One Mountain, Two Visions: a Mountaintop Removal Coal Mine or a Wind Farm?
In September, we wrote to ask for your help in protecting Coal River Mountain in West Virginia — ground zero in the effort to end mountaintop removal coal mining.
The question at hand is whether Coal River Mountain will become a model for a sustainable energy future, through the construction of a clean energy wind farm — or whether the state of West Virginia will follow the policies of the past and allow Massey Energy to destroy Coal River Mountain with a massive mountaintop removal coal mine.
Despite extensive research that has shown that Coal River Mountain has enough wind potential to provide electricity for between 100,000 and 150,000 homes, forever — and despite the public comments of local residents and more than 10,000 supporters of clean energy from across the country — we learned yesterday that the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has approved Massey Energy’s permit to begin blasting the mountain.
We can still save Coal River Mountain — but we need your help right now.
Can you take just a moment to email West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin, and ask him to act on his commitment to renewable energy by halting the mountaintop removal operation at Coal River Mountain?
Governor Manchin can do the right thing, just as other Governors in the South are stepping forward to stop the worst excesses of mountaintop removal coal mining.
Just recently, Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen wrote to the EPA to protest the Bush administration’s proposed changes to the stream buffer zone rule.
[The] OSM has done [a poor job] of protecting streams from the impacts of coal mining and related activities… In the ten years from 1992 to 2002, more than 1200 miles of streams in central Appalachia have been directly impacted by coal mining, either by being mined through or by being buried under spoil disposal piles. That is approximately 2 percent of the streams in the Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia coal fields.
Please, take a moment to tell Governor Manchin to stand with other Governors — and with the people of his state — by leading West Virginia forward into a clean energy future:
“We must do more to put people back to work, and get our economy moving again,” the president-elect said.
He said his economic priority would be a two-year, nationwide effort to”jumpstart job-creation in America and lay the foundation for a strong and growing economy”.
Aging public infrastructure would be rebuilt, Mr Obama said, adding that his administration would look quickly at developing and building sources of renewable energy, such as wind farms, designed to “free” the US from its “dependency” foreign oil.
…
In the great state of Kentucky, with its beautiful rolling hills, storied history, and monolithic coal industry, environmentalists count their victories as few and far between. Case in point, the current Democratic Governor of Kentucky, Steve Beshear, once said that mountaintop removal mining, which blasts apart entire mountains and buries streams, can be done “environmentally.” Well, it looks like I’m going to have to put this news in my hell-has-frozen-over pile, but perhaps the biggest surprise of this week is the fact that Beshear sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) asking them to reject the Bush Administrations attempted deregulation of mountaintop removal mining. (.pdf)
During this time of historic change it seems that even coal-friendly politicians like Beshear are seeing the need to put a check on the coal industry’s reckless and destructive drive to pillage the Appalachian Mountains. As the Bush Administration attempts to shove through 11th-hour repeals to critical mountaintop removal mining regulations such as the stream buffer zone, coal state governors and members of Congress from across the country are stepping up and protecting the interests of the people rather than the interests of the coal industry.
Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen also wrote a letter to EPA, saying in part (.pdf):
The final EIS makes clear what a poor job OSM has done of protecting streams from the impacts of coal mining and related activities. It states that, in the ten years from 1992 to 2002, more than 1200 miles of streams in central Appalachia have been directly impacted by coal mining, either by being mined through or by being buried under spoil disposal piles. That is approximately 2 percent of the streams in the Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia coal fields.
From Bush, to Chenry, to Dingell, to Boucher, to Robert Byrd, the dinosaurs of the pollution industries are stepping aside – or being removed via ballot – and being replaced by champions on energy and the environment.
In the very first act of the 111th Congress, the Democratic Caucus took the incredibly bold step of booting foot-dragging Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Dingell. In his place they put Henry Waxman, who authored the strongest global warming legislation in the House in the 110th Congress, introduced legislation to ban the construction of any new coal-fired power plants, and is a co-sponsor of HR 2169 – the Clean Water Protection Act – which would ban most mountaintop removal mining.
Here’s what the mining industry has to say about Waxman (via “MineWeb“)
…as Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California, takes the helm after victoriously ousting Dingell from the chairmanship, it will feel like the difference between George Bush and Barack Obama, an environmental lawyer recently told Bloomberg.
The National Mining Association’s Luke Popovich warned Waxman would likely be “a very slower learner on the importance of coal for affordable energy. …It would have been problematic in the best of times to have Mr. Waxman’s views prevail.”
Bwwahahaha! If anybody in Congress knows the true cost of coal its Henry Waxman. It is plain laughable that with the cost of Appalachian coal more than tripling this year, utilities raising rates due to the cost of coal, and the economic devastation in coalfield communities that NMA staff are actually trying to say that coal is cheap and economically beneficial.
They may not be able to recognize it yet, but the reality-based among us can see – the transition is here. Coal production is declining and American interest and investment in renewable sources of energy (including conservation and efficiency) is increasing.
But, as Lavar Burton would say – don’t take my word for it. In a show of good will and a preview towards an era of more open government, President-Elect Obama’s Transition Team has released the following video showing his energy and environment transition team, highlighting some of the key players who will help him choose his key appointments and who have helped him set his key policies (left). For the first time in my lifetime, we will see leadership from the White House on climate change, renewable energy, and in ending mountaintop removal mining. (right)
In the chilly holiday transition of the next two months we will be saying goodbye not only to 2008, but – happily – to the Bush era of regulatory tomfoolery and pollution industry handouts, as well as the exorable and often mystifying inhabitants of the 110th Congress.
We enthusiastically welcome in 2009, President-Elect Barack Obama, and the 111th Congress.
Firstly, thank YOU:
1) To each of you who took the time to call or write your Representatives and targeted members of Congress asking them to take action on coal and mountaintop removal…
3) To each of who took time out of your lives to meet with your Representatives, or the 100s who traveled Washington DC to ask Congress to pass the Clean Water Protection Act, which will permanently reverse the Bush Administration’s 2002 “fill rule” change. The Bush change allows toxic waste from mountaintop removal coal-mining sites to be dumped into America’s headwater streams.
Secondly, in the 111th Congress the Clean Water Protection Act will be re-introduced and passed. We have a record 143 bi-partisan returning co-sponsors in the House. We also have several exciting developments in the intervening weeks…
One of our most high-profile supporters – Congressman Rahm Emanuel (IL-05) – has ascended to be seated at the right hand of President-Elect Barack Obama to serve as Chief of Staff. Rahm’s support surely won’t hamper our chances for a supportive administration, although Senator Obama has voiced opposition to mountaintop removal and strip-mining for years. During a swing through southern West Virginia earlier this year, Senator Obama promised that protecting Appalachian waterways was going to be a top priority of his EPA. So, with Congressman Emanuel at his side, we expect President-Elect Obama – within 100 days – to repeal the Bush Administration’s regulatory changes allowing for mountaintop removal mining.
The 111th Congress is an inherently friendlier Congress due to its make-up, and this includes the Senate. In the 111th for the first time, we will introduce this legislation in the Senate. Four previous co-sponsors from the House now sit in the upper chamber (Udall, Cardin, Brown, Sanders). Senator Byrd (D-WV), who we admire and respect but who disagrees strongly with us on this issue, has stepped down from his position as Chairman of the Appropriations Committee.
Big coal is on its heals at the moment, with national support and viability of renewable energy at an all-time high, support for immediate action on global warming at an all-time high, and no amount of misleading green-washed commercials able to convince the American public that there is such thing as clean coal. The EPA Board of Appeals just ruled that any new or proposed coal-fired power plant has to apply Best Available Control Technology (BACT) when regulating for CO2. This potentially puts the kibosh on any new, deadly, coal-fired power plants when President-Elect Obama assumes the Presidency. Production of coal in Appalachia is in steep decline, while prices have sky-rocketed over the last 8 years. But from Appalachia, we deeply feel that the time for change has come, and look forward to working with you, the 111th Congress, and President-Elect Obama to end one of the worst chapters in Appalachia’s deep and storied history.
If the will of the people of Appalachia and the United States is heeded, and the word of the President-Elect kept, this will be the year and the Congress that sees the end to one of the ugliest and unnecessarily brutal acts of self-mutilation in American history – mountaintop-removal coal-mining.
Here’s to our hopes for the 111th Congress and the Obama Administration!
I wanted to follow up on Mary Anne’s email yesterday, and to thank her for her incredible leadership at iLoveMountains.org.
Thanks to her hard work and vision, more than 32,000 Americans have come together online to stop mountaintop removal coal mining. And hundreds of thousands more have learned about the dirty secret behind “clean coal.”
All of us here at iLoveMountains.org wish her luck as she heads out to carry on the fight against Big Coal at the Sierra Club.
And as Mary Anne pointed out, we’re looking forward to the opportunities that a new Congress and a new Administration will present in our efforts to stop mountaintop removal coal mining.
But before the next president and the new Congress are sworn in, we need to do all we can to stop the last-ditch attempts by the lame-duck Bush administration to enshrine the worst abuses of mountaintop removal coal mining into law.
That’s exactly what the Bush administration is trying to do right now with its 11th-hour change to the “stream buffer zone” rule.
If adopted, the new Bush rule would exempt coal companies from a law that prohibits surface coal mining activities from disturbing areas within 100 feet of streams. The end result would be thousands of miles of our nation’s mountain streams destroyed, and up to 700 mountains destroyed by mountaintop removal coal mining over the next decade, according to one estimate.
We can stop this last-minute give away to Big Coal. Simply click the link below to send an email to Senator John McCain, Senator Barack Obama, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, and the US Office of Surface Mining.
Note that the deadline for contacting the EPA is November 23rd, 2008.
Thank you for taking action!
Matt Wasson
iLoveMountains.org
P.S. The ad shown in this email was also placed in The Richmond Times Dispatch as well as The Washington Post. Please join with the readership of these publications and taking action today!
In the great state of Kentucky, with its beautiful rolling hills, storied history, and monolithic coal industry, environmentalists count their victories as few and far between. Case in point, the current Democratic Governor of Kentucky, Steve Beshear, once said that mountaintop removal mining, which blasts apart entire mountains and buries streams, can be done “
Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen also wrote a letter to EPA, saying in part 
From Bush, to Chenry, to Dingell, to Boucher, to Robert Byrd, the dinosaurs of the pollution industries are stepping aside – or being removed via ballot – and being replaced by champions on energy and the environment. 
Bwwahahaha! If anybody in Congress knows the true cost of coal its Henry Waxman. It is plain laughable that with the cost of Appalachian coal more than tripling this year, utilities raising rates due to the cost of coal, and the economic devastation in coalfield communities that NMA staff are actually trying to say that coal is cheap and economically beneficial.
In the chilly holiday transition of the next two months we will be saying goodbye not only to 2008, but – happily – to the Bush era of regulatory tomfoolery and pollution industry handouts, as well as the exorable and often mystifying inhabitants of the 110th Congress. 
One of our most high-profile supporters – Congressman Rahm Emanuel (IL-05) – has ascended to be seated at the right hand of President-Elect Barack Obama to serve as Chief of Staff. Rahm’s support surely won’t hamper our chances for a supportive administration, although Senator Obama has voiced opposition to mountaintop removal and strip-mining 
The 111th Congress is an inherently friendlier Congress due to its make-up, and this includes the Senate. In the 111th for the first time, we will introduce this legislation in the Senate. Four previous co-sponsors from the House now sit in the upper chamber (Udall, Cardin, Brown, Sanders). Senator Byrd (D-WV), who we admire and respect but who disagrees strongly with us on this issue, has stepped down from his position as Chairman of the Appropriations Committee. 
