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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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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.…

“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…

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…