• Photo Credit: Poster Boy

Dear Julian Assange,

I read some (more) rather disturbing news about you yesterday. You'll have to tell us if it's accurate or not. To sum up, you're now being accused of holding information hostage for vain reasons.

Here's what I'm talking about, from Michael Calderone at HuffPo:

On Sunday night, more than a half dozen major news organizations in the United States and Europe began publishing shocking new revelations from a long-rumored WikiLeaks trove of documents about prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay.

Some outlets immediately acknowledged receiving the documents directly from WikiLeaks; others claimed to have another source for the more than 700 files stretching back to 2002. So how did two groups of media organizations -- one that worked with WikiLeaks and another that didn't -- get caught up in a race trying to scoop each other? Let's go back a few months.

WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange began telling some close media contacts in late 2010 that his anti-secrecy organization had been leaked documents offering details about all the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay in its possession. If true, WikiLeaks would once again be at the forefront of another major U.S government leak, following revelations they -- and other media outlets -- published concerning Afghanistan, Iraq and international diplomacy through the State Department.

But five months passed since a source told Reuters that Assange had "personal files of every prisoner in GITMO" and the documents hadn't emerged.

This sounds familiar. Your rouge organization promised a big banking leak, and most everyone has assumed you were referring to Bank of America, aka Charlotte's Darling.

The above post goes on to say that the media reached around you to your former cohorts to get the information on the GITMO prisoners.

And, here's where I'm a little confused: I thought your organization was against withholding information. In fact, I thought that was its whole reason for existing.

If you've got information that can help people, don't hold onto it ... and definitely don't tease us with it. Otherwise, you're no better than the people and organizations you claim you're trying to out.

Sincerely,

Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman

• WFAE's Julie Rose live-Tweeted last night's meeting

Well, I should say most of the county — and by "county," I'm talking about the County Commission; Commissioner Bill James actually got applause last night. Hold on, I'll explain:

So, ReVenture ...

By now, you have to know that's the name of the proposed eco-industrial park that may be located on the edge of the Catawba River, just down the way from downtown Mount Holly. It's a big news item because our county can't wait to pay ReVenture to take our trash, which will sort it for valuable recycleables (yes, they're gonna sell them) before incinerating/gasifying* the rest.

(If you need to catch up, check out this article I wrote for Charlotte magazine and, by all means, follow Susan Stabley's coverage over at The Charlotte Business Journal because, lawd knows, this project is "evolving" faster than any one article can express and she's doing a helluva job keeping up.)

It's important to note that this project won't just touch the western side of the county. There's the sorting facility, which will be on Amble Drive, just off North Graham Street. Then, there's the county's recent pot of hot water — a $15 million planned expansion at the Foxhole landfill in south Charlotte which will enable the landfill to accept residential trash should the county's deal with ReVenture fall through, but also the ash left over after our trash is incinerated/gasified should the deal be sealed. (Read more about last night's contentious public meeting at Elon Elementary School from WCNC.)

There's also the air we all breathe that may or may not be impacted by emissions from the plant — until we have the results of the third-party study the county decided they needed after the public demanded one (and, let's be real, after the county was found to have very interested parties on the boards making decisions about this project), we won't know for sure.

Here's the thing, though: The more the community declares their concerns about this project — which has sailed through the state's marble halls, too — the more those in power pat citizens' heads and tell everyone to trust them.

You can most likely witness that same patronizing attitude today on WFAE's Charlotte Talks' program. (Listen live or to a recording here.) The guests are Tom McKittrick, ReVenture's main man; County Commissioner Jennifer Roberts; and the county's Executive Director of Waste Management, Bruce Gledhill.

All three of them have been ReVenture cheerleaders since the start, even though no one outside of the company was made aware of the plant's technology -- promised for months to be like Germany's or Japan's only to be revealed as being developed in a field in Kansas, U.S.A. -- until late December of last year. And, there are, to date, no traffic studies, no environmental studies, no public health studies and no long-term economic studies to, you know, study.

Who needs studies when you've got promises from capitalists and politicians, right?

Well, here's where Bill James' applause came in: He seems to hear the people when they say they don't want residential trash in Foxhole, which is currently used for commercial and development debris. James made a point of saying so at last night's meeting and about three weeks ago when he was the lone vote against funding the landfill's expansion. But, even his stance doesn't fill in the gaps those studies will plug.

As far as I can tell, all the people are asking for over at Amble Drive and in west Mecklenburg are for some reassurances. They don't want their traffic, roads, or health screwed by someone peddling promises — and who can blame them? Even ReVenture's most ardent opposition (I think it's safe to say that's the local chapter of the Sierra Club) likes most of the rest of the plans for the so-called eco-industrial park. But the leadership in that organization, namely Bill Gupton, like the citizens who are speaking out, would like for things to slow down long enough so those few studies can be conducted. We want to make the best possible decision with our limited tax dollars and for everyone's health, right? That seems reasonable to everyone but the people in charge, who want us to just relax and let them handle things.

This is when you may ask yourself, "What's the rush?" Two things ... OK, one thing: money.

The company is chasing federal stimulus money, and lots of it — up to $50 million. At first, the deadline for shovel-readiness was the end of 2010, now it's the end of this year. The county's also trying to figure out who's contract they'll sign: ReVenture's or Republic Services, the company that already hauls our trash away to a landfill in Cabbarrus County. The county's contract is up with Republic in a little over a year, and they're worried the rates will go up. (ReVenture undercut them by $1 per ton.) I've been told by Republic representatives, however, that they're willing to negotiate.

But are our government officials willing to negotiate with the public they serve? Are they willing to prove that ReVenture's incinerator/gasifier hybrid* will do all of the good and wonderful things it's promised to do, without harming anyone in any way, before they sign on the dotted line? Only time will tell.

Oh, and one more thing: The cheerleaders are going to tell you about all the jobs ReVenture will create. Keep this in mind as they do: The first jobs will go to the folks from Kansas that came up with this technology, and there will probably be a few blue collar jobs to be had over at Amble Drive, too. But the rest of the jobs (more than 90 percent of them) won't come for years, and that's assuming the rest of the eco-industrial park builds out as projected — which is assuming a lot. Without the incinerator/gasifier hybrid, none of the jobs will materialize.

* Note: the company's reps really hate the word "incinerator," even though the main man, Tom McKittrick, stood before the county's ReVenture Advisory Council and talked about "100-year-old incineration technology" being mixed — for the first time — with gasification technology. I later asked him if that meant the ReVenture "waste-to-energy" (that's the terminology they prefer) plant was a hybrid, and he agreed that it was.

In barely related news: City Council totally disregards public petition at last night's meeting in favor of a fast-food joint

• Photo credit: Chris Stouth

Ever wonder what happens to that half bottle of hotel shampoo you leave behind? Well, most likely it was thrown away. But now, there's an organization willing to collect those half bottles and distribute the unused soap to people in need.

From MediaBistro:

Another Earth Day has passed, but our love for creative recycling initiatives—from tires to crayons to library books—endures. Today we offer three cheers to Starwood Hotels, whose brands include St. Regis, W, Westin, and Sheraton. The company has joined forces with Orlando-based Clean the World to collect and recycle soaps, shampoos, lotions, and other fragrant unguents distributed to guests in as many as 500 Starwood hotels in North America. This marks the first corporate agreement for the two-year-old nonprofit organization, which distributes recycled soap and hygiene products to children and families in regions with high rates of acute respiratory infection and diarrheal diseases, the top two killers of children worldwide.

Read the rest of the post, by Stephanie Murg, here.

That's excellent, isn't it?

Now, stop stealing hotel soap. You know you don't need it — but there are plenty of others who do.

• Photo credit: Kevin Steele.

Several environmental organizations — Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Environmental Defense Fund, National Parks Conversation Association, Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club — sued Duke Energy in 2008 over the company's Cliffside coal plant's addition of a sixth "unit," an 800-megawatt expansion. The suit charged that the company skipped some steps in the plant's approval process and that it should have to comply with the Clean Air Act and utilize Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT).

In case you forgot: Cliffside is located about 50 miles west, aka upwind, of Charlotte on the edge of Cleveland and Rutherford Counties.

The groups wanted the company to slow down, conduct some deep analysis and prove its claims that the new unit will be a minor source of pollution. Further, they argued that the new coal-fired units would be a major source of emissions and that their case should stand, not be dismissed as the company requested.

According to last Thursday's federal appellate court summary ruling (sorry, should have said "spoiler alert"):

With their federal suit, Plaintiffs sought to have the district court: declare Duke Energy's construction of Unit 6 without a MACT determination illegal under the Clean Air Act; enjoin Duke Energy from further construction of Unit 6 until it complies with the Clean Air Act and any other applicable regulations; and assess civil penalties against Duke Energy for violating the Clean Air Act.

In August 2008, Plaintiffs moved for summary judgment on the basis that Duke Energy was violating the Clean Air Act by constructing a new major source of hazardous air pollution without first obtaining a determination from the State of North Carolina that the pollution source, Unit 6, was designed to control its hazardous emissions to the maximum extent possible. Duke Energy, in turn, moved to dismiss the complaint, arguing that Section 112(g) of the Clean Air Act, under which Plaintiffs brought their suit, did not apply and that Plaintiffs' complaint constituted an improper attack on the state permitting process.

Meow.

Welp, the district court ruled that Duke Energy had to comply with the Clean Air Act and go through the MACT evaluation. In other words, the court was ready to let the the state take things from there.

And it did, determining that the new unit needed tighter regulations.

From the ruling:

As a result of the administrative proceedings that the district court ordered, new limits were placed on Unit 6's hazardous emissions. If those limits are exceeded, Unit 6 will be subject to MACT requirements. Further, additional emissions monitoring, testing, and recordkeeping were required. The district court's December 2008 ruling was, therefore, neither a "merely procedural" victory nor "trivial," as Duke Energy contends.

But that's not all. The environmental groups asked the court to make Duke Energy pay more than $800,000 in legal fees, claiming that they'd won in a sense since the company was now going through the proper channels to ensure its new unit is only a mild polluter, not a major one.

The court agreed, though they only awarded the environmental groups a little less than half a million bucks.

Duke appealed then lost again when, last Thursday, a federal judge decided the company needs to pay up. (Read the judge's ruling here, which includes this statement: "Under the Clean Air Act's citizen suits provision, a court may award attorneys' fees 'whenever the court determines such award is appropriate.'")

So you know, environmental organizations, which are usually also nonprofits, often sue on behalf of the public in Clean Air Act cases like these; since we're all air breathers, our health can be negatively impacted by air pollution, and, well, someone's gotta stand up for clean oxygen. And, let's face it, the average citizen isn't paying any attention.

The local chapter of the Sierra Club exalted the ruling on their blog, saying — and I'm paraphrasing big time — that the district court's ruling meant Duke Energy should have gone through the proper channels to begin with and, had they, there would be no need to squabble about attorney's fees.

In other news, the mainstream media hasn't had much, if anything, to say about the issue ... which is odd since Duke Energy is a huge employer in this area and a publicly traded company.

I'm just sayin' ...

• Thanks to Derek Bridges for the photo of this protest against BP in New Orleans last spring.

From our friends at ProPublica:

• Refuse-derived fuel. (Thanks to Beta Labs for the photo.)

As reported on The Charlotte Business Journal's website by Susan Stabley:

The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League has filed a petition with the N.C. Utilities Commission challenging ReVenture Park’s waste-to-energy plant project.

ReVenture has asked utility commissioners to designate "refuse-derived fuel" as a renewable energy resource. That's connected to a bill state legislators approved last year that gave any utility that buys the power from the ReVenture plant triple renewable-energy credits for electricity produced from its first 20 megawatts of capacity. The state is already requiring utilities to produce up to 12.5% of the energy they sell from renewable sources by 2021. The triple credits reduce how much a utility will have to spend to meet that requirement.

The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League wants to block ReVenture’s request. It argues that the definition of renewable should mean that “a source of energy must renew or recharge itself, such as wind and solar power.”

Today's ReVenture-related news may give you whiplash. ReVenture, in case you haven't been paying attention, is the proposed eco-industrial park that will include a gasifier-incinerator hybrid (i.e. a biomass plant) and be situated on a Superfund site on the Catawba River just down the way from downtown Mount Holly. (P.S. If the plant doesn't go forward, neither will the rest of the project's plans.)

The project was enjoying smooth sailing through the bureaucratic process until last month when the county's Waste Management Advisory Board, which had been plagued with conflict-of-interest issues, decided that a study should be conducted to make sure the biomass plant (that incinerator-gasifier hybrid that's going to eat what's left of our trash after it's picked over for valuable recycleables) won't harm anyone or anything once it's up and running. (Reminder: It's the first of its kind, and Charlotte's air is already well polluted.)

The study the advisory board wants is in line with what the EPA's up to: The agency is planning to take three years to study such projects in an effort to make sure they're not harmful. In fact, it's holding a hearing on the topic today. At the same time, the EPA is encouraging energy companies to make use of old, contaminated sites — which is exactly what the Superfund site near Mount Holly is.

But, in news that doesn't make sense, the Charlotte Business Journal is reporting that the county is going to vote on coughing up $100,000 for the study at tonight's meeting -- the study it decided ReVenture needs before it can approve the project (Wait. Why isn't ReVenture paying for its own study?). They're also voting on whether or not the county is should pay $15 million to make one of our landfills suitable for residential waste. (It's currently used for commercial waste.)

And, uh, why can't we just use the Republic Services landfill near the racetrack ... the one we planned to use in our last multi-year waste management plan — you know, the one that was put in place before ReVenture was even a sparkle in anyone's eye? Sure, the contract expires next summer, but the company is ready to hammer out a new one; even if the rates go up a little (like $1 or so a ton); they're not going to go up $15 million by next year.

Talk about mixed messages.

To recap: There's the simultaneous push and pull from the EPA. Then, more importantly, our county's actions are sending the message that it hears the people who live around the proposed ReVenture site when they say they want to know more about the plant. (Like, will dioxin — made famous by Agent Orange — be emitted? If plastics are in the mix, and they will be, dioxin will be released).

At the same time, the county is making it clear that if the people want to know more about the actual impacts this plant will have, it's going to make finding out as fiscally painful and impractical as possible*.

In other words: Suck it, commoners. In this plutocracy, you're going pay one way or another. Or, you can just trust the government. (It's cheaper). And, besides, everything's fine. Go back to your regularly scheduled programming on your electronic screens.

Further reading: ReVenture secures financing for waste-to-energy plant -- Charlotte Business Journal

Update: Foxhole landfill expansion, ReVenture study get Mecklenburg board approval -- Charlotte Business Journal

* Charlotte Twits: Follow #ReVenture and @CBJgreennews -- that's Susan Stabley, the reporter who wrote the two stories linked above. Through her live-Tweeting, we learned the county thinks that if it pays for a study it will be independent (Huh?), and that it's paid for such studies before. Moving on ... Another Charlotte live-Tweeter: Commissioner Neil Cooksey, wondered why ReVenture couldn't pay half for the $100,000 study. Good question, though the commission voted to pay for it themselves.

In news that will make you want to unsubscribe from all of those pesky marketing e-mails you delete without reading and rethink the apps you download on your "smart" phones ... news that could explain why, all of a sudden, we're getting a shit-ton of spam lately:

Security experts said Monday that millions of people were at increased risk of e-mail swindles after a giant security breach at an online marketing firm.

The breach exposed the names and e-mail addresses of customers of some of the nation’s largest companies, including JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Target and Walgreens.

While the number of people affected is unknown, security experts say that based on the businesses involved, the breach may be among the largest ever. And it could lead to a surge in phishing attacks — e-mails that purport to be from a legitimate business but are intended to steal information like account numbers or passwords.

“It is clearly a massive hemorrhage,” said Michael Kleeman, a network security expert at the University of California, San Diego.

Read more from The New York Times.

And then ...

A grand jury sought information from Pandora Media Inc. about how the company's mobile application uses personal data, part of an apparent federal investigation into smart-phone privacy.

The Oakland Internet radio company disclosed the request Monday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission made in advance of Pandora's planned initial public offering.

"In early 2011, we were served with a subpoena to produce documents in connection with a federal grand jury, which we believe was convened to investigate the information sharing processes of certain popular applications that run on the Apple and Android mobile platforms," the company said.

It added that it is not a specific target of the investigation and that similar subpoenas were probably issued "on an industrywide basis" to other developers of smart-phone apps.

Read more from The San Francisco Chronicle.

So, with all of this in mind, I'm continuing my efforts to unsubscribe from most of the asinine e-mail lists I receive. And, let me tell you, you need to read the screens carefully — sometimes you may think you're unsubscribing when you're actually reaffirming your subscription. Also, some of these marketing companies make it damn-near impossible to figure out how to unsubscribe, though the link to do so is usually hidden at the bottom of such e-mails.

I don't know about you, but I get plenty of e-mails (direct messages, texts, calls, etc., etc.) as it is, so I won't be subscribing to any more ... I don't care what kind of discount companies are offering or how hard they try to obtain my contact information while I attempt to check out at their stores.

Furthermore, if you like, when unsubscribing from all of this marketing propaganda nonsense, feel free to join me in a giant FUCK YOU! when the companies ask why you're asking to be unsubscribed. (Actually, I don't give them a reason; it's none of their damned business.)

As you pull today's meals out of plastic bags and unwind the shrinkwrap around them, then nuke them in plastic containers, consider this: There are chemicals in those plastics that are bad for your health.

Here's more from Discovery News:

Plastic wrappers, food cans and storage tubs deposit at least two potentially harmful chemicals into our food, confirmed a new study. By cutting out containers, people can dramatically reduce their exposures to these toxins.

The chemicals -- bisphenol A, or BPA, and a phthalate called DEHP -- are known to disrupt hormonal systems in the bodies of both animals and people, leading to developmental and reproductive problems, as well as cancers, heart disease and brain disorders. And both appear in a wide variety of food packaging materials.

But when people in the new study avoided plastic and ate mostly fresh foods for just three days, the levels of these chemicals in their bodies dropped by more than 50 percent, and sometimes much more.

"What this says is that food packaging is really the major source of exposure to BPA and DEHP," said Ruthann Rudel, a toxicologist at the Silent Spring Institute, a research and advocacy group in Newton, Mass. "The good news is that we provide some evidence that people can make everyday decisions about their kitchens and their diets if they want to reduce exposure to these compounds."

Read the rest of this article, by Emily Sohn, here.

It's a real challenge to eat packaging-free, especially if you're used to storing and warming your food in plastic containers and you're not into cooking for yourself. But, getting started on a chemical-light diet is easy: visit your area farmer's market. Next step: get some unbleached wax paper and glass containers to store and heat your food in. Start taking your own bags to the grocery store (you know, the ones in your closet ... put them in your trunk), and reuse those same bags to carry your lunch to work. And, of course, as this month's Breathe Magazine points out, you and yours can always grow your own packaging-free food.

All big changes begin with baby steps, and all great things — like your health and your family's health — are worth working for.

Here's more about the politics behind BPA from PBS' Bill Moyers. Note: This video was posted in 2008.

• For those of you who aren't builders or DIY'ers, this is what drywall looks like. It's the stuff beneath the paint and paper. (Thanks to Moosicorn Ranch for the photo.)

Lowes is headquartered in the Charlotte area (Mooresville, actually).

Here's more on their drywall issues, and how to make a claim from our friends at ProPublica.org: