If you were listening to NPR last week, you may have heard Kentucky writer and rural activist Dee Davis reflecting on what it meant for Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards to tour the coalfields of Appalachia:
These things matter. It is not about party; it’s about eyeballs. And there are sights that need seeing.
When no one shows up to witness the obliteration of mountaintops – vast hillsides being shoved into creek beds – then desperate mining practices flourish."
In recent weeks, people like Senator Edwards and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – who gave a great interview on West Virginia Public Radio that you can listen to here — have been showing up in the coalfields of Appalachia. But we know that not every politician is going to witness first hand the obliteration of mountaintops.
But with your help, we can make sure that Senators and Congressmen see the destruction with their own eyes – and hear from constituents like you that it’s time to end mountaintop removal coal mining.
Would you be willing to take just a few hours of your time to visit your Congressional representatives’ local office while he or she is home during the August Congressional recess? We’ll help you set up the meeting, and supply you with materials that you can give to your representatives to make sure they understand the scale and scope of mountaintop removal coal mining.
Already, thanks to iLoveMountains supporters’ efforts online, more than 3,000 letters have been sent to Congress, and we’ve reached a new record of 89 co-sponsors in the U.S. House for the Clean Water Protection Act – an act that would stop the coal companies from dumping mining waste into the valleys and streams of Appalachia.
Now, you can take the next step in helping get the Clean Water Protection Act passed and stopping mountaintop removal coal mining. We can help you set up the meeting, and will provide the materials you need to ensure your representative sees the "sites that need seeing."
Please, take the first step by showing up at your representatives’ local office this August. Click on the link above or call us at (828) 262-1500 for more information.
Subject: A First-Hand Look at Mountaintop Removal
From: Mary Anne Hitt, iLoveMountains.org
Dear Friend,
I just got back from the state capitol steps in Charleston, West Virginia, where two-time Grammy winning country star Kathy Mattea spoke out against mountaintop removal coal mining after taking an arial tour and hiking up Kayford Mountain.
Both of Mattea’s grandfathers were coal miners, and she is among West Virginia’s most famous native daughters. A the press conference Tuesday, she told the crowd that her visit to iLoveMountains.org shocked her (Click here for the video). As part of her own project to bring attention to the issue of mountaintop removal coal mining, Mattea came home this week to see the area again with her own eyes.
The scale of the destruction stunned her. “You know it’s also a picture of our appetite for energy right now, which is a problem, our appetite for energy is so big that we think this is okay,” said Mattea.
Mattea’s visit and press conference has brought critical renewed attention to mountaintop removal. (Video reports and an NPR story are available.)
Mattea is the latest in a long line of celebrities to add their voice to the movement to end mountaintop removal coal mining. But it’s the combined effort of all our voices that is making a tremendous difference:
We last wrote to ask you to tell your representatives to stand up for Clean Water, not liquid coal. Since then, more than 3200 letters have been sent to Congress through iLoveMountains.org — and not a single coal-to-liquid-fuel bill has made it out of committee. Click here to keep up the pressure.
Since our Week in Washington in May, when more than 100 citizens from across the country traveled to our nation’s capital to lobby for the Clean Water Protection Act (which would limit the ability of coal companies to dump mountaintop removal waste in our valleys and streams), nearly 3,000 people like you have sent letters to representatives asking them to support the bill. Thanks to your efforts, we now have a record 88 co-sponsors for the Clean Water Protection Act. Click here to see if your representative is standing up for clean water.
The second major court victory for mountain supporters in as many months came on June 14th when a U.S. District judge ruled that mill ponds — a 40 year old technique of waste and sediment removal in which coal companies turn small streams into waste treatment systems — are a violation of the Clean Water Act. Click here to read about this major court victory.
More exciting news – I was recently in New York for the launch of Google Earth Outreach, a new initiative by Google to make it easy for nonprofits to use Google Earth. Google is featuring our mountaintop removal information as one of the best nonprofit uses of Google Earth, so be sure to check it out!
In the 10 months since we launched iLoveMountains.org, these victories have been made possible by your participation. We’ve got great plans for the coming months — including a new online tool that will allow you to see how your power company’s energy supply is connected to mountaintop removal coal mining — but the continued success of this movement is in your hands.
Please take a moment right now to invite one more friend to join our growing movement to stop mountaintop removal coal mining.
Thank you for making all of these victories possible,
Kathy Mattea, 2-time Grammy Award winning country singer and WV native, toured Kayford Mountain, WV, took and aerial tour of the mining region, and spoke at a press conference on the steps of the State Capitol.
In her speech in Charleston, she explained that she had recently been trained by Al Gore to give a version of his presentation on the effects of – and solutions for – global warming. When researching coal mining to personalize her presentation, she encountered iLoveMountains.org, “I began to get picture of what was happening in West Virginia that I didn’t expect to find. It was bigger and it was more rampant that I knew.”
What I saw today shocked me – Mattea looks, listens to mountaintop removal
– by Tara Tuckwiller
Country music star Kathy Mattea spent Tuesday sitting at the edge of an enormous chasm of naked rock – a West Virginia mountaintop removal coal mine – and listening to people’s stories.
One woman told Mattea about the reservoir full of coal waste that looms upstream from a Raleigh County elementary school full of 220 children.
Another showed her photos of the trains that haul millions of dollars worth of coal every week out of the mountain near her house, while her Kanawha County community remains in poverty.
And Mattea wept as a Boone County woman showed her photos of the mountain that used to be behind her house. It’s not there anymore. A coal company blasted it apart, she said, into boulders that would fly through the air, big enough to kill her children. Then a big rain came, and ran off the stripped mountain and destroyed her homeplace.
Many thousands of people around the USA took the time to tell their representatives in Washington that subsidizing new coal-to-liquid technology and infrastructure is a bad idea. As of July 12th, Congress received over 3,000 letters using the letter writing page on iLoveMountains.org!
As a result, not a single coal-to-liquid subsidy bill has made it out of the Senate sub-committees!
An article written in Casper, Wyoming’s Star-Tribune summarizes it well:
Senate rejects coal-liquids plans
– By Noelle Straub
WASHINGTON – Friday, June 22, 2007 The Senate on Tuesday defeated two coal-to-liquids measures, one pushed by Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and the other similar to legislation promoted by the late Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo.
The Tester amendment to the energy bill on the Senate floor would have provided up to $200 million in grant money and $10 billion in direct loans for coal gasification projects.
The projects would have been required to have annual lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions at least 20 percent lower than conventional plants’ emissions and to have captured and stored at least 75 percent of carbon dioxide that would otherwise be released to the atmosphere.
The amendment was voted down 33-61. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., voted in favor; Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., voted against it.
the earth was once a playground
not ours
not matter what belief
before us there were animals
there was sun
light
night
moon
twilight
it is not for us to dishevel
you would not want someone to harm you
let us not be hypocrites
and indulge in what earth has given us
from the beginning
mother nature cannot live on life support
July 26th, 2007 – The following email was sent to supporters of iLoveMountains.org. To sign up to receive free email alerts, click here.
Would you be willing to take just a few hours of your time to visit your Congressional representatives’ local office while he or she is home during the August Congressional recess? We’ll help you set up the meeting, and supply you with materials that you can give to your representatives to make sure they understand the scale and scope of mountaintop removal coal mining.
