Advocacy group heads to DNC with clear message:
End mountaintop removal coal mining

MEDIA ADVISORY
August 31, 2012

Contact: Cat McCue, Communications Director, cat @ appvoices.org; 434-293-6373

Charlotte – Appalachian Voices Executive Director Willa Mays and several other staff members will attend the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte next week to focus the nation’s attention on the devastating impacts of coal on the region’s environment and communities, and to call for a swift transition to clean, sustainable energy sources in Appalachia and the U.S.

Representatives of Appalachian Voices will be inside the convention talking to delegates and members of Congress to advocate for an end to mountaintop removal, an especially destructive form of coal mining that has destroyed more than 500 ancient mountains and buried or poisoned more than 2,000 miles of stream.

On Monday, the group is co-sponsoring a reception with Greenpeace titled “Bourbon, Bluegrass and a Better Future for Appalachia,” with special guests including Van Jones, an expert in “green economy” and former advisor to the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and Rep. John Yarmuth, of Kentucky’s 3rd congressional district and champion of the Clean Water Protection Act, which would help end mountaintop removal.

The press is invited to this event in downtown Charlotte: Monday, 5:30 to 8 p.m., The New Gallery of Modern Art, 435 Tryon Street, Suite 110

On Tuesday, Appalachian Voices’ director of programs, Dr. Matt Wasson, will be featured on a panel discussion of coal ash – a largely hidden threat in America until the catastrophic failure of TVA’s ash slurry pond in Kingston, Tennessee. Each year, coal-burning utilities generate 130 million tons of coal ash, which contains toxics such as arsenic and selenium, and dump it in more than 1,000 coal ash ponds across the country. Despite these dangers, coal ash is less regulated than household garbage.

The press is welcome to attend: Scheduled for Tuesday, 5 p.m., Packard Place, 222 Church St. ***Check the PPL Forum website to confirm.***

Appalachian Voices’ staff will also be at Monday’s CarolinaFest event, signing up citizen activists to help protect watersheds in North Carolina and around the region by defending the Clean Water Act, one of the most successful environmental laws in the nation but now under attack by coal industry lobbyists and their allies in Congress.

Press resources: Visit our online press room for images and B-roll of mountaintop removal, Twitter feeds from the DNC (#avdnc), photos from the DNC (Flickr), and fact sheets.

###