The July 29 farm share from Glade Road Growing is expected to include tomatoes, basil, red onions, new potatoes, beans, and summer squash. Here's a recipe for a slightly different potato salad, inspired by one created by chef Bobby Flay
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Serves 6
1. Let six eggs sit until at room temperature. Place in saucepan and cover with cool water by 1 inch. Slowly bring water to a boil over medium heat; when the water has reached a boil, cover and remove from heat. Let sit 12 minutes. Transfer eggs to a colander and run under cool running water to stop the cooking. Peel. Chop coarsely and store in refrigerator until ready to add to recipe. For the vegan version I like to substitute garbanzo beans.
2. Half and thinly slice one red onion or two small red onions. If you want to pickle all the red onions in the farm share and reserve some for a condiment later, that's fine.
3. Combine in a saucepan:
1 1/2 cups balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoons honey (or 2 TB demerara sugar for vegan version)
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 TB kosher salt
Bring to a boil cook until the sugar and salt dissolves, about 1 minute. Transfer to a small bowl and let cool for 10 minutes. Add the onions and stir to combine. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 24 hours. Drain the onions through a strainer into a bowl and reserve the pickling liquid. If you have extra onions you want to use later, save them in the pickling liquid (minus the few TB you will use in this recipe.
4. Slice 2 1/2 pounds of new potatoes into 1/2-inch thick slices. Steam over boiling water until just soft. Transfer warm potatoes to a large bowl. Add the eggs, pickled onions.
While potatoes cook, finely chop one tomato and 1/4 cup of basil.
5. For dressing, whisk together:
1 cup Greek yogurt (or tofu "sour cream" for vegan version)
4 tablespoons whole-grain mustard, Dijon mustard or a combination
Freshly ground black pepper
A few tablespoons of the pickling liquid
Add the dressing, the tomatoes and the basil to the warm potatoes and gently mix to combine. Garnish with a whole basil sprig. Serve at room temperature or cover tightly and refrigerate for at least 2 hours and serve chilled.
This can be a main course, rather than a side. If you want an even heartier recipe you can add add two cups of cooked beans or 1 cup of cooked chicken.
The July 22 farm share from Glade Road Growing is slated to include: tomatoes, curly kale, yellow onion, 1 jalapeno pepper, Greenstar lettuce mix, carrots, and lemon cucumbers. Here's a recipe for the kale, tomato, onions and jalapeno.
Eighteen months before Katrina hit, I made a trip down New Orleans to attend the Jazz and Heritage Festival Since it was the tenth anniversary of South Africa's independence, there were all sorts of musicians and crafts from that country.
I ended up in the food exhibits indoors when my SPF 30 sunscreen proved no remedy for the Southern sun. That's where I first got to eat this recipe for greens and maize (what we would call grits or polenta.) The name I've given you is in Swahili from Kenya. I couldn't find the South African name for the greens. The maize there is called "stywe pap."
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1. Wash and drain in a colander two pounds of greens. Since the kale is a bit tougher by summer, you can chiffonade it. Cut out the center stalk and chop finely. Then roll a few leaves at once and cut crosswise into fine shreds. You can use kale only, but it's even more delicious if you mix the kale with collards and spinach, chard or beet greens. Or, if you have trouble with the oxalic acid in the latter, you can use sweet potato greens, if you can find them. (or grow them?) 2. Chop two or three tomatoes. When they're not in season you can used canned unsalted diced tomatoes. 3. Chop the yellow onion. 4.. Chop the jalapeno pepper (optional) discarding seeds and membrane and stem. Be careful not to touch your eyes until you wash your hands really well, as the oil from the pepper stings badly. 5. Juice one lemon (or you can use 3 TB lemon or lime juice) 6. Bring 2 cups of water to a boil in a large pot with a steamer filled with the greens. Cover and steam until greens are nearly tender.
7. While greens are cooking, combine the lemon juice with a tablespoon of whole wheat flour in a small bowl or cup and stir well until mixture is smooth. In a cast iron skilled lightly oiled with extra virgin olive oil, saute together the onions, tomatoes and jalapeno.
8. Add the tomato/onion/pepper mixture to the pot. Stir in lemon juice mixture. Season with salt and red pepper flakes to taste. Cover and simmer until greens are tender and the mixture has thickened. If you'd like you can add cooked leftover chicken or cooked beans.
9. Serve over cooked grits, or another grain such as quinoa, millet or rice.
Screenshot of Roanoke City Mayor David Bowers April 3, announcing Sheryl Crow as the headliner for the grand opening of the Elmwood Park amphitheater. I originally published this post on 7/18/14 at 5:11 pm and updated it on 7/19/14 to include the Virginia Code on scalping and a response from the Roanoke City Manager.
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The Sheryl Crow concert July 31 to celebrate the grand opening of amphitheater in Elmwood Park went on sale from The Jefferson Center on April 17 for $15 each with a limit of six tickets per person.
Steve Buschor, of Parks and recreation said,
We're absolutely excited that our citizens will be able to experience Sheryl Crow’s amazing talents in this new state-of-the-art venue right in the heart of downtown Roanoke.
Tickets sold out in two hours. Since then tickets have appeared on ebay for $115 each from Buchanan, when they cost $15. There are tickets right now on sale there for $57. I'm guessing this person in Georgia meant $200 by "two bills" for his or her auction of two tickets on Craigslist and also there you can find some for $150 and some for $200.
The City of Roanoke spent $75,000 of taxpayers funds and obtained sponsorships from the likes of Downtown Roanoke Inc., the Jefferson Center, Budweiser, WDBJ7, 94.9 Star Country, Q99, K92, the ViBE, and WFIR.
Was all this effort just to support scalpers? If it's not illegal, it should be. How can allowing private speculators to profit be in the public interest? My understanding is that the Commonwealth of Virginia (unlike other states) leaves the laws regarding scalping up to its localities. Does Roanoke Virginia have a ticket scalping ordinance? If so, what is your office doing to enforce it. If not, why is there no such ordinance?
Thank you for your kind attention to this matter.
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UPDATE 7/19/14
Well more information from "Joe from Cheese TX" (as John Dufrense calls him on his blog) who read this entry and sent me a site that enumerated state scalping laws, at least as of 2011. It turns out that the Virginia law, which I just looked up does allow local ordinances, but exempts internet scalping. Huh? That seems like a loophole large enough to drive a tour bus through.
§ 15.2-969. Ordinances prohibiting resale of tickets to certain public events; penalty.
Any locality may provide, by ordinance, that it is unlawful for any person, firm or corporation to resell for profit any ticket for admission to any sporting event, theatrical production, lecture, motion picture or any other event open to the public for which tickets are ordinarily sold, except in the case of religious, charitable, or educational organizations where all or a portion of the admission price reverts to the sponsoring group and the resale for profit of such ticket is authorized by the sponsor of the event and the manager or owner of the facility in which the event is being held. Such ordinance may provide that violators thereof are guilty of a Class 3 misdemeanor.
This section shall not apply to any resale of a ticket that occurs on the Internet.
(1970, c. 530, § 15.1-29.3; 1982, c. 279; 1995, c. 339; 1997, c. 587; 2009, cc. 321, 376.)
I haven't yet heard back from the Commonwealth's Attorney, but right after I heard from Joe, I heard back from Roanoke City Manager Chris Morrill. I checked with him and he gave me permission to print his response to this letter here
...While the cost for Sheryl Crowe [sic] was $75,000, the actual city contribution to the event should be much less after sponsorships and concession revenue.
We could have charged more for the tickets but even had we set the price at $50 or $75 scalpers would still be asking for much more because there are only 4,500 seats for a very popular artist.
We set the price at $15 so locals would at least have an opportunity to purchase tickets at an affordable price. All those who lined up at the Jefferson Center box office received tickets and I know many local folks got up early to purchase tickets on the Jefferson Center website.
While VA law allows cities to make resale of tickets to public events a Class 3 misdemeanor (see statute below), it prohibits applying the code to internet sales. Since nearly all scalping is done on the internet, this does not really help us.
So, I'll repeat: If [internet scalping is] not illegal, it should be. How can allowing private speculators to profit be in the public interest?
Wonder what the chances are of the General Assembly doing something about this, since the hands of local officials are pretty much tied.
Map from Appalachian Regional Commission via Roger May.
Roger May's new collaboration with other photographers and writers Looking at Appalachia: 50 Years After the War on Poverty. His definition for the project is the area funded by the Appalachian Regional Commission. I might quibble with that, as it leaves out Roanoke and includes some areas that aren't exactly in our mountains and valleys. As Rudy Abramson and my friend Jean Haskell write in their introduction to , the Encyclopedia of Appalachia,
At the beginning, as ever since, the federal map reflected the exigencies of congressional politics as much as economic need, geography, or culture. Many inhabitants of Pennsylvania and New York were surprised to learn that the government in Washington considered them Appalachians, and some were opposed to the very idea. Newly elected New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who had taken up a deep interest in the region during his brother’s 1960 presidential campaign, led the effort to make the southern tier counties of his adopted state part of the federal region. Similarly, Mississippi was included largely due to the influence of Representative Jamie Whitten, a powerful member of the House Appropriations Committee. On the other hand, a number of Virginia mountain counties that were Appalachian by any standard except political were left out because their representative, Richard H. Poff, was opposed to the 1965 bill.
But maybe Roger's geographical definition makes sense in that his reference point is the War on Poverty. He writes in the overview,
In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson declared unconditional war on poverty in the United States and nowhere was this war more photographed than Appalachia. A quick Google image search of “war on poverty” will yield several photographs of President Johnson on the porch of the Fletcher family home in Inez, Kentucky.
Many of the War on Poverty photographs, whether intentional or not, became a visual definition of Appalachia. These images have often drawn from the poorest areas and people to gain support for the intended cause, but unjustly came to represent the entirety of the region while simultaneously perpetuating stereotypes.
In an attempt to explore the diversity of Appalachia and establish a visual counter point, this project will look at Appalachia fifty years after the declaration of the War on Poverty. Drawing from a diverse population of photographers [and now writers] within the region, this new crowdsourced image archive will serve as a reference that is defined by its people as opposed to political legislation.
Then again, "as defined by its people" is hardly as defined by ARC funding.
I'm happy to report that Roger has now added a written component: Notes on Appalachia, to include us writers of prose and poetry, as well as storytellers.
...[W]e’re looking for your notes, thoughts, stories, hopes, dreams, interviews, and more about your section of Appalachia. Due to the incredible generosity of the folks at Field Notes, we have 13 sets of their “County Fair” edition notebooks that we’re itching to get into your hands! Your narratives will provide a rich context to the visual representations of Appalachia that have been submitted to the project.
Here's the scoop – one notebook will be mailed to a point of contact in each of the project’s 13 states: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. From there, that person will initiate sharing the memo book throughout the counties in their respective state. When it’s full, the memo books will be returned to Roger May...and new ones will be dispatched....The memo books will be scanned and shared on the project site... and will possibly be included in a print exhibition of the project photographs beginning next year.
Lauren Pound (of Athens, Ohio) Richlands, Tazewell County Chris Jackson (of the Eastern Panhandle of WV), Covington, Alleghany County Joseph Oliver Shay (location not listed) Buena Vista and Glasgow, Rockbridge County Katie Currid (Staunton, VA) McDowell, Highland County Jeremy M. Lange (Durham, NC) Patrick County Pat Jarrett (Shenandoah Valley of VA) Lexington, Virginia
I know I'll be writing my state contact (Salvador Barajas) and I hope you will, too. Here's the list of state contacts (or if one is not listed, consider filling the position. If you have questions write Roger. His email is also at that link.
Today is the publishing date for Beth Macy's first book, Factory Man(Little, Brown and Company, 464 pp) about John D. Bassett III, who got run off from Bassett Furniture in a family feud and instead of leaving the industry,started the smaller Vaughan-Bassett in nearby Galax, Virginia where he now employs 700.
...has promised the town that they're going to be hiring more people. Just last year - maybe it was in '12 - they reopened a vacant plant next door and christened it Vaughan-Bassett II. And they're trying to get ready. The housing market still hasn't come back up from the recession. I mean, it's kind of been the last thing to come back. And, you know, he was telling me this week that he had just read something - that wasn't really going to come fully black till 2017.
Last year, he broke even. This year, I think he's a little bit behind, but as he points out, we have a ...[balance] sheet at the rock of Gibraltar. You know, he's been very frugal. He's - he calls it Bassett 101 - you know, the techniques he learned from his father and his grandfather, in terms of, you know, having a lot of money in the bank and being very careful with his investments. And he's just determined he's going to keep that factory going because when the economy does come back and housing starts to improve, he's going to be poised to be what he calls the last girl standing on the desert island. You know, he's going to out-wait everybody. He's going to be the last guy. And he's going to get the business because no matter how good-looking you are, it doesn't matter. If you're the last one standing, you are going to get the business.
* Factory Man started out in 2011 as "Picking Up the Pieces," a series on the effects of globalization on the towns of that once hosted the textile and furniture industries in Virginia, which Beth wrote while she was a reporter for the Roanoke Times. As she writes for Nieman Storyboard:
For the next three years, I spent most of my waking moments turning that three-part series into a 120,000-word book, Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local — and Helped Save an American Town....
Among the reporting challenges I faced were American CEOs who avoided the press, Chinese businessmen who claimed that speaking candidly to me could jeopardize their profits, and a painful early chapter on race that kept me awake at night struggling with The Big Questions: Does it matter? Is it fair? A decades-long family feud gave the story an undercurrent and a universal element, but it was also the single topic my brash main character didn’t want to discuss (in fact, he grew agitated every time I brought it up).
My goal had been to write a business book that did not read like a business book — something that my octogenarian mom could read in order to finally understand why so many of the once-thriving factory towns she grew up in, and near, now look like ghost towns, with soaring rates of disability, food insecurity and underemployment
My goal had been to write a business book that did not read like a business book — something that my octogenarian mom could read in order to finally understand why so many of the once-thriving factory towns she grew up in, and near, now look like ghost towns, with soaring rates of disability, food insecurity and underemployment.
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Macy left the paper in May, in order to devote her time to writing books. Her next one is scheduled to come out in 2016. Her last piece for the Roanoke Times, "After the shouting: Macy shares a final chapter" came out June 8, updating a 1993 piece "Pregnant and Proud." (interview with Beverly Amsler, WVTF.)
Photo from Kristen Stevens, chef and owner of Vancouver's Endless Meal Supper Club.
The July 15 farm share from Glade Road Growing is slated to include tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, basil, fresh garlic and kale.
You can use this dip with whole wheat pita triangles, with veggies or make the pita bread into chips (directions below). I plan to use it as a spread for fresh tomato and cuke sandwiches (with some more fresh basil instead of lettuce.) If you want it to taste more like traditional pesto than like hummus, you can omit the sesame seeds and citrus juice.
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Makes 2+ cups
For hummus:
1. The night before, in a heavy bottomed stainless steel pan, cover 1 cup of dried chickpeas with three cups of water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover with lid and simmer on low for five minutes. Let soak overnight. Drain and rinse the chickpeas and repeat, but this time simmer until soft. Drain and rinse a second time. (If you prefer, you can drain and rinse canned chickpeas, but they are not as fresh tasting, nor as economical.
2. Heat a cast iron skillet lightly coated with extra virgin olive oil until a bead of water evaporates. Cover bottom of skillet with raw sesame seeds and toast until they just pop. Remove from heat and transfer to a small glass jar. You will use a heaping TB for this recipe and can cool, cover and reserve any remaining for another use.
3. Toast 1/2 cup of walnuts.
4. Grate Parmesan, romano or asiago cheese or a combination enough to make 1/2 cup
5. Peel 3-4 fresh garlic cloves
6. In a heavy duty blender or food processor combine the cooked chickpea, toasted sesame seeds and nuts, grated cheese with:
1 large handful fresh basil leaves
A splash of lemon, lime or orange juice
A splash of extra virgin olive oil
A few pinches of sea salt
7. Process until smooth. If it's too thick, you can thin with cold water. (You can also substitute water for the olive oil to make it lower fat--there's already plenty of fat in the cheese and walnuts.) Transfer to a covered small bowl and refrigerate until right before serving. Remove cover and garnish with a fresh basil leaf.
Chips:
1. Preheat over to 350 degrees F.
2. Cut whole wheat pita bread into triangles and then splitting the triangles into two pieces (so that they are single not double).
3 . In a bowl combine 1 TB extra virgin olive oil with a pinch or two of any of the following: oregano, thyme, basil, red pepper flakes, salt. Add pita triangles and lightly toss.
4. Arrange the seasoned triangles in a layer on a baking sheet and toast until lightly brown (10-15 minutes, turning half way).
Photo from Dani Spies. I first published this post at 8:15 pm on 7/7/14 and updated it at 3:00 pm on 7/8/14 to include the actual farm share and links to additional recipes.
The July 8 farm share was slated to include lettuce mix, beets, cilantro, tomatoes, red bunch onions and cucumbers. The actual share also included summer squash and the beets included the greens, as I had hoped.
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Beets and chard are part of the same species (and, as is spinach in the Amaranth family), so the greens are very similar in taste. Make sure you remove the greens right away before storing so that they won't drain moisture from the roots. You can used the greens raw in a salad or steam or saute them. Because the
stalks take a little bit longer to cook, I cook them first, before adding the greens.
Besides tasting good, beet greens are packed with vitamins A and C and have a good amount of iron and calcium too.This recipe uses both the roots and the greens.
Serves 4-6
1. Cook one cup of quinoa.
2. Separate the beet roots from the greens. Scrub the roots. I roast the whole beet roots unpeeled for 20 minutes in a countertop convection oven, as it doesn't heat up the house so much in summer and saves electricity, too. But if you don't have one, you can roast the beets, wrapped in foil, in a regular oven preheated to 400 degrees F for 50 minutes or until tender (small beets cook faster.)
3. Chop the beet stems, keeping separate and tear the greens into large pieces.
3. Mince three whole cloves of garlic (or you can substitute 2 TB of garlic scape pesto, if you have some left.
4. Finely chop the red bunch onions and greens. Reserve 2 TB of onions for the beet roots.
5. Lightly coat cast iron skillet with extra virgin olive oil and heat to medium. Saute beet stems until tender and add remainder of onions saute until translucent. Stir in beat greens until just wilted. Set aside to cool.
6. Peel the roasted beets and cut them into small bite site pieces and let cool.
7. Chop 1/2 cup of cilantro.
8. Chop 1 cucumber.
9. In a large bowl combine beets, beet greens, chopped cucumbers, 1 tsp olive oil, 1 TB balsamic vinegar, garlic, and pepper to taste. Toss with cooked quinoa. Top with 1/4 c. walnuts, 1/4 # of crumbled feta and top with cilantro before serving.
I also like to make a cold beet borscht by boiling grated beets until soft with lemon juice and a bit of sugar, chilling and topping with Greek yogurt or tofu sour cream and cold diced boiled potatoes.
The July 1 farm share from Glade Road Growing is expected to include kohlrabi, cabbage, summer squash, cucumbers, onion, and dill.
There's more information on the cabbage relative and a recipe for an apple and kohlrabi slaw at my post from last year. This week I I thought I'd provide a recipe that combines it with the cucumbers, oninion and dill. You can also eat kohlrabi raw, in soup, roasted, steamed or spicy in Indian recipes.
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I'm not sure how many kohlrabi bulbs will be in the farm share. While this fritter recipe calls for four, you can make up the difference by using the summer squash. Or if you'd like to use the squash for another recipe, you can use potatoes (and omit the oats or brown rice.) The kohlrabi greens, if they are included, will be edible. The greens, too, are edible. Take the smaller, newer leaves, trim them and cook as you would beet greens, until they are tender.
Serves 4 - 6
Start by making the Tzatziki sauce and put in the refrigerator to thicken. You will only use a portion for this recipe and can use the rest as a salad dressing or dip during the rest of the week.
1. Peel 4 kohlrabi bulbs and shred (or mix shredded kohlrabi and unpeeled shredded summer squash or potatoes to make 2 - 3 cups). Place in colander and squeeze out excess moisture.
2. In a bowl, combine:
2 beaten eggs
1/2 cup cooked oat groats or brown rice
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
3. Add kohlrabi or kohlrabi-squash mixture by the spoonful and mix until coated.
4. Form fritter mixture into two inch balls and lightly coat with whole wheat flour.
5. Heat lightly oiled cast iron skillet until a bead of water evaporates. Drop into skillet. Press gently with spatula to flatten. Cook for 5-7 minutes on each side, or until golden brown.
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Want a good recipe for the cabbage? You can shred it and make it into a slaw using the recipe I've linked to or here's a recipe for my favorite cabbage borscht.
This weeks farm share from Glade Road growing includes yellow squash and white onions. Here's a recipe with a southern flair.
serves 2
1. Slice 1 large squash in half vertically and then into 1/2-inch rounds. Or substitute two medium squash and just cut into rounds. (About two cups)
2. Remove greens from white onions and reserve for other purpose. Cut into similar size slices.
3. Add 2 tablespoons unsalted butter or extra virgin olive oil to a wide sauce pan that has a lid and heat over medium setting.
4. When a water drop evaporates imediately add onions and cook until soft about 4-5 minutes.
5. Add squash and:
1/2 t salt
1/2 t black pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons turbinado or demerara sugar
6. Stir, then cover and cook for about 20 minutes, until squash is very soft. Remove the cover and continue to cook for about 8 minutes, just to give
the juices a chance to evaporate slightly. There will be some liquid in
the pan, but it should be thicker than water, almost like a glaze.
Season with more salt and pepper, if needed, and serve immediately.
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If you prefer something savory, here's a recipe from last year for a squash and potato torte. Or for something simple, just steam squash rounds, cubed potatoes and thinly sliced onions. Cool and serve tossed with Greek yogurt or tofu "sour cream."
The quadrennial Virginia Energy plan, last published in 2010,
provides a "comprehensive strategy for the energy industry" including using sustainable practices for Virginia, such as conservation, efficiency, solar, wind and geothermal.
Originally to have been due
July 1, it will now be due October 1, as a result of H.B. 796 passed by the Virginia General Assembly March 7, 2014.
McAuliffe created the Virginia Energy Council to gather public and businesses advice
June 4, 2014, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe established the Virginia Energy Council to receive, review and evaluate "input offered by Virginia’s residents and businesses" on the 2014 Virginia Energy Plan being compiled by the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy (MME). The Council will monitor implementation and review the October, 1, 2017 interim update, "providing strategic
guidance to ensure successful achievement of Plan goals. I've requested a coy of the 2013 update and will post it if I receive a copy.
The Council started listening June 12
June 12, the Council, chaired by Maurice Jones (bio), Virginia's Secretary of Commerce and Trade, held its first listening session in conjunctions with MME in Fredericksburg. The next session will be tonight in Annandale,
Tuesday, June 17 at 6 pm at Northern Virginia Community College, 8333
Little River Turnpike. Appalachian Voices sent out a memo at 10:26 am today advising folks to arrive
at least 30 minutes to sign up and reserve a three minute slot on the
speakers list.
There is no listening session scheduled for Blacksburg or Roanoke but you can file comments
Folks can request events by writing Jones's office at commerce.trade@governor.virginia.gov. You CAN file comments on line or by snail mail:
Attn: Virginia Energy Plan
Department of Mines, Minerals & Energy
Washington Building 8th Floor
1100 Bank Street
Richmond, VA 23219
The four remaining sessions
Here's a schedule, if you have friends elsewhere who can attend:
South Boston: Thursday, June 19, 6 pm, Southern Virginia Higher Education Center, 820 Bruce Street;
Abingdon: Tuesday, June 24, 6 pm, Virginia Highlands Community College, 100 VHCC Drive, Building ISC;
Norfolk: Thursday, June 26, 6 pm, Old Dominion University, Bluestone Avenue and 49th Street; and
Harrisonburg: Tuesday, July 1, 6 pm, James Madison University, 127 West Bruce Street.
Other duties of the Council
The .Governor has charged the Council with:
Developing strategies to make Virginia a national leader in energy
efficiency and ensure that the cost of energy for Virginia consumers
remains highly competitive;
Developing strategies to increase the diversity of energy used to
power Virginia, while ensuring a commitment to the most efficient use of
existing energy sources;
Developing strategies to increase Virginia’s renewable energy
economy and grow the entire energy industry in Virginia by retaining,
expanding, and attracting businesses in the energy sector;
Developing strategies to increase the international export of Virginia’s coal;
Identifying opportunities to expand Virginia’s needed energy
infrastructure and to increase the reliability of the Commonwealth’s
existing energy infrastructure;
Reviewing an analysis of any regulations proposed or promulgated by
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reduce carbon dioxide
emissions from fossil fuel-fired electric generating units under §
111(d) of the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. § 7411(d);
Providing expertise and advice on other policy strategies deemed
appropriate during the drafting of the Plan to grow the energy industry
in the Commonwealth; and,
Monitoring the implementation of the Plan, providing strategic
guidance to ensure successful achievement of Plan goals, and reviewing
the interim update of the Plan required to be presented by October 1,
2017.
Photo of hakurei turnips from Glade Road Growing. The June 17 farm share is slated to include summer squash, turnips, bok choy, carrots, parsley, bunch onions, spinach, and sugar peas.
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Hakurei turnips are crisp and a bit sweet. You can eat them just about any way: raw, roasted, pickled, steamed, sauteed, glazed, candied, in soups and roasted. The greens are edible raw or cooked and taste similar to mustard greens. There's no need to peel the turnips, just trim the root end (which can saved and used in making a veggie stock.) The globes keep well in the fridge in a sealed glass container, if you separate the greens and store them separately.
I thought I'd give you a recipe for a simple salad with an oriental flair, since these turnips were first developed in Japan during the 1950s. The photo is from Elly Says Opa on Flckr. I've adapted her 2011 recipe below.
At the bottom of this page, I've linked to some recipes from last year the bok choy and for the carrots and summer squash.
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Serves 4
1. Thinly slice 1 medium cucumber and 4 hakurei turnip globes. Sprinkle with salt and place in colander and let drain for about 20 minutes to remove the excess moisture.
2. Lightly oil a small cast iron skillet and heat on stove until a drop of water sprinkled evaporates. Add a thin layer of sesame seeds and toast until they start to pop. Transfer to a glass jar and cool before you screw on the lid for storage.
3. Grate or finely mince 1/2 t fresh ginger
4. Wash, drain and chop 4 T fresh parsley. (You can ensure that the
parsley stays fresh for as long as possible by removing all the leaflets
from the stems and storing in an inverted wide-mouth mason jar towards
the front of the fridge.)
5. In a pint jar combine ginger with:
1 1/2 T balsamic vinegar
1 tsp. demerara sugar
1/8 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 tsp. miso paste
6. Transfer cucumbers and turnips to a serving bowl or 4 individual salad bowls.Pour the vinaigrette over the cucumbers and turnips and toss to coat. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
7. Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds and chopped parsley, keeping any extra for other recipes.
To make this a main meal, you can toss in 1/2 cups of cooked beans or feta cheese and 1/3 cup of walnuts. You can serve over a bed of fresh spinach or cooked quinoa or toss with 2 cups of cooked wheat berries.
For the June 10 Glade Road Growing expects to deliver lettuce mix, salanova lettuce, kale, radishes, garlic scapes, rainbow chard and summer squash.
So what are scapes?
Scapes are a flowering stalk each head of hard-neck garlic sends up this time of year. Glade Road harvests the scapes while they are tender, not only to provide a versatile veggie, but to preserve the nutrients for the garlic bulbs so that they will be bigger when they are dug up later in the season.
My favorite use for scapes is pesto
I combine the scapes with kale to make it slightly milder and a brighter green. I make my version lower-fat by using water, but you can substitute equal amount of extra-virgin olive oil for a richer condiment.
Yield: about 1-1/2 cups of pesto.
1 cup garlic scapes (about 8 or 9 scapes) cut into ¼-inch slices
3-5 leaves kale (I prefer lacinato, but I'm not sure what kind we're getting tomorrow. Remove the tough stems, roll the leaves slice thinly (i.e. chiffonade)
up to 3/4 c water or olive oil
1/3 cup walnuts, almonds or pecans, toasted, if desired
1/2 cup grated Asiago, Romano or Parmesan cheese
fresh ground black pepper to taste
Directions:
Place scapes, kale and nuts in a heavy-duty blender or a food processor and grind until well combined, but still chunky, drizzling in water or oil as needed to process.
Using a spatula, transfer to a pint mason jar and stir in cheese, Grind in pepper to taste.
Your pesto will keep for up to a week in the refrigerator. If you don't want to use it right away, transfer it to an ice-cube tray and freeze. Remove cubes and store in an air-tight container and defrost and use one cube at a time throughout the year until scapes come back in season.
This pesto is great tossed with pasta (hot or cold in a pasta salad) or served as a spread on breads.
Photo from Diane Dyer Other alternatives for scapes
Scapes are most pungent when raw. They can be chopped and added to salad dressing.
For a milder flavor, lightly steam the scapes and toss with soy sauce and sesame oil or saute them in butter or olive oil, the same way you would for green beans or asparagus. They will be crunchy with a mild flavor of garlic.
If you have never heard of salanova lettuce...
it's because this variety just began being sold commercially in 2013, after being developed a few years ago by the Netherlands global seed company Rijk Zwaan. Here's a picture from Glade Road Growing's facebook page:
And if you want recipes for Swiss Chard
Chard is in the beet family, so it's sweeter than kale and can be used whenever you would use spinach. I like chard steam or sauteed as a side veggie or combined with eggs in omelets, frittatas and quiches.
Photo from Food Network. I first published this post on 6/13/14 at 10:03 PM and last updated it on 6/7/2014 to include a recipe for leeks and spinach and to add tags. *
Today, Glade Road Growing delivered its first farm shares, which included spinach, head lettuce, dill, broccoli, and leeks. I picked up my bag of produce at Vintage Cellar. Here's a recipe you might want to try for Broccoli and Dill Raita Slaw:
1 cup plain non-fat yogurt
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro
1 tablespoons minced fresh dill
1/2 tablespoon Garlic minced
1/2 tablespoon Ginger minced
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 medium shallot or 1 TB onions minced
2 cups of broccoli (peeled and sliced stems and florets)
2 cups shredded carrots
1/4 cup dried cranberries or pomegranate seeds
1/2 cup sliced almonds, toasted
If you like you can lightly steam the broccoli and carrots or use them raw for more crunch.
In a large bowl, whisk together all of the ingredients except the broccoli, carrots, cranberries, and almonds. Taste for seasoning and adjust.
Add remaining ingredients and gently toss. Chill before serving.
*
For your leeks and spinach, you can try this soup:
*
I'm lucky to swap veggies for posting a recipe every week here and on facebook.
The website has a sign up for July due by 6/29/14 here and that Sally Walker recommends early sign up for the remaining 2014 growing season through November since she and Jason sold out of the monthly shares this month. They are still willing to swap some volunteer time for produce this month, but it will have to be picked up at the farm (2351 Glade Road, Blacksburg, Virginia). Planned crops include:
May 30, I'll be seeing the Participant Media film Cesar Chavez at the Lyric, which reminded me of this poem after I drove down to St. Paul in Wise County, Virginia on July 4, 1989 with other staff members of the New River Free Press. Both Chavez and Jessie Jackson spoke that day. The next day, U.S. District Judge Glen Williams in Abingdon would fine the United Mine Workers and two union officers an
additional $720,000 for violating his ban on forming convoys to slow
down trucks delivering coal.
I compiled the illustration from a photograph in the article on the strike which appeared in the March-April 2009 issue of the United Mine Worker's Journal and a photo from the archives of the United Farm Workers. I first published this post 5/30/14 at 6:13 pm and updated it on 8/13/14, to incorporate the photo at the end of the poem and the following explaination, which I had first drafted earlier, but never posted.
*
Before striking April 5, 1989, the United Mine Workers toiled sixteen months without a contract after Pittston Corporation cut medical benefits to families and pensioners. Pittston faults the union for blocking prosperity in the region.
COAL STRIKE
Independence Day 1989
drizzles its way into
St. Paul, Virginia.
Miners, wives, kids,
supporters
in this mucked field
all decked out in camo
savor watermelon
handed off the back of pick-ups.
Beneath a banner by
New Jersey painters,
Caesar Chavez
farmworker organizer
come all the way from California
bolsters the Pittston strikers:
Non-violence will draw others to your cause... The judge cannot put the whole world in jail.
*
West Virginia.
It was Pittston
who dumped slag in Buffalo Creek,
clogged the Middle Fork
starting back in '57.
Five underground mines,
two augers, one strip,
yielded up a thousand
tons of gob a day
black as the coal it came from
crisp as cinders till the rain
slushed it to an oily batter.
Wet or dry, gob steamed,
along with mine posts,
crib blocks, roof bolts
dumped sixty feet high
and behind it, the black lake.
February 1972.
Those days were wet days,
rain and flurries of snow.
And on the 26th
when the dam of uncompacted slag
began to seep
and the sheriff
sent two deputies around
to get the people up the hillsides
the company sent the lawmen home
and issued no warnings.
One minute before eight
black water roared through,
scraping a million tons of refuse,
fusing it to rolling lava,
hurling mushroom clouds of mud
hundreds of feet high
to land on Saunders
destroying the power line.
The one surviving clock
served by that line
abruptly stopped.
8:01 a.m..
*
This strike's
gone on a hundred days.
Miners, wives,
pensioners black-lunged
and crush-legged,
preachers from Roanoke
lie down in the roads,
slow their cars
to block the coal trucks.
The judge jails folks for lying down,
for driving slow.
Pittston prints full-page ads
boasting its generous spirit
its love of these mountains.
*
Think of that black lake
beginning to seep through the slag.
It is the voices that haunt you.
Someone near Saunders: I was about 150 foot above where the water come out. It was burning there. Water hit fire, it shot right through the air 200 foot high, right through the air. There was dust and black smoke and when we looked again the water was down the smoke cleared and we couldn't see nary a thing not a living thing nothing standing.
Or at Kistler all the way down by the mouth of the creek: Have you ever pushed a rubber ball down in the water and turned it loose? The house jumped plumb up like that. I cannot explain that water as being water. It looked like a black ocean black as coal dust where the ground had opened up. If you had thrown a milk carton out in the river that's the way the homes skimmed along. The water was a thing alive coming after us to get us all. I still think of it as a live thing.
Or at Amherst: The whole town just raised started moving down the hollow, just like it was sitting. I seen the first house hit the bridge and then the second then the third and fourth and then a mobile home just vanished underneath. There was three women in it they was standing in a big picture window and their mouths was moving. I gathered they was hollering.
*
No warning issued.
Miles of track
coiled to barbed wire.
125 corpses
flood-lynched from tree limbs,
buried in silt piles,
washed up limp on the creek banks.
To this day
seven have not been found.
And three children's bodies
of identical size
too battered to tell apart
lie in anonymous graves.
The story is
that they were headless.
*
And when a tire is flatted,
a windshield broken out,
the judge calls this violence.
The above photograph is uncredited, but maybe Dave Peyton, who reported on the flood for the Herald Dispatch, along with the legendary Jack Hardin, could tell me who the photographer was.
Peyton is now with the Charleston Daily Mail, but he talks about going down to Man, at the mouth of Buffalo Creek in Logan County, with Hardin here, in Bob Weaver's Hur Herald. (h/t to Rachel) Weaver's account published his own account there last year, when he accompanied Peyton to the 4oth anniversary of of the flood, having himself been on the scene in 1972, having left his funeral home in Spencer, WV to join his National Guard unit in Man.
In 1989, I started writing the poem you'll find above, juxtaposes the accounts recorded by Kai Erickson from survivors of Pittston's disastrous flood with my observations of the coal strike against the company seventeen years later, when it canceled health insurance to benefits for approximately 1,500 retirees, widows, and disabled miners and refused to contribute to the benefit trust for miners who retired before 1974. The infamous Massey Energy latter bought out Pittston.
I had traveled down to the strike on July 4 that year with friends who worked on the late, great New River Free Press. (You can read about the end of the the Free Press here, but there are factual errors because the reporter took the word of those he interviewed.
As an all-volunteer advocacy journalism project, we believed that we were not constrained from activism, so long as our writing was fact-based and we disclosed our bias, which we did in a mission statement (which I don't have handy and have asked our one-time archivist if he can help me out.) John Enangonio wrote about the strike for the paper, but it's not available online.
Erik Loomis who teaches history at the University of Rhode Island (email, website) wrote about the strike for the Lawyers, Guns and Money blog.
Screen Shot from "EPA cleanup - what's the public's right to know?" shows a photo of Radford Arsenal's Open Burning Ground by EPA used by WDBJ7 and obtained from the Environmental Patriots of the New River Valley via a Freedom of Information Act request. I originally posted this piece at 7:09 PM on 5/23/14 and updated it at 2:36 PM on 5/24/14 to clarify that it was the New River Environmental Patriots which obtained the EPA report and provided it to WDBJ7 as indicated by
If you use public or well water in the New River Valley or breathe the air, your health may be compromised by the Radford Army Ammunition Plant in Pulaski and Montgomery Counties (not Radford, as indicated at the link by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality: cities are independent in Virginia.) Despite Army's plan to clean up the plant, it operates open burning grounds and dumping into the New River in karst terrain.
In the past local media acted as a megaphone for the arsenal. That's changing
Read first, this 2010 Roanoke Times Report report by Laurence Hammack, which while it included some information on the pollution, led with praise by environmental regulators. (He's usually better at investigating: consider his award winning coverage of supermax prisons).
Compare it with the special report by Orlando Salinas at the CBS affiliate, WDBJ7 which reported that the EPA issued a unique permit as a way to protect the economic development of the facility instead of the Superfund permit warranted by the EPA's own investigation.
At Citizens' Request, the CDC is studying pollution by the Arsenal
The deadline to comment is tonight. I'll put up more particulars later, but I wanted to provide folks with sample letters from Palmer-Oberlender and Gregory Nelson of the Environmental Patriots of the New River Valley (EPNRV) with their public comments to the Center for Disease Control Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) on a health consultation study which leaves much to be desired. Both invite you to cut and paste or otherwise adapt their letters found at the bottom of this entry, if you'd like to go on record. Please send something before midnight to:
Use Radford Army Ammunition Plant Comments as the subject with the facility ID VA1210020730 and be sure to include your name and complete address. If you want to cite the exact study, it is "Health Consultation Evaluation of Potential for Chemicals Released to Groundwater or Surface Water to Affect Drinking Water In Nearby Community of the Radford Army Ammunition Plant Radford Virginia EPA Facility ID VA1210020730." If you can't meet that deadline due to the small amount of notice I am providing you might want to ask that the comment period be extended.
The CDC "Let us Down"
Devawn Palmer-Oberlender has been working on this issue since 2006). She has organized other citizens to form EPNRV and reminds us that the Arsenal "has been the largest polluter in the Commonwealth of Virginia for over ten years. Despite this dubious distinction, the facility as currently operated by BAE Systems (whose Chairman of the Board is Michael Chertoff) fails to protect the surrounding community from toxic emissions coming out of the plant daily."
When NRVEP asked the ATSDR for an assessment of exposure they believe they were
"let down" by a decision to fund the study through the Department of Defense and omit data relevant to exposure risk.
She and the group are hopeful that the resignation of ATSDR's Director resulting from conflicts with the contaminated Marines from Camp Lejeune "sets a positive precedent for communities subjected to contamination from military bases to get the kind of thorough, scientific assessment that this agency of the Centers for Disease Control is charged with providing."
She wonders whether "the decades long obfuscation of the facts about our toxic exposure may also be related to the recent Washington Post and NPR reports on the Inspector General having been blocked from investigating certain EPA sites by their heretofore unknown office of homeland security."
A proper study of the arsenal's pollution should monitor perchlorate
Perchlorate is a marker since it is used to produce rocket fuel, fireworks, flares and explosives. Palmer-Oberlender notes that Arsenal burns not only its own waste but that of "Grucci Fireworks and other tenants "who are not producing anything for military use." She calls this "a violation of environmental law and the public trust."
Back in 2008 Barbara Boxer called for perchlorate regulation
Juliet Eilperin, who at the time was reporting on environmental issues for the Washington Post quoted Boxer as saying
Perchlorate has been a serious, persistent and widespread problem which threatens the health of our families, especially our children...For the Bush EPA to walk away from this problem and shrug off this danger is, in my view, unforgivable and immoral.
Perchlorate remains unregulated
While this chemical can disrupt the thyroid’s ability to produce hormones needed for normal growth and development, it is still unregulated by the EPA.
The industry (including Aerojet, American Pacific Corporation, ATK and Lockheed Martin) works "cooperatively" with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to try to convince it to keep the chemical unregulated, which in an Orwellian twist it calls increasing "scientific and medical understanding of perchlorate's risk to human health." In addition, it has a website disingenuously called the Perchlorate Information Center to convince the public that perchlorate is not and endocrine disruptor. (Yeah, kind of like how the tobacco industry told us smoking was GOOD for our health.) By the way, I used a no follow link for what should be called the Disinformation Center so as not to boost the page rank in searches. Stop forcing us to choose between our jobs and health
It's time for some environmental justice here in Appalachia. We too often hear that it's jobs OR health, a choice that we shouldn't have to make.
I've written before on the rhetoric of the coal industry and the so-called War on Coal. It appears that what President Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex is using the same arguments and the EPA took its marching orders. Isn't it time for them to reverse course and shouldn't the Center for Disease Control be helping us provide data on what is at stake.
*
Devawn Palmer-Oberlender's Comments on the ATSDR Study
I am very, very concerned for the people that live in our area because the Radford Army Ammunition Plant Assessment
did not include test results from the U.S. Army in 2010, confirming that ground water at 16 of 16 test wells across the Main Manufacturing Area (MMA) have significant perchlorate contamination. The sinkholes at the Open Burning Ground (OBG) and other places in the MMA where the perchlorate persists to this day present constitute an identified point source for cross-contamination through the Karst features beneath all of the MMA. Numerous sinkholes identified by the Virginia Dept. Of Mines & Minerals confirms their potential to serve as conduits for toxins to travel into wells off site. These documented sinkholes in the MMA, including those beneath the Open Burning Ground where perchlorate may have been a component in each of the 233 open burns conducted last year alone, are the "smoking gun" that ought to compel ATSDR to require additional well testing. The widespread perchlorate contamination in soil, surface and groundwater, at RAAP according to the U.S. Army and results from private contractors at RAAP over decades, are facts that cry out for a more thorough risk assessment to safeguard our community.
Clearly, the ongoing contamination of groundwater, soil and surface waters by disposal of waste from Grucci Fireworks at the OBG makes the presence of perchlorate in 4 of 5 wells tested by the Sierra Club a significant finding. It is highly unlikely that the private wells tested were contaminated with perchlorate from any source other than the operations at RAAP. A more sensitive test to differentiate whether it is ammonium perchlorate in these private wells would help to delineate the point source. The data are clear and it seems only prudent and in the interest of public safety to recommend that all municipal and private wells in the areas surrounding RAAP be tested to confirm or disprove cross-contamination from RAAP. The Federal Facility which is the source of the contamination has a moral, if not legal, obligation to pay for the testing that will ensure citizens are not subject to drinking their toxic waste as disposed of by open burning to the air we breathe and ultimately "rains out" and into the water our children drink. Please see the attached maps from the HHRA of 2005 illustrating the dispersal pattern and reason for our concern. The attached EPA document on perchlorate as an "emerging contaminant" discusses dispersal through soil and substantiates the likelihood that the perchlrote found in 80% of wells tested around RAAP last year is coming from the production and disposal at the facility.
The findings of CH2MHill in their 2005 assessment of the Open Burning Ground performed for Alliant Techsystems included maps of contaminant distribution which are attached. Perchlorate is known to readily leach from the soil where it falls after each burn. As this and other toxins become part of the GW recharge in this Karst aquifer, the potential for widespread diffusion into wells outside of the RAAP boundary is very real. Please note that the CH2MHill study of the OBG indicates "special receptors" for the particulate matter which are upstream of the intake for the Blacksburg/Christiansburg/VPI Water Authority in addition to numerous points on the river downstream of the OBG.(see River Receptors map). The combination of air dispersal over a wide area and direct deposition into the New River, which serves as a source of drinking water and recreational fishing, is of great concern to our community, especially those using wells and municipal water. (see Receptor Grid map). The source of perchlorate already found in four private wells is likely to be the Radford Arsenal, which can be confirmed with more extensive and accurate testing. Please note the attached EPA guidance document which confirms how perchlorate moves in soil, the association of perchlorate with the production that has taken place at RAAP since 1941 and most importantly, the importance of this ongoing source of perchlorate, barium, aluminum, chromium and other toxins being emitted from the "skid burns" at the Open Burning Ground. It is incumbent upon your agency to assess our risk to exposure through air and the migration of GW off site of the Arsenal. The tests cited in your report confirming perchlorate in 4 of 5 wells tested simply cannot be ruled out as coming from the documented point sources at RAAP without more testing and analysis.
Therefore, we implore your agency to recommend testing of all drinking water wells within a three mile radius of the MMA boundary to rule out this route of exposure. The community in this "impact zone," cannot and ought not be asked to bear the financial burden to test for contaminants from the production and waste disposal processes at RAAP. The Dinitrotoluene isomers, chromium other chemicals included in the permit for the OBG at RAAP are specific to their production and unlikely to have any other source - agricultural or otherwise. The EPA called for this thorough, extensive testing of all DW wells within a two mile radius of EACH contaminated site in 1992, but that testing was never done. The EPA Deficiency Report for the Hazard Rating Score assigned to RAAP in 1992 makes clear that their risk assessors considered this testing essential to an honest characterization of the risk we face from RAAP. Please afford us the testing and complete risk assessment that was called for by EPA over two decades ago and is now warranted given the detection of perchlorate in wells off site of the facility. Independent testing by an EPA certified lab is the only way for your agency to conclude with certainty that perchlorate and other contaminants unique to RAAP have not migrated through the Karst terrain into the 180 plus private and two municipal wells in the exposure zone shown on the maps from the CH2MHill Risk Assessment of 2005.
Money should not be an issue for this Federal Facility to fund the widespread testing required at this site. The private contractor operating the facility, BAE Systems, along with the Department of Defense, who owns the facility and paid for this assessment, have the resources at their disposal to finance the testing that will rule out a clear and present threat to the health and safety of our children who drink water and breathe air every day that may be contaminated with the endocrine-disrupting chemical, perchlorate and other RAAP generated toxins. Just think what that public money could do to ensure public safety by testing the water and ambient air quality. I do not believe our tax dollars should be spent for water treatment plants in foreign lands while neglecting to provide for homeland security by protecting this Appalachian community from the environmental impact of munitions and fireworks production at RAAP. It is unconscionable for our military and enormous pentagon budget to be directed outside of America while at the same time we are not testing water quality and air quality beyond the Arsenal boundary, manufacturing both critical weapons for soldiers as well as fireworks and ammunition being produced solely for the private market. We ask for due diligence and the DoD funding for this assessment to be extended to protect the health and safety of our community around the A rsenal, both workers and families subjected to daily toxic emissions from RAAP. Please consider the EPA's own TRI data which indicates the health risk we face from RAAP is five orders of magnitude higher than for Americans living around similar chemical manufacturing facilities nationwide, even though emissions from the OBG are not reported on the TRI!
We urge a more in-depth review of ambient air quality downwind of the OBG and well water testing with our tax dollars , as allocated by the Department of Defense for this assessment. Please note also that the MMA is not located in Radford and the dispersal map shows it is the people living in Pulaski and Montgomery Counties which surround the MMA ought to be the target audience for study and information. It seems that no one in the one mile radius map on page 4 of the report was contacted about the public meetings nor asked for input about their well water quality. The number of private wells noted on page 7 is a small fraction of those currently in use in this same area. U.S. Census records for 2010 and data readily available from both Montgomery and Pulaski County officials who must approve each new private well, confirm that there are now over 180 private wells in this vicinity, not the small number extracted from data in the 1990's. In fact, a large subdivision, built to accommodate HUD subsidized housing has been built since the 2010 Census at the corner of Route 114 and Prices Fork Road and may be using water supplied by RAAP or a source well. There are a lot of children being born and growing up there who deserve a thorough assessment of their exposure risk.
Thank you very, very much for requesting input from those who care about our community, especially for the future of our environment and for our fellow citizens.
Gregory Nelson's Comments
Dear ATSDR and Dr. Forrester,
Environmental Patriots invited me to a meeting with Dr. Dyken on April 30th at the Inn of Virginia Tech. I met your representatives and discussed with them my concerns about growing up less than a mile from the horseshoe bend area in Montgomery County Virginia. My mother after having cancer twice was advised by her endocrinologist at Duke University not to drink her private well water. I am deeply concerned about the lack of study in your report regarding the open burning ground and soil contamination.
Thus, I have prepared formal public comments:
This is notification of formal submission of the following public comments for the "Health Consultation Evaluation of Potential for Chemicals Released to Groundwater or Surface Water to Affect Drinking Water In Nearby Community of the Radford Army Ammunition Plant Radford EPA Facility ID: VA1210020730"
Comment # 1
On Page 38 the report states, “Second, private wells near RFAAP are unlikely to be affected by releases from the facility. Therefore, contaminants from RFAAP in drinking water from private wells near RFAAP are unlikely to harm people’s heath.”
This conclusion is based on failure to include into the model of risk assessment contamination from airborne particulates from the Open Burning Ground (OBG) passing into the groundwater as a result of rainfall in the nearby community identified in the 2005 Risk Assessment of the Open Burning Ground conducted by CH2MHill INC. While ATSDR officials claim that no data exists on the fallout of the open burning ground or air quality monitoring the Atomic Energy Commissions testing at Operation Buster-Jangle in 1951 and further above ground nuclear operations shows the long history of technologies and science for monitoring air quality. The government has used them for decades in the Nevada Proving Ground Activities. Given that drones can be outfitted with air quality monitors the excuse that no data exists is unacceptable and warrants the further investigation of the connections between soil, air and water contamination at the facility. Testing of the emissions from the OBG must be conducted using over 60 years of air quality monitoring technologies and sciences that were developed during the above ground nuclear testing project at the Nevada Proving Ground combined with the Department of Defense’s robust drone program.
Comment # 2
The failure to include contaminated soil in the report ignores the fundamental connection between land, air and water. When it rains the water passes through the contaminated soil and absorbs contaminates therefore, your report must include a study of soil. By only focusing on the water under the site this report ignore the potential pathways soil and air contamination can enter the water. As water is in the air in the form of water vapor your report is inadequate and does not begin to capture the interdependencies between soil water and air contamination. This lack of scientific rigor fails the community who are asking for robust science with the best available technology used in detection, monitoring, and cleanup of this RCRA site.
Comment #3
While the report claims “It is physically impossible for substances released to move upstream against the flow of the New River…” , the above conclusion is unacceptable when considering fluid mechanics of a diffusion gradient through a porous medium in the ground water under the plant. Since the surrounding area and the facility sit upon Karst topography with multiple sink holes identified in the Virginia Department of Mines and Minerals map under the facility and specifically the open burning ground. The report cannot and should not assume the ground water contamination chemicals list identified on pages 63-70 of the report is moving only in the flow of gravity with the river. Rather, the fluid dynamics and mechanics of a diffusion flow process in a porous medium dictates that diffusion can occur against the force of gravity . A simple at home experiment illustrates this effect. Using a Rubber Maid container filled with water on a 30 degree angle with sand and porous limestone with a small 2cm hole on the downhill side of the container, in order to simulate flow, indicates that if food coloring is added at the lowest point of the apparatus the food coloring diffuses upwards through the porous medium against gravity overcoming the 30 degree angle on which the experiment is placed. Furthermore adding food coloring at the bottom of a cup with an eye dropper shows how the material will propagate upwards in the vessel against the flow of gravity.
Comment #4
Your conclusion of page 39 states, “ATSDR does not have site-specific recommendations for well testing since this evaluation showed private wells are unlikely to be affected by RFAAP. However, ATSDR recommends that all private well users monitor the quality of their water well.” You are attempting to have your cake and eat it at the same time by basically saying there is no problem. Given that your report indicates that the presence of perchlorate in the 4 out of 5 wells tested by the Sierra Club in close proximity to the facility. Given on page 26, Table 7, the Sierra Club well testing of 5 private wells within close range of the arsenal found Perchlorate in 4 out of 5 wells, a chemical signature of activities of the Arsenal, placing the burden on residents to test wells for chemicals not considered in Virginia Tech’s extension office water testing program, is unjust and violates the principles of Executive Order 12898 on Environmental Justice. You should consider the diffusion flow process through a porous medium and mandate testing be done on the polluters expense in accordance with the March 1992 HRS Scoring Deficiency Responses as part of the Army Corps of Engineers Preliminary Assessment Report Addendum for the Radford Army Ammunition Plant. By placing the burden of testing on home owners who cannot afford the rigorous testing for obscure chemicals generated by operations at the arsenal this report mirrors the efforts of the Atomic Energy Commission officials in St. George Utah to hid the effects of nuclear testing on the communities. The failure to collect data is not an excuse for why data cannot be collected.
Comment #5 The ATSDR Assessment did not include test results from the U.S. Army in 2010, confirming that ground water at 16 of 16 test wells across the Main Manufacturing Area (MMA) have significant perchlorate contamination. The sinkholes at the Open Burning Ground (OBG) and other places in the MMA where the perchlorate persists to this day present constitute an identified point source for cross-contamination through the Karst features beneath all of the MMA. Numerous sinkholes identified by the Virginia Dept. Of Mines & Minerals confirms their potential to serve as conduits for toxins to travel into wells off site. These documented sinkholes in the MMA, including those beneath the Open Burning Ground where perchlorate may have been a component in each of the 233 open burns conducted last year alone, are the "smoking gun" that ought to compel ATSDR to require additional well testing. The widespread perchlorate contamination in soil, surface and groundwater, at RAAP according to the U.S. Army and results from private contractors at RAAP over decades, are facts that cry out for a more thorough risk assessment to safeguard our community.
Comment #6
Clearly, the ongoing contamination of groundwater, soil and surface waters by disposal of waste from Grucci Fireworks at the OBG makes the presence of perchlorate in 4 of 5 wells tested by the Sierra Club a significant finding. It is highly unlikely that the private wells tested were contaminated with perchlorate from any source other than the operations at RAAP. A more sensitive test to differentiate whether it is ammonium perchlorate in these private wells would help to delineate the point source. The data are clear and it seems only prudent and in the interest of public safety to recommend that all municipal and private wells in the areas surrounding RAAP be tested to confirm or disprove cross-contamination from RAAP. The Federal Facility which is the source of the contamination has a moral, if not legal, obligation to pay for the testing that will ensure citizens are not subject to drinking their toxic waste as disposed of by open burning to the air we breathe and ultimately "rains out" and into the water our children drink. Please see the attached maps from the HHRA of 2005 illustrating the dispersal pattern and reason for our concern. The attached EPA document on perchlorate as an "emerging contaminant" discusses dispersal through soil and substantiates the likelihood that the perchlorate found in 80% of wells tested around RAAP last year is coming from the production and disposal at the facility.
Comment #7
The findings of CH2MHill in their 2005 assessment of the Open Burning Ground performed for Alliant Techsystems included maps of contaminant distribution which are attached. Perchlorate is known to readily leach from the soil where it falls after each burn. As this and other toxins become part of the GW recharge in this Karst aquifer, the potential for widespread diffusion into wells outside of the RAAP boundary is very real. Please note that the CH2MHill study of the OBG indicates "special receptors" for the particulate matter which are upstream of the intake for the Blacksburg/Christiansburg/VPI Water Authority in addition to numerous points on the river downstream of the OBG.(see River Receptors map). The combination of air dispersal over a wide area and direct deposition into the New River, which serves as a source of drinking water and recreational fishing, is of great concern to our community, especially those using wells and municipal water. (see Receptor Grid map). The source of perchlorate already found in four private wells is likely to be the Radford Arsenal, which can be confirmed with more extensive and accurate testing. Please note the attached EPA guidance document which confirms how perchlorate moves in soil, the association of perchlorate with the production that has taken place at RAAP since 1941 and most importantly, the importance of this ongoing source of perchlorate, barium, aluminum, chromium and other toxins being emitted from the "skid burns" at the Open Burning Ground. It is incumbent upon your agency to assess our risk to exposure through air and the migration of GW off site of the Arsenal. The tests cited in your report confirming perchlorate in 4 of 5 wells tested simply cannot be ruled out as coming from the documented point sources at RAAP without more testing and analysis.
Comment #7
I implore your agency to recommend testing of all drinking water wells within a three mile radius of the MMA boundary to rule out this route of exposure. The community in this "impact zone," cannot and ought not be asked to bear the financial burden to test for contaminants from the production and waste disposal processes at RAAP. The Dinitrotoluene isomers, chromium other chemicals included in the permit for the OBG at RAAP are specific to their production and unlikely to have any other source - agricultural or otherwise. The EPA called for this thorough, extensive testing of all DW wells within a two mile radius of EACH contaminated site in 1992, but that testing was never done. The EPA Deficiency Report for the Hazard Rating Score assigned to RAAP in 1992 makes clear that their risk assessors considered this testing essential to an honest characterization of the risk we face from RAAP. Please afford us the testing and complete risk assessment that was called for by EPA over two decades ago and is now warranted given the detection of perchlorate in wells off site of the facility. Independent testing by an EPA certified lab is the only way for your agency to conclude with certainty that perchlorate and other contaminants unique to RAAP have not migrated through the Karst terrain into the 180 plus private and two municipal wells in the exposure zone shown on the maps from the CH2MHill Risk Assessment of 2005.
Comment # 8
Money should not be an issue for this Federal Facility to fund the widespread testing required at this site. The private contractor operating the facility, BAE Systems, along with the Department of Defense, who owns the facility and paid for this assessment, have the resources at their disposal to finance the testing that will rule out a clear and present threat to the health and safety of our children who drink water and breathe air every day that may be contaminated with the endocrine-disrupting chemical, perchlorate and other RAAP generated toxins.
Comment # 9
Please note also that the MMA is not located in Radford and the dispersal map shows it is the people living in Pulaski and Montgomery Counties which surround the MMA ought to be the target audience for study and information. It seems that no one in the one mile radius map on page 4 of the report was contacted about the public meetings nor asked for input about their well water quality. The number of private wells noted on page 7 is a small fraction of those currently in use in this same area. U.S. Census records for 2010 and data readily available from both Montgomery and Pulaski County officials who must approve each new private well, confirm that there are now over 180 private wells in this vicinity, not the small number extracted from data in the 1990's. In fact, a large subdivision, built to accommodate HUD subsidized housing has been built since the 2010 Census at the corner of Route 114 and Prices Fork Road and may be using water supplied by RAAP or a source well. There are a lot of children being born and growing up there who deserve a thorough assessment of their exposure risk.
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