Blasting Permit Granted on Coal River Mountain

Bulldozers are set to begin moving dirt on Coal River Mountain, and Massey Energy, with the permit granted to them by West Virginia’s Department of Environmental Protection, can begin blasting at any time. The permit’s approval, which was announced in late November, was met with anger and disappointment from community members and opponents of mountaintop…

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USA & Colombia: Coal Is The Wound That Binds

First of a series: Coal around the World   Mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia is even more destructive than in Colombia, said two union miners from that South American country on a tour of the coalfields this November. “It was a great surprise for us to see that here in the U.S. open pit mining was…

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Across Appalachia: Environmental News in Brief

Stream Buffer Zone Rule Repeal Deserves President Obama’s Attention To the outrage of environmentalists across the Appalachian region, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved a severe weakening of a rule protecting streams from coal mining pollution in early December. The Stream Buffer Zone rule had been in effect since 1983 to protect the nation’s headwater…

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Solar homes tour leading by example

It’s been said that the best way to lead is by example. The American Solar Energy Society has embraced this mantra with the sponsorship of a national solar homes tour. Over the first weekends in October, people all over the nation traveled to homes and commercial building that have incorporated solar technology into their design.…

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Hanging Out in Hanging Rock State Park

By Joe Tennis Among the picturesque plains of the North Carolina Piedmont, the Sauratown Mountains rise north of Winston-Salem. Capped by cliffs, these peaks on the east side of the Blue Ridge are known locally as the “mountains away from the mountains,” and take their name from the Saura Indians, who lived in this area…

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Greenest Holiday Gifts You Can Buy

By Sarah Vig and Melanie Bianchi It’s enough to turn anyone into a Scrooge! So many potential gifts ignore concerns about natural ingredients, fair labor, the carbon imprints of production and shipping, wasteful packaging, and so on… Enter Appalachian Voice’s Green Gift Guide! With nine suggestions for eco-conscious giving, your Christmas tree won’t be the…

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A ‘Greener’ Christmas Tree

Integrated Pest Management and Fraser Fir Farming By Sarah Vig For most people, the quest for the perfect Christmas is not so different today than it was 150 years ago. People have been cutting their own Christmas trees since the 1850s. At the time, trees were chosen from forest, not farms. The first Christmas tree…

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