Organizational Round-Up

Showing Some Clean Water Love On October 18, shortly after we go to press, the Clean Water Act will turn 40 years old. In conjunction with that anniversary, our Red, White & Water team is putting together a report on the successes of the long-standing program, complete with personal stories of residents and communities who…

Read More

Bringing Polluters to Justice — One Court Case at a Time

By Eric Chance and Erin Savage On Oct 1., Appalachian Voices and a coalition of citizens’ groups reached a historic settlement in a Kentucky case involving some of the most far-reaching and astonishing violations of the Clean Water Act in its 40-year history. The agreement between the citizens’ groups, International Coal Group, Inc., and the…

Read More

Other Shorts

House Sides with Coal, Passes a Non-starter On Sept. 21, in its last act before the election, the Republican-led House of Representatives passed H.R. 3409, a package of five bills it calls the “Stop the War on Coal Act,” claiming that environmental regulations are the real enemy of economic prosperity. Each of the bills would,…

Read More

Clean Water Act Under Siege as the Popular Law Turns 40

Report highlights success stories — and congressional assault For Immediate Release October 18, 2012 Contact: Sandra Diaz, Red, White & Water Campaign Coordinator, 828-262-1500, sandra@appvoices.org Cat McCue, Communications Director, 434-293-6373, cat@appvoices.org Washington, D.C.— Despite major cleanups of the nation’s rivers and lakes and improvements in the safety of drinking water for most Americans under the…

Read More

Storming Capital Hill

On June 2, more than 150 people gathered in Washington, D.C., for the 7th annual End Mountaintop Removal Week in Washington, sponsored by The Alliance for Appalachia. After a day of training, participants spent three days meeting with Congressional representatives to urge them to support legislation restoring the Clean Water Act to its original language,…

Read More

Appalachian Water Watch: Bringing Polluters to Justice, One Lawsuit at a Time

Appalachian Voices has joined the Sierra Club and Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards in filing suit against A & G Coal Corporation in Virginia. The suit, represented by the environmental law firm Appalachian Mountain Advocates, alleges that A & G has been polluting Virginia’s public waterways through unpermitted discharge of selenium. The unpermitted discharge violates both…

Read More

Coalition Acts to Protect Virginia Rivers and Streams from Mining Pollution

For Immediate Release May 3, 2012 – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Contact: Tom Cormons, Appalachian Voices, 434-981-6506, tom@appvoices.org Sean Sarah, Sierra Club, 330 338-3740 sean.sarah@sierraclub.org Sam Broach, Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, 276-523-1702, sbroach1@verizon.net – – – – – – – –…

Read More

Yesterday and Today: Defending the Clean Water Act

By Jamie Goodman Forty years ago, it took a flaming river to spur our nation to protect its waterways. The river that played a prominent role in the creation of the Clean Water Act and the Environmental Protection Agency is thought to have erupted in flames on thirteen separate occasions in a one-hundred-year period, ending…

Read More

Groups Challenge Public’s Exclusion From Secret Negotiations

An agreement negotiated in secret between the Beshear administration and a major polluter in eastern Kentucky does little to protect the public or prevent future violations, claimed several groups representing Kentucky citizens who use water polluted by the company’s coal mining operations.

The citizens’ groups filed a petition in Franklin Circuit Court on Thursday asking that the agreement between Nally & Hamilton Enterprises and the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet be vacated on the grounds that there is “no factual evidence in the record, much less substantial evidence, [that] supports a finding that the Agreed Order is a fair resolution of Nally’s thousands of [Clean Water Act] violations, or that it will be an effective deterrent of future violations.”

Read More