Press Room
Google recently launched a new Google Earth Outreach project that featured our National Memorial for the Mountains, the centerpiece of iLoveMountains.org, as one of the nation’s most innovative nonprofit uses of Google Earth. Our mountaintop removal layer was one of 6 featured at the Google Earth Outreach launch in New York, along with layers from the Jane Goodall Institute, the UN Environment Program, the World Wildlife Fund, and the Holocaust Museum’s Darfur layer.
Several articles have been published recently about the Google project, in addition to the national AP article that was published in March when our layer first went live on Google:
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Very big news – Google has released new featured content in the popular Google Earth program that includes the mountaintop removal coal mining layer at the heart of www.iLoveMountains.org. The new featured content, which can be seen and explored by all 200 million users of Google Earth worldwide, includes the National Memorial for the Mountains, which uses Google Earth satellite imagery to reveal the devastating impacts of mountaintop removal mining in the Appalachian Mountains.
To learn more, read the press release below, and check out the post on the official Google Blog by Mary Anne Hitt, executive director of Appalachian Voices. In the post, Hitt writes,
The first time I flew over southern West Virginia and saw mountaintop removal coal mining from the air, I knew that if everyone could see what I had seen – mountain after mountain blown up and then dumped into streams in the neighboring valleys – they would think twice about where their electricity came from the next time they flipped a light switch.
Now it’s your turn to fly over the region.
To view the mountaintop removal layer in the new featured content for Google Earth (available for free download), go to the “Layers” sidebar in Google Earth, on the left-hand side of the screen. In the “Featured Content” folder, look for “Appalachian Mountaintop Removal” in the “Global Awareness” folder. More detailed instructions are available on the iLoveMountains Tutorial page where you can also download the full-featured version of the Memorial.
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Contact: Appalachian Voices
Mary Anne Hitt, Executive Director | 828-262-1500 (w) | 540-239-0073 (c) |
Matthew Wasson, PhD, Conservation Director | 828-262-1500 (w) | 828-773-0788 (c) |
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March 12, 2007
Boone, NC – Todayís release of featured content in the popular Google Earth program will include a new mountaintop removal coal mining layer created by nonprofit organizations in Appalachia. This month’s imagery and data release for Google Earth will include the National Memorial for the Mountains as one of the new Global Awareness layers in Google Earth, which will be available to all 200 million users of the application worldwide.
The National Memorial for the Mountains uses Google Earth to show the locations and tell the stories of mountains in Appalachia impacted by mountaintop removal, a form of coal mining that involves clear-cutting forests, blasting off the tops of mountains with explosives, and dumping the former mountaintop into valleys below, burying streams.
The new mountaintop removal layer in Google Earth features a high resolution tour of a large mountaintop removal site, 22 memorials that tell first-hand stories of families and communities impacted by mountaintop removal, and the locations of over 470 Appalachian mountaintops destroyed by mountaintop removal. Additional features include before-and-after views of mountaintop removal sites, a Google SketchUp model of the massive equipment used in mountaintop removal operations, and overlays of a large mine site over 36 U.S. cities.
To see the mountaintop removal layer in the Google Earth program (available for free download at http://earth.google.com), look for “Appalachian Mountaintop Removal” under the “Global Awareness” folder of the “Layers” sidebar.
The National Memorial for the Mountains is the centerpiece of www.iLoveMountains.org, a project of 7 grassroots organizations in Appalachia working together to end the devastation of the regionís mountains, homes and communities by mountaintop removal coal mining: Appalachian Voices, Coal River Mountain Watch, Keeper of the Mountains Foundation, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Save Our Cumberland Mountains, and Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards.
iLoveMountains.org and the National Memorial for the Mountains were produced by Appalachian Voices, an organization that brings people together to solve the environmental problems having the greatest impact on the central and southern Appalachian Mountains.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Ed Wiley: 860-248-9512 or 304-928-0208
Heather Lascher Todd (Rep. Pallone): 202-225-4671
Coal River Mountain Watch: 304-928-0208
Mary Anne Hitt (Appalachian Voices): 540-239-0073
bWEST VIRGINIA GRANDFATHER COMPLETES 455-MILE WALK TO WASHINGTON TODAY SEEKING HELP FOR SCHOOL THREATENED BY MINING
Ed Wiley joined by thousands across America in calling for new school for kids of Marsh Fork Elementary, protection for all coalfield children
WASHINGTON, DC – West Virginia grandfather and former coal miner Ed Wiley today completed his 455-mile walk from Charleston, WV to Washington, DC, seeking help for a southern West Virginia school threatened by mountaintop removal coal mining. Supporters from across the nation joined Wiley for the last mile of his walk, from the Washington Monument to the U.S. Capitol.
Wiley walked to Washington to bring attention to the plight of children at Marsh Fork Elementary School in Sundial, WV, which is on the front lines of the controversial practice known as mountaintop removal coal mining. A 1,849-acre mountaintop removal coal mine surrounds the school area with more mining permitted. Marsh Fork Elementary sits just 225 feet from a coal loading silo that releases coal dust, with independent tests confirming the presence of coal dust in the school. A leaking earthen dam holding back 2.8 billion gallons of toxic coal-sludge is located just 400 yards above the school. The Pennies of Promise campaign was created to build a new school for the children of Marsh Fork Elementary. Wiley has walked to Washington to seek help from West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd.
“Senator Byrd is an honorable man and a true Appalachian who cares about the people of West Virginia,” Wiley said. “I hope he will stand with us to help the children at Marsh Fork Elementary School, because our children have been sacrificed long enough.”
Wiley’s arrival in Washington coincides with Mountaintop Removal Week, during which supporters from across America who have traveled to the nation’s capitol. These citizens have come to alert Congress to the dangers posed by the radical form of strip mining that involves blowing up the tops of mountains and dumping the rock into valleys below, burying streams. Mountaintop removal is spreading rapidly across Appalachia, particularly in the area around the Marsh Fork School.
Wiley was joined today by joined by U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ); Lois Gibbs, the housewife from Love Canal who alerted the nation to the dangers of toxic communities and who is known as the mother of Superfund; Teri Blanton of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth; and Mary Anne Hitt of Appalachian Voices.
They are calling on Congress to pass the Clean Water Protection Act, H.R. 2719, a bill sponsored by Rep. Pallone that would prevent the dumping of mine waste into streams and would curtail mountaintop removal.
In addition to the event, a major new online casinos österreich was launched today at www.iLoveMountains.org. The site features the National Memorial for the Mountains, an interactive, online memorial that uses Google Earth technology to show the locations and tell the stories of the over 450 mountains that have been destroyed to date. Visitors can watch a video featuring an interview with actor Woody Harrelson and download a new acoustic version of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin in the Wind,” performed by music legend Willie Nelson. Harrelson and fellow actor Edward Norton are among the many supporters of Wiley’s walk to Washington.
“The Memorial is the first comprehensive source for penetrating the secrecy of these city-sized operations,” said Mary Anne Hitt, executive director of Appalachian Voices, the nonprofit organization that developed the site. “It features overlays that bring home the enormous scope of these mining operations: just one, for example, is comparable to the size of the entire Washington metro area.”
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