RockingChair

Front Porch Blog

Updates from Appalachia

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‘A moral imperative:’ Two bills would support miners with black lung and their families

Dec. 13 was a day that Vonda Robinson had been waiting over three years for. On that day, Rep. Morgan McGarvey, D-Ky., introduced the Relief for Survivors of Miners Act in the U.S. House of Representatives.

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Reliance on fossil fuels was last year’s Grinch that stole Christmas — and the real cause of Winter Storm Elliot blackouts

On Dec. 24, 2022, as Winter Storm Elliot bore down on North Carolina and Tennessee, problems at fossil-fuel power plants and high electricity demand led Duke Energy and the Tennessee Valley Authority to shut off power for millions with rolling blackouts. But it didn’t have to be this way.

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A large, partially buried, green pipe lays half submerged in water in a trench. Other pipe is visible off to the sides of the trench.

Communities continue to seek safety measures for Mountain Valley Pipeline

Along the route of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, citizen monitors have watched a frenzy of workers hurriedly lower sun-bleached and degraded pipe into trenches, burying as much material as possible. Although safety concerns led the agency tasked with pipe safety, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, to issue a consent agreement, the agreement has not brought peace of mind.

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No time to waste averting another coal mine cleanup crisis

Regulators are ignoring a growing crisis unfolding in modern mine reclamation. Coal companies are often failing to complete timely reclamation, and safeguards to ensure mine cleanup are failing. Communities are already seeing a new, more devastating wave of abandoned mines — a problem that will get worse without action.

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ReImagining Your Community with the help of EPA’s Environmental and Justice Community Change Grants

The EPA’s Community Change Grants could be an opportunity to engage key community stakeholders in strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to promote climate resilience, and to simultaneously create good jobs for local residents. Check out the ReImagine Your Community resource page for resources to help guide community visioning and project development.

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