On March 20th, 2007, Sierra Club and Concerned Citizens of Platte County announced a groundbreaking global warming agreement with Kansas City Power and Light (KCP&L) that ended all lawsuits against the company. In return for dropping all legal actions and challenges to the building of a new 850 MW power plant near Kansas City the company agreed to provide the largest investment in clean energy Sierra Club has secured to date (400 MW of wind and 300 MW of energy efficiency). The agreement allows the one coal plant under construction (out of their original plan for five coal plants) to continue on the condition that all 6,000,000 tons of annual CO2 emissions from the new plant will be offset with investments in energy efficiency and wind power. Read more...

Climate Change in Congress   by Henry Robertson, Chapter Energy Chair
You wouldn’t know it from the media, but there are actually bills in Congress that address climate change. It’s about time. The political will has been building from below, with individuals and businesses changing their ways, towns signing up to the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement (which the Sierra Club has adopted as its Cool Cities campaign) and many states passing laws for cleaner electricity, more efficient buildings and the like. A federal law, if it were serious enough, would do in one swoop what all these piecemeal efforts are groping towards. Best known is the McCain-Lieberman bill, officially titled the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act (S. 280). It would cap greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2010 at the level where they stood in 2000. This is weaker than the inadequate Kyoto Protocol. Only two bills would really do the job, setting an ambitious goal for GHG emissions of 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. Their stated objective is to avoid a temperature rise of 3.6°F (2°C) and hold the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere below 450 parts per million; it’s currently 381 ppm and growing at about 2 ppm per year. Read more...

Recycling . . . Where Does It Go?
by Colleen Sullivan
Recycling has changed a lot in the past few years. My recycle bin has gone from a small 2’ x 3’ plastic bin to a 50 gallon trash can with more volume than my can for “other” waste. What has changed? Eureka, Missouri, residents and many others who are serviced by IESI, Allied,Waste Management,Veolia and other independent haulers may no longer be limited to newspapers, cans and soda bottles. These haulers have the capability to offer single stream recycling which allows cans, glass bottles, aluminum trays and foil; plastics of all types (except #6); magazines, newspapers, junk mail, cardboard, pizza boxes and even waxed milk and juice cartons to be tossed into a single bin. Simply empty and rinse all containers. Read more...

by Becky Denney, Missouri Chapter Conservation Chair
  When the Taum Sauk Reservoir collapsed above Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park on December 14, 2005, questions about the Park Superintendent and the condition of his three children were foremost on our minds. But as they recovered and we breathed thanks that no one else was in the park, we speculated on how it could have happened. Everyone became aware of dam safety in Missouri.We suddenly found out that the State of Missouri had no jurisdiction over federal projects in Missouri. The complete inspection responsibility belonged to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The Taum Sauk Reservoir had passed an inspection in August of 2005. Read more...

My City Was Gone

by Dennis Love
published by William Morrow
Review by Caroline Pufalt
  Sierrans may remember Anniston, Alabama as “that town Monsanto polluted.” Readers will recall reading in 2003 of the unfolding trial regarding how decades of careless disregard for public health left the community contaminated with PCBs and it eventually resulted in a “$700 million day in court.” Now, a book by Anniston native, Dennis Love, recounts the human drama behind the city’s struggle with its toxic legacy. The book’s title, My City Was Gone, captures how Love felt returning to his beloved hometown to cover the issue. Read more...

Staff and Office in the 21st Century
by Jim Turner, Chapter Chair
When Carla Klein left to become director of the Wisconsin Chapter and Therese Folsom took a different job within the Club, our Executive Committee discussed whether the Columbia office was still useful. One of our chapter's critical needs is to have a staff member available throughout the year to closely monitor state regulatory agencies and lobby the legislature in Jefferson City. Doing this from the Columbia office meant travel expenses. The Columbia office also lacked space for meetings and was not accessible to disabled visitors. So we'll think toward opening an office in Jefferson City, when our chapter treasury level permits, to coordinate our volunteer activists in our attention to Missouri government. Read more...