Appalachian Rails Have Strong Ties to Fossil Fuels

By Elizabeth E. Payne For more than 100 years, railroads have roared through the Appalachian mountains, connecting the region to the rest of the country, and moving resources and people in and out of the region. Trains first entered Appalachia in 1851, when the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company extended one of its lines to…

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Thank God for our Kentucky newspapers

Local newspapers in Kentucky have helped expose state regulators’ lax treatment of industry, most recently in the form of a secretive deal stuck with an oil company responsible for polluting drinking water supplies. But sadly, Kentucky’s politicians and agencies aren’t shy in revealing whose interests they truly serve either.

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Citizen stories counter coal industry deception

Citizens and clean water advocates used a series of hearings on the proposed Stream Protection Rule to demand improvements to the draft version and call out state agencies for repeatedly failing to enforce regulations already on the books. Coal industry representatives, on the other hand, relied on “war on coal” rhetoric and deception to rally against the rule.

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Clean Water Laws Wrestle With Coal

From The Appalachian Voice: America’s environmental regulations have hampered the coal industry to varying degrees for decades, and though those rules can protect communities from pollution, the law alone is often not able to secure clean water. Here are some of the trouble spots.

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Peculiar Patriot Coal deal raises questions

What would a health care executive-turned-environmentalist want with the dying business of mining coal? That’s the question some are asking after the announcement that a Virginia environmentalist plans to acquire assets, and assume around $400 million in liabilities, from recently-bankrupt Patriot Coal.

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