Today, President Joe Biden released his Fiscal Year 2024 budget to fund government programs through September 2024. The budget proposal includes crucial investments in programs to boost economic growth in the coalfields, ensure coal mine reclamation and protect miners from black lung disease.
Explosives and heavy equipment: the perfect combination for mine owners to extract coal from a pristine Appalachian landscape. Too bad this process, known as mountaintop removal mining, is terrible if you live near the mined mountain, or in a watershed downstream, or on a planet faced with the imminent threat of ever-increasing temperatures brought about by greenhouse-gas emissions.
Imagine a landscape that, 10 years ago, was a moonscape mountaintop removal coal mine and is now carefully managed as a large-scale working forest growing trees to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and combat climate change. Appalachian Voices is exploring making this vision a reality in the years to come through a reforestation project that engages with the emerging carbon offset market.
Today, Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, Appalachian Voices and the Sierra Club announced a settlement with A&G Coal Corporation, owned by the family of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, to help ensure the reclamation of three large surface coal mines in Wise County, Virginia.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 16, 2022 Contact: Trey Pollard, trey@pollardcommunications.com, 202-904-9187 READ THE LETTER APPALACHIA — With the clock ticking down on the current session of Congress, 87 organizations are urging leadership of both parties to not miss an opportunity…
The bankruptcy of coal company Blackjewel has exposed many flaws in the current mine cleanup system.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 27, 2022 Contact: Trey Pollard, trey@pollardcommunications.com, 202-904-9187 COAL COUNTRY — Today, advocates for abandoned mine clean up and clean water across the country celebrated as the U.S. House passed the Safeguarding Treatment for the Restoration of…
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 13, 2022 Contact: Trey Pollard, trey@pollardcommunications.com, 202-904-9187 APPALACHIA — Today, the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources held a mark-up of the Safeguarding Treatment for the Restoration of Ecosystems from Abandoned Mines (STREAM) Act — bipartisan…
During a recent U.S. House Natural Resources subcommittee hearing, Erin Savage of Appalachian Voices and two other Appalachian residents testified about acid mine drainage, abandoned mine sites and the impacts of ongoing mountaintop removal coal mining.
A new report finds that the Abandoned Mine Lands Economic Revitalization program is having a significant impact, but recommends improvements for speeding the implementation of projects.
