to these meetings, and then people started giving me the thumbs up under the table. So we did community education about how to submit things at a public hearing. And we practiced, even though it was very hard. If you speak out and, say, your dad or your brother works at one of those plants, there is a lot of backlash. But by the time the coal meeting came around we had more people than they had chairs for.
Jake Blumgart is an Editorial Intern at Campus Progress.
*This article originally stated that Elisa Young was the director of Ohio Citizen Action. We regret the error.
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Comments
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Wow… expert? What makes her an expert? Way to search for the truth rather than just screaming the popular idea. Learn the facts, 40% of our nation is powered by coal. Just because you yell about wind power and the sun doesn’t mean the technology is there to power more than .8% (the current level) of our country. How about instead of being an idiot and working towards something that’s impossible, you open your head, replace your pea-sized brain, and think about it. Is a $2,000 heating bill worth dumping the technology that has built this country? Diversity; that’s the key. Make them all work, then dump coal, oil, and natural gas when we can AFFORD to. Idiots…
— Yeah, right! - Mar 17, 10:33 AM - #What the heck makes this woman an “Expert?” Your tag line is “nterviews with top academics and policymakers” – but she is NEITHER!
If you read her response to the so-called legal threats – she ADMITS to having misstated information.
Sandy Buchanan is the Executive Director of OCA, and Ellis Jacobs is the president of the board of directors for OCA. Ms. Young is not a part of OCA.
— Peter Moss - Mar 17, 10:39 AM - #You are right, Elisa is not a professor at a college or an elected official. She is, however, an expert (defined: a person who has special skill or knowledge in some particular field) in anti-coal activism, because it is what she works on and speaks about, and has been doing so for a long time.
In this article Elisa is not trying to ignore the facts. Indeed, she is acutely aware of our dependancy on coal, that is partially why this is such a difficult but urgent issue to address.
Also, the technology to allow us to create electricity from sources other than oil, coal, and gas is here. We have lots of technologies that help us do that, and I’d like to remind us all that there was a time before 1840 when we didn’t rely on these sources like we do now, and we survived, and had other creative ways of getting what we need. People are going off the grid all the time, showing that it is possible. Yes, there are economic disparities that can make these transitions difficult, but there are also people recognizing and working to address those as well.
Working for a just and clean energy solution for a better tomorrow is not idiotic, it is brave and necessary, and a future that does not rely on fossil fuels is far from impossible, it is pretty much inevitable. No, it won’t happen overnight, and yes, it will take a lot of work, but it is happening, and many youth are dedicating their lives to facilitating the transition that must happen for our children to have a chance at a healthy life. Elisa’s efforts are extraordinary and should be appreciated and supported.
Also, in regards to the cost, the source of the energy used for electricity is actually a smaller piece of the puzzle when we take efficiency into account. Low cost weatherization can dramatically reduce heating bills, and efficiency with appliances can again dramatically reduce costs. Efficiency can do amazing things to lessen the amount of energy we need, which in turn will lessen the need for tons of energy from concentrated sources.
Yes, diversity helps, and transferring our energy sources away from coal, oil, and natural gas in a smooth, affordable way whenever it is easy would be lovely, but there are many reasons this happen now, and pressure needs to mount to make it happen.
Elisa works to educate the public about the most impacted communities’ experiences, and how they suffer because of the destructive impacts of the coal industry. This work helps people realize the impacts of this industry, and how it is hurting people now. It is unethical to ignore this suffering and say it doesn’t matter. It does matter, and there are other better ways to live and respect each other and future generations.
The fact is, Elisa cannot AFFORD to live in such a polluted place, because no one can. No one can AFFORD to get cancer and watch their children get cancer, whatever that means. Hiding behind electricity prices to avoid confronting a system that destroys mountains, streams, lives, and bodies is not justifiable. Your electricity bills aren’t paying Meigs County resident’s chemotherapy bills.
— Isabelle Rozendaal - Mar 18, 01:53 PM - #There are many types of expertise. Mine has been experiential and expensive in ways that cannot be measured.
Living generationally within a culture of coal – nearly 200 years of coal mines and 4 coal-fired power plants around us – tells me that if 5 more power plants are built, 9 power plants in an approximate 10-mile radius from our village will mean watching more of my friends neighbors die prematurely from preventable deaths. Our village’s schools ( Racine , Ohio ) recently ranked in the top 3rd percentile for the worst air quality in the nation based on volatile organic compound releases, despite being in a remote, rural area. Children are the most vulnerable population to lung damage from these industries. Please see: content.usatoday.com…
Two of the 5 new power plants would be built less than a mile from our school, beside two power plants already operating there. There would be 4 power plants (and a manganese factory) visibly within that air space. Meigs County has had the highest lung cancer death rates for many years running. In the most recent American Cancer Society’s research, they ranked Meigs again as #1 in the state for lung cancer deaths for men and women combined.
These air quality reports did not begin to count particulates, if they did I would not be surprised to see us bumped to the top percentile. Please see Ohio Citizens Action website for more information. www.ohiocitizen.org/
I was shocked recently to see a graph that showed if you smoked a pack of cigarettes a day it would raise chances of getting lung cancer to 100 and in 100,000. If you are exposed to coal combustion waste ( Ohio is #2 in the nation for coal ash ponds), it raises the risk to 900 in 100,000.
OCA is a long-standing citizens advocacy group that has stood the test of time.. They helped defend our community when it became public knowledge the Dupont was dumping a bioaccumulative carcinogen (C8) and contaminating our drinking water.
www.hpcbd.com/C8%20W…
I have known OCA to act responsibly with integrity, advocating for Ohioan’s health and safety for years.
It would be one thing if the potential employees for these newly-proposed polluting industries were making an informed decision to accept jobs that would compromise their quality of life or shorten it and chose it anyway. These industries, however, would be making this decision for everyone who lives here. I’m not consenting.
For other “experts” on how power plant exposures lead to increased morbidity and mortality, please visit this New England Journal of Medicine’s report, or google physicians for social responsibility: content.nejm..org/cgi…
For information on health issues in communities with active coal mining in progress: www.wvgazette.com/Ne….
If looking at any of this “expert” information does not trigger concern for my community’s well-being, I would encourage you to visit the United States Geological Survey Team’s website to find out if you are living on top of coal. The Energy Justice Network’s map of existing coal-fired power palnts, and think about if experiencing preventable deaths in your own families, or your own children and grandchildren, is the legacy you want to leave them?
— Elisa - Mar 18, 02:24 PM - #Surprisingly (to me at least) hot response. I wonder if their flames are an indicator of how the outside world views the plight of those of us still under the thumb of King Coal. At least we’re getting the word out your electricity comes from here…and a bit of the true cost!
I live in Athens, Ohio, and have known Elisa for nearly 20 years. That she replies to those comments with her usual cool brilliance shows us again an activist we know, respect and love around here.
— Richard Carlson - Mar 22, 05:58 AM - #Hi- I came across this article and the comments as I was researching the dangers of coal plants. I applaude Elisa for her envolvement and research she has done.And I agree 100% with her and the comments of Isabelle,Elisa and Richard.My family and I live in Lamar Colorado and there has been a coal fired plant built in a residential area. For about 2 years now they have been trying to get it fired up. There have been serious incidences like loud booms,noisy huge amounts of steam blowing and black smoke[they call it steam but i’ve never seen black steam]emitted from the plant.I have lots of pictures of all this.Sometime this happens in the middle of the night.It wakes people up and quite frankly-terrifies them. It sounds like a jet is coming right through the town .We have been fighting it since before it started.We have petitions ,meetings with concerned citizens and we contacted an environmental group called WildEarth Guardians.They are fully involved now and this month they are filing a lawsuit against them for a number of violations.I don’t care what anyone says —coal is not safe!! If you would do reasearch on all the toxins they put into the air -I guarrentee you-it will make you have nightmares.So ,in conclusion,Elisa-KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!! Don’t let up for a minute.And I applaude all those who support her!!!!!But don’t just support her in words—get involved!!!I wish we had more people like her here.!!And for all those who speak bad about her—shame on you!!! You should be thankful she cares enough about you to try and keep you and your children safe!!!!!! Shirley Warren Lamar,Colorado
— Shirley Warren - Nov 9, 02:12 PM - #It’s just plain wrong to treat these communities and people as somehow expendable to our nation’s power needs/wants.
Because they are poor, out of sight (from most mainstream media) and we don’t have to be confronted daily with the price they pay for (relatively) cheap electricity on our end, doesn’t make it right.
Anything we can do to make the general public aware of this situation is one step closer to getting the kind of support and motivation we need as a country to change the way things are. If we truly are the “greatest nation on Earth” as many of us like to think, we should be using the same ingenuity that got us to the moon to develop safer, cleaner methods of powering this county.
No citizen of this county should be an acceptable casualty just to power this damn computer of mine.
— Bronwyn, SW Ohio - Nov 25, 06:19 PM - #