Julie Hamos - A Real Leader Moves On

This was State Rep. Julie Hamos' last week in the Illinois House. As she prepares to take on a tough assignment as Gov. Quinn's pick to head the Illinois Dept. of Health and Family Services, I'm thinking a lot of the many important battles she led or helped lead during her decade in the Illinois House.

It's an impressive list. Clearly, Illinois is a healthier, greener, more prosperous place for her efforts. Just as clear is the big vacancy in the Illinois House environmental leadership corps.

Here are a few of Julie's accomplishments:

Better Building Codes To Save Energy & Cut Costs
Julie was the chief sponsor of legislation passed in 2009 that will require all new construction in Illinois to be built to state-of-the-art standards for energy efficiency, which will reduce pollution and save homeowners money on utility bills.

Restoring State Funding For Open Space Protection
When George Ryan raided state funds dedicated to acquiring parks and open space for future generations, Julie Hamos led the fight to restore full funding for our parks. Later, Hamos helped fight off further attempts by Rod Blagojevich to raid park funds.

Promoting Local, Organic Agriculture
Julie Hamos passed legislation establishing the Local and Organic Food and Farm Task Force to promote sustainable food systems.

Saving Illinois Public Transportation
Julie Hamos led the fight to prevent drastic cuts in Metra, Pace, and CTA service by devoting new state funds to mass transit, and fought to shift state dollars away from new roads that would further suburban sprawl toward our mass transit systems.

Julie has also been a major force behind legislation to promote renewable energy, bring cleaner cars to Illinois, protect Illinois' remaining wetlands, and protect Lake Michigan from invasive alien species. She was working to protect the Great Lakes from invaders long before most of us had even heard of Asian Carp.

In 2009, Hamos was honored with the Environmental Leadership Award by the Illinois Environment Council for her efforts in creating energy efficiency building standards legislation.



Julie has a great mind for strategy, and isn't shy about taking on tough fights. I know I'm a better advocate for having worked with her, and I'm glad she will be helping Gov. Quinn in such a tough time at such an important agency.

I've met Robyn Gabel, Hamos' successor in the General Assembly, and I think she'll bring her own style of leadership to these issues, after two decades of fighting for children's health. She'll be a strong, fresh voice, and Springfield can sure use that.

But we'll still miss Julie. We wish her well in her new post.

Chicago #5 in Green Buildings; Saves $50M/Year

A new national study by USEPA finds that the Chicago region ranks 5th in the country in terms of number of buildings that earned an "Energy Star" rating for their energy efficiency.

As of 2009, the Chicago area had 134 energy efficient buildings which save $50.2 million each year in energy costs, and eliminate the pollution associated with powering, heating, and cooling 44,500 homes.

Chicago moved up one spot from the previous year's rankings. Los Angeles, Washington DC, San Francisco, and Denver are the top four.

IL Senate Approves Nuclear Rate Hike Option

This week the Illinois Senate approved legislation to lift the moratorium on new nuclear power plant construction in Illinois. The bill now moves on to the Illinois House.

Nuclear power remains the most expensive and dangerous way to boil water ever invented. The exorbitant costs (investors want no part of it unless us taxpayers are on the hook for the construction, operation, and cleanup costs), and dangerous waste problem have meant little to no interest in building new nuclear in Illinois for many years.

Current Illinois law recognizes one of the very real problems with nuclear power - the lack of any permanent disposal site for the waste. As a result, we have high-level nuclear waste sitting at reactors around Illinois, with nowhere to send it. Under current law, there is a moratorium on new reactors until there's somewhere to put the waste.

That makes a lot of sense. Not only would it be unwise to create and pile on even more high-level nuclear waste in these communities, but new nuclear construction would saddle Illinois ratepayers with certain rate hikes. It would also threaten Illinois' growing renewable energy sector, which is one area of Illinois' economy that is strong and growing.

I can understand the temptation of all the construction jobs created by building a new nuclear power plant, but they're really just a pipe dream. No one is going to build a new reactor in Illinois unless ratepayers are saddled with the costs, and if they started today most of the jobs would be many years away, and short-term in nature.

A far better option for creating jobs now, with no risk, would be the RENEW package of clean energy proposals to jumpstart the Illinois solar energy industry and continue the growth of our wind industry. Those energy projects are much cheaper, will create jobs much faster, and of course leave us with cleaner communities to live in rather than bigger piles of dangerous wastes around our state.

If you agree we should be prioritizing clean energy jobs now, tell your State Representative to focus on better, faster, cheaper renewables.

Putting The Environment on Springfield's Agenda

Thanks to all who came up, down, and over for 2010 Environmental Lobby Day last Wednesday. We had a great time, had good meetings with 77 legislators, and added 22 new co-sponsors on our priority bills.

If you missed it, here are some of the highlights. Join us next year!

AG Cracks Down on Polluting Coal Mine

A McDonough County coal mine faces an enforcement action from Attorney General Lisa Madigan & her team after over 300 violations of Illinois clean water laws.

Company records show the Industry Mine repeatedly dumped contaminants into Grindstone Creek (left).

According to the Peoria Journal-Star:

In March 31, 2007, the mine was allowed to discharge a daily maximum of up to 7.0 milligrams per liter of iron, but actually discharged 47.9 milligrams per liter, according to the complaint.

The alleged violations stretch back to 2004 and are as recent as December 2009.

"Some of these (violations) are just outrageous," said Joyce Blumenshine, who is a member of the Heart of Illinois Group Sierra Club, which, along with the Environmental Law and Policy Center and the Prairie Rivers Network, filed paperwork in December to sue the mine.

The strip mine is located southwest of Macomb, and has over 300 water permit violations polluting area streams since 2004. The mine discharges into Grindstone Creek, a beautiful Illinois stream with a historic heron rookery and a maternity roost tree of federally endangered Indiana Bats.

The Springfield Coal Company, which owns the Industry Mine, is now seeking permission to open a new mine near Canton Lake (below), source of drinking water for Canton. Canton residents are worried that the violations at the McDonough County mine bode ill for their beloved Canton Lake, and their water supply.

It's great to see the Attorney General stepping in to enforce the law here. There is a lot of talk these days about how to deal with all of their air pollution from burning coal. These violations are a reminder that we also need to do a better job protecting our water supply and farmland from the impacts of coal mining.

Latest MWRD Excuse For Not Making the Chicago River Safe: Global Warming

Today's Tribune article demonstrates the lengths the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District will go to keep open the giant loophole that allows them to deny Chicagoans the same protection the give suburban residents - killing dangerous pathogens in their effluent before they dump it in the Chicago River system.

MWRD disinfects the treated water they discharge to the DuPage River system, but is spending taxpayer dollars fighting the State of Illinois' attempts to make them clean up their act. The City of Chicago, the Illinois Attorney General, and a coalition of environmental, health, and recreation advocates also support cleanup.

The Tribune has the latest in MWRD's campaign to maintain the status quo:

Engineers with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago recently completed an in-house study of its carbon footprint at the request of the elected board of commissioners. Going beyond the assignment, they also decided to look at how the footprint would change if it had to kill bacteria in sewage before pouring it into the Chicago River.

Starting to disinfect the wastewater — a change the 120-year-old agency has long opposed — would bolster the district's greenhouse gas emissions and thereby cause more bad than good, they concluded.

"With additional treatment, you have to weigh how much water quality is actually being accomplished with more harm to the environment in another way," said Louis Kollias, the director of the district's Monitoring and Research Department. "You're going to have to have it one way or the other. You can't have both."

Obviously reducing your carbon footprint is a good idea, for lots of reasons. Other local governments are doing that by buying renewable energy instead of dirty power, That's how the State of Illinois, the cities of Chicago and Springfield, and many others are doing.

I know of no efforts by MWRD to buy wind or solar power instead of coal. Instead, they plan for second-class sewage treatment? Are they looking at turning off disinfection in the suburbs, to save on energy costs?

This would all be funny if it weren't putting people at risk. And it is hardly a joke that MWRD is wasting our property tax dollars on lawyers and PR schemes like this, all supposedly in the name of cost effectiveness.

Consider it the latest reason to make smart choices when you vote for MWRD Commissioner February 2nd. Sierra Club's recommendations are here.

Manny Flores: A Clean Energy Champion for the ICC

This week Gov. Quinn nominated Chicago Ald. Manny Flores to be the new Chair of the Illinois Commerce Commission. If confirmed by the Illinois Senate, this is great news for everyone who stands to gain (and that means all of us) by moving to a new energy economy in Illinois.

Flores has been an environmental champion on the Chicago City Council, working to create green jobs in the city, promote clean energy, and remove toxic chemicals from consumer products. The Illinois Commerce Commission has not historically been considered a major environmental policymaking authority, but they are now squarely in the middle of major decisions about our energy future, including questions such as:

-Will we meet our target of 25% renewable energy by 2025? Can we exceed it, or reach it faster?
-Will we maximize efforts to cut utility bills by saving energy?
-Will we create the maximum number of new Illinois jobs in the process?

All this makes it perfect timing to have a clean energy leader take the helm at the ICC.

Here's an excerpt from a conversation I had with Flores about clean energy in November - when he attended a USEPA hearing on regulating global warming pollution. He talks about the imperative of moving now to participate in the new economy, and of a recent trip to South Korea, which is heading that way.



Hopefully the Illinois Senate, which itself has done a great deal in recent years to move Illinois to a clean energy future, will quickly confirm Flores.