New license plate would promote outdoor recreation, support environmental education programs; 900 buyers needed to start

A new "Let's Go Outside" license plate is being offered to give Kentucky motorists the opportunity to promote the health and environmental benefits of outdoor recreation.

First Lady Jane Beshear unveiled the license plate June 10. She said that encouraging children to play outside will help improve their health and noted that "Kentucky has one of the highest childhood obesity rates in the nation," reports to The Lane Report.

Proceeds from the specialty plate will support the work of the Kentucky Environmental Education Council, including coordinating the Kentucky Green and Healthy Schools program and certifying professional environmental educators.

“Kentuckians have said in surveys that children not spending enough time outside is a major concern,” KEEC Executive Director Elizabeth Schmitz said. “One of our goals is to encourage children to embrace the outdoors and to teach them the importance of a clean environment for our health and preservation."

The Kentucky Environmental Education Council needs 900 applications, each accompanied by a $25 donation, before any plates will be manufactured.

Submitting the application does not obligate you to purchase the plate, but your donation will be credited toward the purchase of a plate once they are in production. If not enough applications are received, your $25 will be considered a tax-deductible donation.

A link to download the application is available at www.keec.ky.gov/LetsGoOutside.

As part of Louisville visit, Prince Charles attends roundtable on health and the environment with health and environmental leaders

Press pool report by Al Cross, Kentucky Health News

His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales arrived at the foot of the Big Four Bridge, an old railroad bridge recently converted into a pedestrian bridge, at 3:07 p.m. He was accompanied by Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer and was greeted by U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Louisville. They ascended a stairway leading to the pedestrian ramp and had a discussion on the ramp. Your pool could hear only snatches of conversation, but it was clear that Fischer and Yarmuth were describing the bridge project, which links Louisville to Jeffersonville, Ind.

Dr. Elliott Antman, in sunglasses, speaks as Prince Charles and other participants listen

The group descended the ramp and entered a plastic-and-canvas tent, joining a health-and-environment roundtable that had been in progress for about an hour. The pool was present for introductory remarks by the mayor and by Dr. Elliott Antman, president of the American Heart Association, but there was no amplification and the pool was kept at such a distance that he could not be heard clearly, and we were shuffled out after just a few minutes. Through the opening and the clear plastic we could see that HRH was animatedly engaged in conversation with the participants.

Yarmuth said afterward that the conversation was “about how the health care system by itself, the medical system, is not the thing we should be concerned about in trying to be concerned about the general health and well-being of society,” but rather how to prevent people from entering that system, “and there are so many entities that have role” in doing that.

Gordon Garner, former director of the Metropolitan Sewer District and president of the Kentucky Waterways Alliance, said the broad message of the meeting was “the linkage to both the built and natural environment” when it comes to health. “The big message would be … the overwhelming need we have as a society to raise our level of stewardship .. that public awareness is way, way behind what the needs are. We’ve got to develop some kind of stewardship commitment that we currently don’t have.”

According to an email from Chuck Lambert of Humana Inc. to the participants, a copy of which your pool reporter obtained, following are the invited participants. It could not be confirmed whether all on the list were actually at the roundtable.

INVITEES to roundtable (other than Antman, mentioned above):

Dr. Aruni Bhatnagar, Ph.D., Institute of Molecular Cardiology, University of Louisville

Lt. Gen. Patricia Horoho, 43^rdU.S. Army Surgeon General

Meredith Barrett, vice president of science and research, Propeller Health

Dr. Alonzo Plough, vice president of research, evaluation and learning and chief science officer, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Dr. Sharmila Makhija, chair of ob/gyn and women’s health, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, The Bronx, N.Y. (formerly at U of L)

Tom FitzGerald, director, Kentucky Resources Council (Kentucky’s leading environmental lobbyist)

Dr. Ted Smith, executive director, Institute for Healthy Air, Water and Soil; and chief of civic innovation, Metro Louisville government

Peter Crane, dean, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies

Mary Gwen wheeler, executive director, 55,000 Degrees (program aimed at expanding number of college graduates in Louisville)

Dr. James Sublett, president, American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology

Hugh Archer, executive director, Kentucky Natural Lands Trust

Barry Barker, executive director, Transit Authority of River City

Margaret “Peggy” Plympton, deputy chairman, National Endowment for the Humanities

Dr. Mahendra Sunkara, director, Conn Center for Renewable Energy Research, U of L

Burt Lauderdale, executive director, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (environmental and social justice group)

Timothy (Tim) State, enterprise vice president, associate health and well-being, Humana Inc.

Barry Gottschalk, president and CEO, American Lung Association of the Midland States

David Tandy, president. Louisville Metro Council

Craig Anthony Arnold, chair, Center for Land Use and Environmental Responsibility, U of L

Dr Cary Sennett, president and CEO, Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America

OBSERVERS:

Charles “Chuck” Lambert, Humana VP and chair, Louisville Sustainability Council

David VanSIckle, cofounder and CEO, Propeller Health

Paul Tarini, senior program officer, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Ben Reno-Weber, director, Greater Louisvile Project

Tad Waddington, CEO, lasting Contribution Inc.

Gordon Garner, president, Kentucky Waterways Alliance

Andrew Smith, student

Stephanie Sido, aide-de-camp, Gen. Horoho

Robert Connolly, chair, Stites & Harbison law firm

Wes Jackson, president, The Land Institute

Deena Adams, development manager, American Lung Association in Kentucky

Dr. Rose Marie Robertson, chief science officer, American Heart Association

Dr. John Johnston, co-director, Norton Hospital Leatherman Spine Center

Wendell and Mary Berry welcome Prince Charles and wife to Louisville, where prince will focus on local food and sustainability

In honor of a royal visit on Friday to Louisville by Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, who will be highlighting issues of sustainability and local food, renowned farmer-author-poet-philosopher Wendell Berry and his daughter Mary Berry, executive director of The Berry Center in New Castle, have written a welcome letter, published in The Courier-Journal. It begins:

Sir,

Your presence among us honors us. We have taken courage from your courage in opposing those who destroy for short-term profit the substance, health, and beauty of this world, which we did not make and cannot conserve except in obedience to its natural laws and to the divine imperative of human stewardship.

You will not be surprised to learn that in Kentucky, as in much of the world, the ways of conserving the land, the water, and the air are repeatedly blocked by the combination of corporate wealth, political connivance, academic complacency, and a deficit of hope where hope is most needed.

Here as elsewhere, the damages done by surface mining are severe, permanent, and largely unrestrained; the loss of land to "development" is, arithmetically, unsustainable; our use of our forests is for the most part ecologically unsound; our farmlands are eroding under an increasing burden of annual grain crops; those lands are priced beyond the reach of aspiring small farmers; and our streams are everywhere degraded by chemical and other pollutants.

But I believe you will be unsurprised also to learn that in Kentucky, as in places similarly exploited and threatened all over the world, there is a growing number of people and groups of people competently aware of, and determinedly opposed to, the diminishment of the natural health and beauty of our state and our world. We are proud to welcome you into the company of friends and allies who, like you, are unrestingly committed to the work of ecological sense and sanity. (Read more)

West Virginia to involve Kentucky in examination of studies that link health problems to mountaintop-removal coal mining

Kentucky Health News

The administration of Democratic Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin of West Virginia "said Tuesday that it would initiate an evaluation of the growing body of studies that have found residents living near mountaintop removal coal-mining operations face increases risks of serious illnesses and premature death," Ken Ward Jr. reports for The Charleston Gazette. Studies have found correlations between mountaintop removal and cancer, birth defects and the endangerment of freshwater species.

Dr. Rahul Gupta, commissioner of the state Bureau for Public Health, "said that his agency would work with the state Department of Environmental Protection to examine the issue and to seek help from various federal scientific and regulatory agencies to review existing research on the subject," Ward writes. “The analysis is something that is needed going forward,” Gupta said. “The bottom line here is to let science speak for itself. It’s time that we attempt to do that.”

"Gupta said that his plan would 'engage surrounding states' such as Kentucky and Virginia to 'evaluate the scientific research being conducted by academia, non-profit groups, and others with an emphasis on peer-reviewed research to better understand the issues,'" Ward writes. "Also, Gupta said, his agency would work with the DEP to ask 'federal partners'—such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control, and National Institutes of Health, and the federal Office of Surface Mining—to 'seek relevant subject matter expertise allowing for the exploration of a federal-state, multi-agency partnership to conduct analysis of the existing research in the field.'" (Read more)

UK-EKU center gets $5 million to address occupational health and safety issues in Central Appalachia and Kentucky

A center based in the University of Kentucky College of Public Health has received a five-year, $5 million grant to advance occupational health and safety in Central Appalachia and Kentucky, the university reports.

The grant was funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It will support the Central Appalachian Regional Education and Research Center as a "cohesive, fully equipped and recognized resource for occupational safety and health research and training in Central Appalachia," a UK release says.

It says Central Appalachia has "high proportions of fatal occupational injuries related to transportation and highway incidents; injuries in agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, and mining." However, "Systematic attention to the safety and health concerns of its work force has been limited," CARERC Director Wayne Sanderson said.

CARERC was formed in 2012 by the colleges nursing, public health and engineering at UK as well as the College of Justice and Safety at Eastern Kentucky University. It is one of only 18 such centers in the nation and provides interdisciplinary graduate education for students and health professionals in five programs: agricultural safety and health, occupational epidemiology, mining engineering safety and health, occupational health nursing, and occupational safety.

Seventy percent of the funding will support students in the CARERC program. The center also serves as a resource for industry, labor, government agencies, and other stakeholders and is partnering with stakeholders in the mining industry to develop new methods to reduce miners' coal-dust exposure.

"There aren’t many courses or programs where you're out in the field working with nurses, epidemiologists, and safety experts," Sanderson said in the release. "Everything we do is very interdisciplinary, which is how the real world works — people working together to solve problems."