Causecast

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Chairman of Waterkeeper Alliance, announced today the launch of the group’s first national anti-coal campaign. Called “The Dirty Lie,” the campaign is intended to create broader awareness of the destructiveness of coal—from its role in propping up an antiquated fossil-fuel-based economy to its adverse effects on the environment and the health of millions of Americans—and, ultimately, to bring about a change in national energy policy.

“Simply stated, clean coal is a dirty lie,” Kennedy said. “You don’t have to live in the coalfields or in the shadow of a coal-fired power plant to be affected by this filthy industry. Coal causes acid rain and demolishes ecosystems, pollutes our water and food chain with toxic mercury, destroys communities, and is grossly accelerating climate change.”

Waterkeeper programs in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Utah, and West Virginia have been fighting the coal industry for years. “This campaign is a chance for millions of others to join the effort and help make sure our message is heard in corporate boardrooms and the halls of government,” Kennedy said.

“Once they learn the facts, most Americans will demand policies that protect our water and our health and promote an economy built on cleaner, more sustainable energy sources.” Information on the campaign and a petition to sign are available at thedirtylie.com.

Waterkeeper Alliance has been joined in this national campaign by actor and Alliance board member Gloria Reuben and several other prominent activists, including Matthew Modine, Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick. “It’s time to create a new energy future for America,” Reuben said. “We’re going to send a clear message to the coal industry and to Washington through Waterkeeper Alliance’s thousands of grassroots activists: Profits from coal are being made at the expense of our health and the health of our children.”

The campaign’s hub is a website that will house video and editorial content and provide visitors with interactive tools to become anti-coal activists. The campaign is reaching beyond the traditional environmental community by using the most up-to-date online viral marketing techniques, with the goal of galvanizing broad popular interest via the web. No other environmental organization taking on the coal industry has attempted something this innovative.

The website’s core is a list of lies propagated by the coal industry, including the dirtiest lie of all: that coal can ever be clean. The site exposes the lies through scientific studies, legal facts, videos, and graphics, revealing the shocking truths about the destructiveness of the entire coal life cycle.

Every year, U.S. coal-fired power plants release 48 tons of the neurotoxin mercury into the environment, poisoning hundreds of square miles of waterways. And mercury doesn’t just poison ecosystems; it also poisons pregnant women and their babies. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that one of every six women of childbearing age now has unsafe mercury levels in her blood and, potentially, breast milk, putting more than 410,000 American children born each year at high risk for neurological damage and a grim inventory of illnesses.

And while coal-fired power plants generate about half of America’s electricity, they contribute 80 percent of the total greenhouse gases that result from electricity production. Ocean-level rise and other effects of global warming threaten barrier islands and coastal ecosystems and other irreplaceable, wild areas.

“From the mining process to the disposal of ash after it’s burned, there is no part of the coal industry that is good for the environment, good for people, or good for America,” said Donna Lisenby, Watauga Riverkeeper in North Carolina. Lisenby and John Wathen, Hurricane Creekkeeper in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, recently made front-page news for their work documenting the real effects of the TVA’s billion-gallon coal sludge spill in Harriman, Tennessee. “Waterkeeper Alliance’s unique grassroots model gives us the ability to carry the campaign to hundreds of locales in a way no other group can,” Wathen said.

“Donna Lisenby and John Wathen are real American heroes,” Kennedy said. “We’re fighting a powerful industry with deep pockets and an absolute determination to win, but thanks to dedicated local leaders like Donna and John, the campaign’s goal is no less than to bring about a fundamental shift in national energy policy.”

Waterkeeper Alliance is one of the world’s fastest growing grassroots environmental organizations with nearly 200 Waterkeepers defending and advocating for rivers, lakes and other waterways on six continents.

For more information, check out Waterkeeper Alliance.