Appalachian Voices joined with more than 100 environmental organizations including the Sierra Club, Earth Justice, Union of Concerned Scientists and the National Resource Defense Council to post a full-page ad in the New York Times on Tuesday, December 22 calling for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to enact regulations for coal ash waste disposal. The ad ran on the one-year anniversary of the Kinston, TN coal ash disaster, in which 1 billion gallons of toxic coal ash tragically spilled into the Clinch and Emory rivers at a Tennessee Valley Authority coal-fired power plant.

View the ad

Send a letter to the EPA asking for coal ash regulations

The following email was sent to the 39,000+ supporters of iLoveMountains.org. To sign up to receive free email alerts, click here.

Dear Friend of the Mountains,

Dumping mine waste into a valley fill on Kayford Mountain, WV

When the Bush Administration proposed gutting the “Stream Buffer Zone Rule” — a regulation that has prevented surface mining within 100 feet of our nation’s streams for decades — people like you responded in force. More than 75,000 comments were submitted to the Bush Administration, asking that the regulation be left intact.

The Bush administration overrode public opinion, however, and gutted the rule anyway — handing a parting gift to Big Coal before it left office.

Now, we urgently need the Obama administration to reverse this rule and protect our nation’s streams from being buried by mining waste from mountaintop removal coal mining.

Unfortunately, the Office of Surface Mining, Reclaimation, and Enforcement has proposed waiting until 2011 to begin making changes to the Stream Buffer Zone Rule.

Waiting an entire year is unacceptable — we are losing streams in Appalachia every day. Waiting another year means that many more miles of Appalachian streams — the headwaters of streams that provide the drinking water supplies of many eastern cities — will be forever buried.

The Office of Surface Mining, Reclaimation, and Enforcement is accepting comments until December 30th on its proposal to delay addressing Stream Buffer Zone Rule changes for another year. Can you take just a moment today, and tell them that waiting a year is unacceptable?

Click here to submit your comments today.

Please let the OSMRE know that we need to end the dumping of mountaintop removal waste into Appalachian streams immediately.

Thank you for taking action.

Matt Wasson
iLoveMountains.org

PS Please help gather the resources we need for the battles ahead by making a special year end contribution today: https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1741/t/6886/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=1807

The following email was sent to the 39,000+ supporters of iLoveMountains.org. To sign up to receive free email alerts, click here.

Dear Friend of the Mountains,

As the Associated Press recently observed, “environmental activists gained more momentum this year than in the past decade against the destructive, uniquely Appalachian form of strip mining known as mountaintop removal.”

That momentum has been the result of your efforts.

Every time we’ve asked, you and nearly 40,000 people like you who love mountains have taken action — spreading the word among friends, speaking up to Congress, sending in comments to regulatory agencies, and making sure the world knows that the days of destroying mountains for cheap coal are numbered.

Yet the push back from Big Coal is gaining strength — and the final showdown to end mountaintop removal coal mining may arrive in 2010.

Can you help us prepare for what will surely be a critical year by making a contribution to iLoveMountains today?

Click here to make a contribution.

In the past year, your support has made a tremendous difference:

1. In Congress, we’ve gained a record 161 Co-Sponsors for the Clean Water Protection Act — and a companion bill, the Appalachian Restoration Act, was introduced for the first time ever in the United States Senate, which currently has 10 co-sponsors.
2. In an historic turnaround, Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) “spoke the truth” and warned the coal industry that “the practice of mountaintop removal mining has a diminishing constituency in Washington.”
3. The EPA recommended that 79 proposed valley fill permits not be issued as written, while the Office of Surface Mining proposed overturning the Bush-era stream buffer zone rule, which made it easier for big coal to dump mining waste into thousands of miles of streams.
4. The importance of fight to save Coal River Mountain spread from living rooms across America to the Climate Summit in Copenhagan, becoming a symbol of the choice America faces between a clean energy future and the pollution of past sources of power.

All of this happened because people like you have sent more than 100,000 letters to Congress, the Senate, and Executive agencies… because hundreds of ordinary citizens have traveled to Washington or visited with their representatives during in-district visits… because more than 2,000 bloggers have joined our “Blogger’s Challenge” and spread the word about mountaintop removal…. and because you’e helped spread the word to family and friends, growing our movement to nearly 40,000 people who are committed to taking action online.

Can you help us increase that momentum by making a contribution today? Any amount you can afford to give — whether $25, $100, or $500 — goes directly to supporting our campaign to end mountaintop removal, and gives us the critical resources we’ll need in 2010:

Click here to contribute today.

Thank you for doing everything you can to help end mountaintop removal coal mining.

Matt Wasson
iLoveMountains.org

PS. Want to be among the activists who join us for the 5th Annual End Mountaintop Removal Week in Washington, coming up March 6-10th, 2010? Save the date and learn more by clicking here.

On Dec. 9, a petition with over 1,000 signatures was presented to West Virginia University’s President Jim Clements by the university’s Sierra Student Coalition.

The petition is a formal request that in the future the university reject donations from coal corporation CEOs Bob Murray and Don Blakenship.

“West Virginia University has received $1.5 million from two corrupt coal company leaders, Don Blankenship and Bob Murray. Both of these men have threatened the lives and health of innocent people through their companies’ practices. WVU has even honored Murray by creating a chairmanship in his name,” stated the West Virginia University Sierra Student Coalition.

The petition they issued requested that the chair name be changed to honor miners who have died in the course of duty.

According to a press release by Joe Gorman, “1,000 WVU Students Petition Against Dirty Coal Money,” as a result of their meeting with the Clements, the university president has agreed to put future donations under a stricter lens of ethical scrutiny.

For more information contact:
{encode=”joe.madpj7@gmail.com” title=”Joe Gorman”}

{encode=”the_annoyance2002@yahoo.com” title=”Calvin Smith”}

Recent reports reveal that 2.66 million pounds of 10 toxic pollutants contaminated the Emory River when TVA’s Kingston plant spilled 1 billion gallons of coal ash in 2008.

The Toxics Release Inventory, filed by TVA with the Environmental Protection Agency, reports high levels of toxic pollutants arsenic, barium, chromium, copper, lead, manganese, mercury, nickel, vanadium and zinc in Tennessee’s Emory River.

These toxins pose a serious threat to human health. For instance, arsenic and chromium are carcinogenic substances. Mercury can cause severe damage to the brain and other organs as well as serious fetus complications. Barium can cause gastrointestinal issues or when dissolved in water and ingested it can change heart rhythms and may even lead to paralysis or death.

“The enormous increase in heavy metals discharged by TVA is very troubling. First, many of these metals bio-accumulate and pose significant risks to human and environmental health. Second, TVA has repeatedly attempted to hide the potential toxicity of the coal ash. For example, TVA’s Anda Ray said to 60 Minutes host Leslie Stahl, ‘I’d say that the constituents, the things that are in the coal ash, are the same things that are naturally occurring in soil and rock.’ But if you compare Kingston discharges from 2007 to 2008 you see an astronomical increase in at least 10 very dangerous metals. If it wasn’t for EIP bringing the data and facts forward, the public would never learn the truth from TVA.”
-Donna Lisenby, Upper Watagua Riverkeeper

The 2.66 million pounds of pollutants contaminating the Emory River is over a half a million pounds more than the total amount of discharges from all U.S. power plants combined into surface water in 2007.

There are no federal regulations regarding coal ash disposal or the discharge of toxic leachate into our waterways. The EPA has recently announced that it will propose regulations for coal ash disposal in December.

Click here to read the Environmental Integrity Project’s Press Release.

For More information click the following links:

CNBC

Forbes

Washington Business Journal

Knoxville News Sentinel

Chattanooga Free Times Press

Yahoo News

US Politics Today

Nashville Business Journal

Yesterday, despite cold weather and chance of snow, hundreds of concerned citizens gathered in front of the headquarters of West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection in Charleston, W.Va. The protest and rally was held to demand that the DEP halt the blasting on Coal River Mountain.

Impacted residents, members of the clergy, musicians and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. were among the list of speakers who raised their voices for the protection of the last intact mountain in the Coal River Valley.

Blasting has already started on Coal River Mountain; this beautiful ridge has been shown to be an excellent location for a commercial renewable energy wind farm. Lorelei Scarbro, the widow of an underground miner whose home rests in the shadow of Coal River Mountain, has led the fight to stop proposed mountaintop removal mining in order to build a sustainable wind farm. Lorelei asked a jeering crowd of counter protesters to “stand with us, come to Washington D.C, and demand job diversification in the coalfields.”

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., son of late U.S. Senator Robert Kennedy, decried the practice of mountaintop removal and the companies that operate strip mines. “This is a moral issue,” he said. “We don’t have a right to destroy what we can’t re-create. It was God who made these mountains, and it’s [Massey Energy President] Don Blankenship who is tearing them down.”

For more on this story see Ken Ward Jr’s blog post on Coal Tattoo: Coal Tattoo

Excellent short film on the Protest and Rally produced by Jordan Freeman:
DEP Protest

The following email was sent to the 39,000+ supporters of iLoveMountains.org. To sign up to receive free email alerts, click here.

Today, the confluence between mountaintop removal coal mining and climate change is front and center on the streets of Charleston, West Virginia and on stage at the “COP15″ United Nations Climate Summit in Copenhagen.

In Charleston, activists from around the region are gathering in front of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection headquarters to demand an end to blasting at Coal River Mountain — ground zero in the fight against mountaintop removal coal mining.

And in Copenhagen, Google is unveiling a new layer in Google Earth that dramatically illustrates the choice to be made at Coal River Mountain — a choice between a clean energy future and the increased threat of climate change.

Click here to watch the YouTube video that Google will be showing at Copenhagen:

As Lorelei Scarbro, who lives in Rock Creek, West Virginia, at the foot of Coal River Mountain, says in the video, Coal River Mountain represents a crossroads in our future.

Massey Energy plans to mine more than 6000 acres of mountaintop at Coal River Mountain, which would destroy the opportunity to build a 320 megawatt wind farm on the ridges of Coal River Mountain.

Instead of 320 megawatts of clean energy that would power more than 70,000 homes indefinitely, Massey’s plans would release 134 million tons of C02 — the equivalent of putting 1.5 million more cars on the road for 17 years.

That’s what makes Coal River Mountain a “cauldron of Climate Change,” in Lorelei’s words. That’s why Google is showing millions of Google Earth users and the delegates in Copenhagen what’s at stake at Coal River Mountain, and why people from around the region are gathering today in Charleston.

Can you stand with the activists in Charleston and the delegates in Copenhagen today by taking two simple actions?

1. Watch the Coal River Mountain Video and forward it to your friends and family. Ask them to join you in stopping mountaintop removal coal mining by signing up at iLoveMountains.org.

2. Email your Senators and tell them to pass the Appalachian Restoration Act. If Congress is serious about addressing climate change, we need this bill to dramatically reduce mountaintop removal coal mining, which is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.

Thank you for taking a moment today to help secure a clean energy future for all of us.

Matt Wasson
iLoveMountains.org

“With respect to climate pollution, we will act,” Lisa Jackson, Environmental Protection Agency administrator, said Monday in a press conference.

Jackson announced that the EPA has finalized their endangerment findings on greenhouse gas pollution, deeming it a threat to human and environmental health.

With the conclusion of this three-year study, the organization is now legally authorized under the Clean Air Act to take regulatory strides to reduce greenhouse gas pollutants.

In January 2010, in accordance with the EPA, the U.S. will begin to monitor large greenhouse gas emitters.

In 2011, large emitters will be required to submit publicly available reports of their greenhouse gas emissions, allowing for the EPA to determine long-term trends.

“This reporting will also bring to light opportunities to jump-start private investment in energy efficiency and new technologies and products – saving money, improving bottom lines and growing the economy,” Jackson said.

Jackson added that she hoped this announcement would help to build the foundation for developing green jobs, alleviating dependence on foreign oils, and securing a better future for generations to come.

“These long-overdue findings cement 2009′s place in history as the year when the United States government began addressing the challenge of greenhouse-gas pollution,” Jackson said.

The announcement is timely, as the United Nations Climate Change Conference at Copenhangen-where President Obama is meeting with leaders from around the globe-commences today.

To read Lisa Jackson’s full speech click here.

Over 500 mountains have been leveled by mountaintop removal coal mining-nearly a half million acres of Appalachian land in Kentucky alone.

Coal companies have defended mountaintop removal with claims that the flattened mountains provide ideal land for development and it will actually help the Appalachian economy, yet very little of the permitted land has been scheduled for commercial, residential or industrial development.

According to the Surface Mining Control and Reclaimation Act (SMCRA) of 1977, companies applying to mine an area must submit a plan to reclaim the land post-mining.

Since 1999, almost 500,000 acres have been permitted for blasting followed by a post-mining project. Less than 3 percent of this acreage has actually been reclaimed. Add to that total the tens of thousands of acres blasted away before reclamation was required, and you have a topography pockmarked with barren, exposed rock that supports neither human nor environmental development.

Some reclamation projects that are underway include fish and wildlife habitats, housing developments and municipal structures, including prisons, hospitals, ball parks and road beds. But with the population of coal field counties steadily decreasing, the demand for large-scale infrastructure on reclaimed sites is weakening.

Read “Mountains of potential? Reclaimed Surface Mines Offer Level Land, but Very Little of it is Used for Development” for the full story.