OVEC’s staff and board hope you had an excellent Thanksgiving holiday. We figure you are on this list because you care about our region, you take action about our region, whether you live here or not, and we want you to know for that we are truly thankful!  What you do matters.

Author Elizabeth Catte, in a speech she was to deliver at our 2018 Treehuggers’ Ball—had Hurricane Florence not prevented her travel—says it more eloquently than we could: 

If you have been fighting this fight for decades, as OVEC has, thank you. You have saved land and people. You have created a healthier region. You have defied some of the most powerful corporations in the world. I read something very beautiful that Aaron Bady wrote for his mother Dianne, OVEC’s founder. He said: “Her accomplishments can be measured in what is absent. There is no pulp mill in Apple Grove. There is no BASF refinery in a low-income community near Huntington. There are mountaintop mines that never happened. And whether they know it or not, the people of the region breathe easier and drink clean water because of the life my mother lived and the work she did. There are cancers whose absence no one will know to thank her for.”

And if you are new to the movement, that is okay, too. Martin Luther King said, “In the unfolding conundrum of life and history there is no such thing as being too late.” Being a little late is always better than not knowing that there are no jobs on a dead planet, and that all the corporate growth in the world won’t make a difference without clean water and air.

No Petrochem Plastic Plant on the Ohio: Comment Online, Attend Hearing
As you may know, OVEC is working in coalition with a number of groups to stop the Appalachian Storage Hub (ASH), a massive petrochemical build-out proposed for our region that would require a huge increase in fracking, threaten our drinking water, increase threats to public health, and increase greenhouse gas emissions, even though the findings of recent studies and reports scream at us to do everything in our power to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions NOW. 

As an initial part of this ASH monstrosity, the PTTG Corporation wants to build an ethane cracker in Shadyside, Ohio, a town along the Ohio River, fairly close to Moundsville, WV. According to its air permit application, the air toxics the factory would emit in excess of one ton per year include hexane, ammonia, and ethyl chloride. The plant’s air pollution would include large quantities of fine particles, particles that travel from our lungs, into the blood, and cross the blood-brain barrier. In pregnant women, these particles cross from her blood stream into her baby’s umbilical cord. The particles can cause asthma, respiratory inflammation, jeopardize lung functions, and even promote cancers. 

One of the groups with which we are working in coalition, the Ohio Chapter Sierra Club, has made it easy for you to comment on the air permit, here. Please take action, but add a personalized comment. Decision makers pay the most attention to comments with a personal message.

If you are nearby, please make plans to attend the public hearing on this air permit (Draft Permit #P0124972) at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, November 27 at Shadyside High School, 3890 Lincoln Ave, Shadyside, OH 43947. Wear a white T-shirt for clean air! The deadline for written comments is December 11; e-mail comments to HClerk@epa.ohio.gov; more details here.

For more info, please read Dr. Randi Pokladnik’s column: Quality of our region’s air remains an issue

OVEC’s Dustin White will be there. If you need tips on how to make comments and some ideas about points to cover, e-mail info@ohvec.org.

There will be a hearing on this factory’s NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) permit on December 12. Watch our website calendar page for details.

ISO Green Lobbyists
The WV Environmental Council is seeking lobbying proposals for full time legislative lobbying during the 2019 regular Legislative Session, which runs from January 9 through March 9, 2019. Proposals due by November 30. Details here.

Easy E-Actions
Take Action Today, Vote Scheduled Tuesday: Tell Senators to vote no on Bernard McNamee for FERC

Expand solar access: Urge your WV legislators to support solar PPAs

Gonna Give on #GivingTuesday? Consider OVEC
We know that tomorrow your inbox and social media feeds will be inundated with all kinds of good causes asking for your donations. We hope OVEC will be on your list of groups to which you will donate. After all, we are asking you to help beat back the petrochemical zombie attack. You can beat the #GivingTuesday rush and donate today. If we do make your #GivingTuesday cut, please earmark your donations “billboard.” Or zombie is fine, too.

Other Upcoming Events
Tuesday, November 27, at 7 p.m. in Huntington: Inaugural One Night Stand Book Club: Hillbilly Elegy & What You’re Getting Wrong about Appalachia, hosted by Cicada Books & Coffee, just down the street from the OVEC office, at 604 14th Street West. Come on out and meet OVEC’s new staff member, organizer Alex Cole.

Tuesday, November 27, at 7 p.m. in Charleston: The Devil We Know: Mondays That Matter Film Screening

November 30-December 1: CARE’s Mountain State Racial Justice Summit

Now- January 6: Builder Levy: Appalachia USA Photography Exhibit at the Huntington Museum of Art

Holiday Gift Shopping? Support OVEC 
Stop by the office to pick up some OVEC camp-style mugs to give as gifts, or order other OVEC-themed goodies here. If you do want to come by the office, contact us at 304-522-0246 or info@ohvec.org for hours.

You can also purchase gift memberships, but please do so by December 12. Contact Maryanne at maryanne@ohvec.org or 304-522-0246 for details. 

If you shop on Amazon, please consider using Amazon Smile as a way to support OVEC without any cost to you. Go to ohvec.org/join/ and click on the Amazon Smile icon for details.

If you shop at Krogers, you can provide additional support to OVEC at no cost to you through your Kroger Plus Card by choosing OVEC in the Kroger Community Awards program (must renew yearly). See ohvec.org/kroger.

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