Killer coal

Since 1884, Art Hayes’ family has ranched several hundred acres in Montana, raising cattle and growing alfalfa. It’s never been particularly easy farming this area, where the annual rainfall is 12 to 16 inches. In addition, much of the groundwater has a high salinity, which can make it toxic to both plants and animals.

But the farming business has gotten much more difficult in the past 40 years, thanks to coal mining.

Mining boomed here after passage of the 1970 Clean Air Act, because the region’s subbituminous coal — with a low sulfur content — is cleaner to burn than other types of coal. But this boom has caused numerous problems for farmers and ranchers, says Mike Scott, who works for the Montana chapter of the Sierra Club, because of how it has disrupted and poisoned water supplies.

“Groundwater is what people rely on most for livestock operations,” Scott says. “Aquifers are in the coal seams. When you cut a giant hole in the ground, you disrupt how that groundwater system works. That makes springs go dry, that makes wells go dry, and it makes it very difficult to run a large-scale livestock operation. Those impacts can be felt way outside the mining area.

“We have creeks in Montana that have sulfate levels that would kill a cow,” he adds. “And that’s directly related to coal mining.”

Hayes’ ranch is about 40 miles downstream from Montana’s largest coal mine. He began noticing the effects of mining in the early ’70s, as the water he relies on became more and more salty.

“We’ve faced droughts and tough winters,” Hayes says. “But this is kind of a slow cancerous growth on us. Are we going to be able to continue to irrigate safely? That’s the reason I’m so concerned. It happens fairly slowly. Pretty soon, you get so much salt in your soil that you can’t deal with it.”

The troubles facing Hayes and other ranchers in Montana and Wyoming can be traced, at least in part, to Wisconsin residents. Much of the coal that the state’s power plants burn comes from Wyoming and Montana. As Hayes tells Isthmus: “You’re the market.”

The impacts of burning coal for energy have been far-reaching and devastating. Mining operations poison drinking water and leave land barren. Pollution from power plants causes developmental disabilities

in children, and respiratory illnesses and cancer in everyone. Coal plants along Lake Michigan are increasing the mercury levels in the water. And most alarming of all, coal is one of the largest contributors to global warming.

“We flip on the lights and we don’t think much of it,” says Elizabeth Katt Reinders, a senior campaign representative for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign. “But there are impacts to the source of that electricity. Because the coal plants that provide electricity to Madison are not in our city, it’s out of sight and out of mind.”

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported last October that the world has about 12 years to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, beyond which the changes to the climate will be catastrophic and irreversible.

Yet, Wisconsin continues to burn a significant amount of coal. In January, the federal government reported that Wisconsin’s coal-generated electricity increased by 7.5 percent in 2017, as the state got 55 percent of its electricity from coal that year.

Andy Olsen, senior policy advocate for the Madison-based Environmental Law and Policy Center, says that Wisconsin utilities are sluggishly moving towards cleaner energy sources, but coal still dominates. And some of the utilities continue to resist the rapid innovations needed to fend off climate change.

“Generally speaking, electric utilities are slow to change and innovate,” he says. “From their perspective, they might seem like they’re moving fast, but it’s too slow for what the moment demands.”

Sixty-five-year-old Charlie Michna is a retired machinist and part-time farmer. He spends most Thursdays watching the three youngest of his five grandkids — who are 5, 7 and 9 — at his home just south of Oak Creek, in Milwaukee County.

There are some days when he’s nervous about having them over. It depends on which way the wind is blowing.

Two of his grandkids have respiratory problems and Michna notices that when the wind blows from the northeast, one of his grandsons “has trouble breathing when he’s over here. It makes me leery.”

The source of Michna’s worries is visible from his house — smoke stacks from the Oak Creek Power Plant and the Elm Road Generating Station, both coal-burning plants that run 24 hours a day. MGE is a minority owner of the Elm Road plant, which burns 6,000 to 6,400 tons of coal a day; the Oak Creek plant burns 6,000 to 6,200 tons a day.

The third eldest of 11 children, Michna grew up in the plant’s shadow — he was 5 when the first turbine was built in 1959. As a kid, he remembers playing in black snow and waiting on his school bus for up to an hour at a train crossing as hundreds of coal cars rumbled past. Today, most of his siblings live along nearby Michna Road.

We Energies, the majority owner of both plants, took Charlie Michna’s first home in 1998 through eminent domain. But he didn’t move far away. His new home is just south of the plants and several yards from the train tracks that deliver coal daily. At night, he often wakes up to the sound of train cars clanging as they’re unloaded. But it’s the pollution that worries him most.

“If the wind is coming from the northeast over the house, I’ll wake up in the morning and I’ve got a lot of mucus,” he says. “I have to wear a retainer at night so I don’t choke on my own phlegm. When the wind is coming out of the southwest, it’s a little nicer here. But then the poor SOBs in Oak Creek are paying for it.”

North of the Oak Creek plant, Michelle Jeske is one of those who suffer on Michna’s better days. Jeske and her family moved into their home 11 years ago, with the aim of getting into a better school district. “It was the last house on the market and honestly, we never thought twice about the power plant. We were uninformed.”

About four years ago, We Energies cut down 18 acres of trees to put up a 15-acre coal storage pile about 1,800 feet from their home. Now, when the wind is blowing from the east, Jeske says her house, car, yard and a nearby playground are often covered in black coal dust, which she has documented in YouTube videos.

“It doesn’t really wipe off your fingers,” she says. “It almost feels oily.”

Last June, the utility covered the coal pile closest to her house. This cut down on the dust some, but not completely.

“I’m constantly walking around my yard touching stuff. I feel kinda crazy,” she says. “Because I have four boys to worry about. People who are versed in this are telling us it’s bad for us. Then there’s the public statements from We Energies that say, ‘no you’re okay.’ I have [my sons’] well-being to look out for and it’s disturbing.”

Michna and Jeske have good reason to be worried, according to Dr. Frederica Perera, director of Columbia University’s Center for Children’s Environmental Health.

Perera has been studying the effects of pollutants on children and pregnant women in New York, Poland and China. One of the pollutants she’s focused on is polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (or PAHs), tiny particles that are released when burning fuels, wood or tobacco. In studying several cohorts of pregnant women and children, she’s found that higher exposure to PAHs is associated with “lower birth weight, [smaller] head circumference, respiratory problems, developmental delays, reduced IQ, attention problems, including ADHD.”

One study that Perera participated in looked at the effects on children after a coal plant in Tongliang, China, was closed in 2004. The study found a significant drop in exposure to PAHs. It also found that children born after the plant closure had a noticeable increase in a key protein needed for brain development.

“What we’re talking about are direct benefits to children’s health and development from reducing dependence on fossil fuel and also the benefits in terms of climate change,” Perera says.

The neighbors around Oak Creek are worried about other toxins, as well. Last June and November, the Sierra Club tested streams, marshes and culverts at several locations around the power plant and found the presence of toxic heavy metals in several places exceeded state health standards. The November tests showed extremely high levels of aluminum, copper, lead, arsenic, manganese, boron and cadmium.

We Energies is now in the process of renewing its water discharge permit for the plants in Oak Creek. It’s seeking a variance to be allowed to release more mercury into Lake Michigan. The state limit for wildlife is 1.3 parts per trillion; We Energies is seeking to get a daily maximum of 4.1 parts per trillion. Jason Knutson, the Department of Environmental Resources water section chief, says that the variance is being sought because mercury levels have spiked in the lake. But it does not mean that the power plant will be tripling the amount of mercury it puts into the water. Most of the time, he says, the mercury will be much lower.

“If the variance is granted,” Knutson adds, “they would be required to systematically go through their facility, identify sources of mercury and then steps they could take to eliminate or reduce those sources.”

Neither the DNR nor We Energies knows exactly why the mercury level spiked in Lake Michigan, although Knutson says that it has since dropped.

But Michna believes he knows how the mercury and other heavy metals are getting into the lake: through rain and snow runoff from massive coal piles around the plants. “Very easy explanation,” he says.

The Uninhabitable Earth, the recently released book by David Wallace-Wells, is a terrifying read. It outlines just what’s in store for humans as we continue to burn carbon-emitting fuels at a staggering pace, reeling towards a 2 degree Celsius increase in warming.

“At 2 degrees, ice sheets will begin to collapse, 400 million more people will suffer from water scarcity, major cities in the equatorial band of the planet will become unlivable, and even in the northern latitudes heat waves will kill thousands of people each summer. There would be 32 times as many extreme heat waves in India and each would last five times as long, exposing 93 times more people. This is our best case scenario.”

But the planet could warm as much as 8 degrees, he adds, which would cause oceans to “swell 200 feet higher, flooding what are now two-thirds of the world’s major cities; hardly any land on the planet would be capable of efficiently producing any of the food we now eat; forests would be roiled by rolling storms of fire, and coasts would be punished by more and more intense hurricanes; the suffocating hood of tropical disease would reach northward to enclose parts of what we now call the Arctic; probably about a third of the planet would be made unlivable by direct heat.”

Most of the damage to the planet, Wallace-Wells writes, has happened only very recently, well after we knew the consequences would be horrific. “The majority of the burning [of carbon] has come since the premiere of Seinfeld,” he writes, referencing the smash TV show that first aired in 1989.

Wisconsin’s youngest coal plant, Elm Road, opened just nine years ago.

Steve Schultz, a spokesperson for MGE, says that the utility is seriously moving away from coal power. The utility is a minority owner of two coal plants — the Columbia plant in Portage and the Elm Road plant in Oak Creek. MGE has decreased its ownership stake in Columbia from 22 to 19 percent, Schultz says, “which provides additional flexibility as we continue our active transition away from coal.” The company also buys coal-produced power through MISO, an energy market.

Schultz says that MGE gets about 50 percent of its power from coal sources. However, an analysis by the Sierra Club found that in 2017, MGE generated 71 percent of its energy from coal sources, while only 15 percent came from renewable sources. The Sierra Club says MGE is looking at the capacity of its power sources, while the environmental group is looking at what the utility actually generates and buys.

The Sierra Club’s Katt Reinders says that utilities know they need to change and credits MGE for moving in the right direction. “I don’t know that the utilities would even disagree anymore that we need to move off coal,” she says. “We’re aligned on that outcome. The difference is in timing.”

MGE is investing in renewables. Its 66-megawatt Saratoga Wind Farm just came online. It’s also partnering on two solar installations — one near Dodgeville and another near Two Creeks — that will produce a combined 300 megawatts of electricity. It’s also partnering with Dane County on an 8-megawatt solar project at the Dane County Regional Airport.

We Energies is also investing more in alternative sources. In 2005, 73 percent of its energy came from coal, according to Brendan Conway, a utility spokesperson. In 2017, the figure was 53 percent and it’s projected to drop to 29 percent in 2030.

However, Conway doesn’t see coal as the enemy. “During that polar vortex, it was so cold in Wisconsin that wind farms could not work,” he says. “It was so cold, they would basically break. Because of that, it was a significant amount of energy needed. We were able to use more coal energy on those cold days. At the same time, natural gas was really expensive on those days, because it’s used for heating. If not for having some coal plants that could be ramped up, there could have been a situation where people would have had their power turned off.

“We’ve moved heavily away from coal and into renewables,” Conway adds. “But at the same time, having coal is incredibly important.”

Tyler Huebner, executive director of the nonprofit RENEW Wisconsin, says that some of Wisconsin’s utilities are taking the imperative to transition to green energy more seriously than others.

“Xcel energy is pledging to be 80 percent reduced carbon by 2030 and 100 percent by 2050,” says Huebner of the utility that serves parts of western Wisconsin. “And that’s really nation-leading that they’re pledging to be totally off carbon by 2050.”

But others, Olsen says, are putting up roadblocks to clean energy. We Energies, for instance, has resisted third-party operators, arguing they’re unregulated utilities. These companies install solar panels on rooftops for free and then charge the owners a monthly fee, allowing homeowners to avoid the high investment costs. Last year, We Energies refused to connect solar panels proposed for the Milwaukee Library to the grid.

“If you’re really going to do all you can, you’re not going to be obstructing solar projects,” Olsen says.

In contrast, MGE does not oppose third-party operators. Says Schultz: “We will interconnect any distributed generation system that’s safe, reliable and legal to connect in our service territory.”

But MGE has resisted a proposal by MGE Shareholders for Clean Energy that would require the utility to prepare a report by Oct. 1, 2020, that would detail how it can transition from coal to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050. The same proposal was voted on last year, garnering 11 percent votes in favor.

But this year, MGE has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission for permission to leave it out of this year’s proxy. Beth Esser, a member of MGE Shareholders for Clean Energy, invested in MGE with her husband to prepare for their children’s college. Esser is concerned about both the environment and her investment.

“A report like that could definitely show that they’re going to have a hard time transitioning off of coal into 100 percent renewable energy without hurting shareholder returns,” Esser says. “Coal plants are super expensive and they have long lifespans. MGE has investments in two coal plants and they have to keep paying for that.”

So how do humans avert catastrophe? Olsen says the game plan is to embark on “deep decarbonization.” This involves three principles: making everything as energy efficient as possible, making the electric grid nearly carbon free, and then electrifying everything, including vehicles and buildings.

Moving off of coal, Katt Reinders says, is “the lowest-hanging fruit” where the biggest cuts in carbon can be made. “The market is pointing in that direction, technology is pointing in that direction, political will is pointing in that direction,” she adds. “But we can’t take our time. We need to move with urgency.”

The stubborn persistence of coal power is remarkable when you consider that more than half of the county’s coal plants would lose money if they weren’t propped up by state regulators. As regulated monopolies, utilities are guaranteed to have their expenses covered by customers, says Jeremy Fisher with the Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program in Oakland, California.

Alternative energy sources are now consistently cheaper than coal, but many utilities continue running inefficient, expensive coal plants because they have huge investments in them that they need to pay off, says Fisher. Regulators allow utilities to recoup all of the costs of providing electricity to customers. Utilities make money by charging interest on the investments they make.

But if those investments don’t make the most economic sense (and are destructive for the environment), the utilities still get their money back. Ratepayers are paying as much as 10 percent interest on investments that utilities make on coal plants. Until a utility’s current debt is paid for, however, it may be reluctant to abandon old investments for better ones.

Fisher co-authored a paper for the Sierra Club that promotes something called “securitization.” If approved by state governments, it would allow utilities to issue ratepayer-backed bonds to pay off debt on coal plants and reinvest money in cleaner energy. Because the bonds would be backed by ratepayers, utilities would qualify for interest rates of 3 percent or less on investments.

“The ratepayers win by having a total lower cost that they’re paying for, even though they’re paying for the utility’s debt and they’re paying for a new project,” Fisher says. “That cost is still lower than business as usual.”

In Wisconsin, this would need approval from the Public Service Commission. The commissioners, through a spokesperson, did not respond to requests for comment.

Charlie Michna knows that he could have left the shadow of the Oak Creek power plants years ago. He owns property in Ashland County, where his wife is from, and he’s contemplated moving there.

“But all my grandkids are down here,” he notes. At any rate, he says, “I’m still going to be affected [by the pollution].”

Indeed, Perera says that the pollutants travel long distances. So even though power plants are often located in poor communities of color, nobody escapes the consequences. “The [pollutants] are small and they’re easily transported long distances, over hundreds and even thousands of miles. So people far away are exposed as well,” she says. “It’s not a question of ‘oh, that’s their problem,’ no, it’s everybody’s problem.”

Michna would likely have a hard time selling his property on the market, but We Energies has been buying up homes all around the plant for years.

“My family and I had attorneys and we could have sold out,” he says. “But at what point do you stand up and start telling someone to clean up? We decided we’re not going to let them kick us out of here.”

So, he continues to wake up in the middle of the night to the clanging of train cars unloading, and in the morning, he coughs up a little more phlegm. And he continues to fret about what the pollution might be doing to his grandkids. “You can’t put up this much black air and not have it have an effect on you,” he notes.

Michna puts up with all of this because he has another goal in mind: getting at least one of the power plants next to him to switch from coal to natural gas.

“If I can get them to convert one of those plants over, I’m going to cut all those emissions in half, I’m going to cut that mercury in half,” he says. “It’ll be a better place for everyone.”