McAuliffe Fast-tracks Efficiency

Citing the clean energy sector as a “key strategic growth area” for Virginia’s economy, Governor Terry McAuliffe moved up the state’s goal to reduce retail electricity use by 10 percent from 2022 to 2020. The governor appointed 12 individuals from the public and private sector to his Executive Committee on Energy Efficiency, which is tasked…

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DEP Orders Coal Prep Plants to Disclose Chemicals

An April order by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection requires the state’s approximately 90 coal preparation plants to disclose the chemicals used to process coal. The DEP order follows a series of coal-related spills in early 2014 and the discovery that many potentially hazardous products used to process coal were previously not required…

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The Newest Member of Our Team

Please join us in welcoming Tarence Ray, expanding our Appalachian Water Watch project in Central Appalachia and working on federal policy to end mountaintop removal coal mining. Tarence was raised in the rural oilfields of southeastern New Mexico and received a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Texas at Austin. He served two…

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Solidarity in the Tar Heel State

Story by Julia Simcoe and staff Appalachian Voices joined representatives of the National Society for the Advancement of Colored People in Stokes County, N.C., last May to stand in solidarity against disproportionate polluting in low-income communities of color. Representatives from local and national levels of the NAACP spoke at the event, joined by Karenna Gore,…

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