Just before Christmas, the true cost and danger of coal became apparent in the town of Harriman, Tennessee.
On the morning of December 22, the earthen dam at the Kingston Power Plant containing coal fly ash failed catastrophically, unleashing a six-foot wall of toxic water and mud.
By the time the flood subsided, more than a billion gallons of coal sludge had damaged 15 homes — three beyond repair — before pouring into the nearby Emory and Clinch rivers.
In comparison, the Exxon Valdez spilled a “mere” 11 million gallons of crude oil. And the coal fly ash spill in Harriman is three times larger than the October, 2000 coal sludge spill in Martin County, Kentucky, which the EPA called “the largest environmental disaster east of the Mississippi.”
Miraculously, there were no human injuries in last week’s spill. Yet the Emory and Clinch rivers flow into the Tennessee River — the primary water source for many Tennessee towns and cities, including Chattanooga. Coal fly ash contains heavy metals including lead, mercury, arsenic, chromium, and selenium. And though it will take years for the full affect of this environmental disaster to be known, iLoveMountains.org has teamed with the Upper Watauga Riverkeeper and the Waterkeeper Alliance to test the waters’s of the Clinch and Emory Rivers for contaminants. To learn more about these discoveries and find links to news, blog posts, photos, and videos of the event, visit:
In short, the toxic coal ash spill at Harriman reveals what we’ve known all along — there is no such thing as clean coal.
As Grist magazine points out, “there is no “clean coal” that doesn’t produce millions of tons of toxic sludge, just as there is not yet any form of coal that doesn’t send millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.”
Despite the spill at Harriman, TN, Big Coal and their lobbyists will be doing all they can in the coming year to convince decision makers in Washington that “clean coal” is the solution to America’s foreign energy dependence. They’ll do everything in their power to obfuscate the true cost of coal — more than 470 mountains destroyed to date, thousands of miles of stream destroyed, and millions of pounds of toxic chemicals released into the environment and our nation’s waters.
But we can beat these industry lobbyists — and put an end to mountaintop removal coal mining in America — if we keep up the pressure in the new year.
That’s why I am turning to you today to ask for your generous support. As 2008 comes to an end, can you make a contribution of $50, $100 — or the most generous amount you can afford — to help iLoveMountains.org as we prepare for the big challenges and opportunities coming our way in 2009?
Your contributions to iLoveMountains.org supports the efforts of groups working to end mountaintop removal coal mining and to create a more sustainable and prosperous future for Appalachia — and all of America.
I hope that you will consider iLoveMountain.org’s leadership in the fight to end mountaintop removal coal mining worthy of your generous year-end support.
From all of us at iLoveMountains.org — have a safe and Happy New Year.
Matt Wasson
iLoveMountains.org
P.S. With the holidays in full swing, many people have not heard about the environmental disaster in Harriman, TN. Visit http://ilovemountains.org/tva-spill/ to learn more about the coal fly ash spill and to help spread the word.
For many residents of Wilson Creek, Kentucky, this season is less joyous than usual.
That’s because Wilson Creek is the latest mountain to be added to our list of America’s Most Endangered Mountains.
A major coal company has moved in to this small Kentucky community, with plans to blow up the ridge top above the right side of Wilson Creek. Their plans include three valley fills, which would bury the headwaters of Wilson Creek and Big Fork.
The majority of the 94 families who call Wilson Creek home are fighting to save their homes and their way of life from the devastation of mountaintop removal coal mining. But they need your help getting the word out about their struggle.
Can you take a moment to help tell the story of Wilson Creek by watching our latest episode of America’s Most Endangered Mountains, and forwarding the video on to you friends and family?
The fight to end mountaintop removal coal mining may start in places like Wilson Creek, but it extends across the country — and all the way to Washington, DC.
That’s why we’re pleased to report that more than 3,000 letters have already been sent by iLoveMountains supporters like you to President-Elect Obama, asking him to end mountaintop removal coal mining within the first 100 days of his administration.
If you haven’t sent your own message to President-Elect Obama, please do so today by clicking here:
Your efforts to spread the word and speak out against mountaintop removal coal mining are making a tremdendous difference.
Just recently, Bank of America, which has been one of the biggest financial backers of mountaintop removal coal mining companies, revised their policy on coal and declared that they will no longer fund mountaintop removal coal mining.
Yet for all the progress we’ve made, 2009 is shaping up to be the most critical year yet in the fight to end mountaintop removal coal mining. And we’re going to need all the help we can get.
So please, take a moment over the holidays to invite your friends and family to join you in standing up for the mountains we love. You can invite them to join us by clicking here:
Over 10,700 people from across the US and across the world have signed the petitionto save Coal River Mountain from 10 square mile mountaintop removal mine. In stead of the mountaintop removal site, residents want a wind farm. They’ve been trying to convince Governor Manchin of West Virginia that a wind farm is a better choice for the local residents, the county and the state than another mountaintop removal site. On Tuesday, that argument got a lot stronger.
Yesterday the Coal River Wind project of Coal River Mountain Watch released a study it had commissioned last August that compared the economics of a wind farm vs. a strip mine on Coal River Mountain. As part of the release, there was a press conference held in Beckley and another in Charleston.
The main message of the report is that the private landholding companies and mine companies benefit from the strip mining while the people living in the community and the county government benefits more from the wind farm. In fact, the annual taxes that will go to the county from the wind farm will be $1,740,000 while the severance taxes that will go to Raleigh County from the Surface mine will be $36,000. And that 1.7 million will be annual forever. The $36,000 from the mining will last only 17 years.
Another interesting conclusion from the report is that when externalities such as increased hospitalization in areas with coal mining are factored in, the strip mining isn’t profitable. During the 17 year life of the surface mine, the revenue will be -$600 Million. That’s Negative $600,000,000. The wind farm by itself is profitable every year even when externalities are factored in. And those externalities are felt by the people, not the companies.
The report also analyzed a scenario in which a wind turbine manufacturing plant is sited in Raleigh County, and concluded that substantial economic benefits would also result from the development of a strong wind industry in southern West Virginia. If we get a wind farm on Coal River Mountain, it may be the starting point for developing such an industry and that’s a lot of jobs. In addition to the 200+ construction jobs on the wind farm and 40 permanent jobs, a wind production facility would bring in over 1700 jobs.
As Gary Anderson, who lives at the foot of Coal River Mountain said “If they can put a wind farm on Coal River Mountain and mine the coal underground, then that’s what they should do, and if this study shows that a wind farm is better for the economy than the Mountaintop Removal, then Governor Manchin should do what he can to make that happen.”
And you can let him know that by emailing or calling him at 1-888-438-2731.
The House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held an important hearing yesterday on Bush’s 11th hour rule-making shenanigans. As most of our readers will know, one of those last minute rule changes is a repeal of the 25 year old Stream Buffer Zone rule – an important guard against the dumping of mountaintop removal mining waste into our streams – which just landed in the Federal Register today.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr gives perhaps the most significant and compelling testimony on mountaintop removal mining I have ever seen, and I hope you will take 10 minutes to watch him describe in his own words – and the words of his late father – exactly what is happening to the Appalachian Mountains.
(Unofficial transcript in blockquotes, beginning around 3:10)
I’ve filed very detailed testimony about some of the worst of these actions, but I just wanted to give you a real life expression of what’s going on. I flew only a few weeks ago over the Appalachian Mountains over eastern Kentucky, and West Virginia mainly, and the Cumberland Plateau. If the American people could see what I saw on that trip, there would be a revolution in this country. We are literally cutting down the Appalachian Mountains, these historic landscapes where Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett roamed. The Appalachians, Chairman, were a refuge during the Pleistocene ice age 20,000 years ago when – where I live and the district Congressman Hall represents was under 2 miles of ice at that time. The rest of North America turned into a tundra where there was no forest. And the last refuge for those forests was the Appalachian Mountains. And when the tundras and glaciers withdrew, all of America was reseeded from the seed stock in those forests. So it’s the mother forest of all north America, and that’s why it’s the most diverse and abundant temperate forest in the world. Because it’s the longest living. And today, these mining companies with the help of their indentured servants in the White House are doing what those glaciers couldn’t accomplish. What the Pleistocene Ice Age couldn’t accomplish which is to flatten the Appalachian mountains and destroy those forests. They’re using draglines, which are 22 stories high. I flew under one of them in a Piper Cub. They cost 1/2 billion dollars and practically dispense of the need for human labor.
The Appalachians are indeed a national treasure of biodiversity.
When my father was fighting strip mining in Appalachia back in the 1960s – I remember a conversation I had with him when I was 14 years old – where he said they are not just destroying the environment, they are permanently impoverishing these communities, because there is no way that they will ever be able to regenerate an economy from these barren moonscapes that are left behind And he said they are doing it so they can break the unions. And that’s exactly what happened. When he told me that there were 140, 000 union miners in WV digging coal out of tunnels in the ground. Today there are fewer than 11,000 miners left in the state, a very few of them are unionized because the strip industry isn’t. They are taking more coal out of WV than they were in 1968, but the difference is back then at least some of that money was being left in that state for salaries and pensions and reinvestment in that communities. Today, virtually all of it is going to leaving the state and going straight up to Wall Street to the big banking houses and to the corporate headquarters of Arch Coal, Massey Coal, and Peabody Coal – mainly Massey coal and then to the big banking houses like Bank of America and Morgan which own these operations.
Again, RFK was right.
95% of the coal in WV is owned by out of state interests which are liquidating the state for cash, literally, using these giant machines and 2500 tons of explosives that they detonate every day, in West Virginia – the power of a Hiroshima bomb once a week. They are blowing the tops off the mountains to get at the coal seams beneath, they take these giant machines and they scrape the rock and debris and rubble into the hollows and into the adjacent river valleys. They flattened out the landscapes, they flatten out the valleys. They have already flattened 400,000 acres of the Appalachian Mountains. By the time they get done, within a decade, if this rule goes through and you don’t succeed in getting rid of it, they will have flattened 2200 miles, – an area the size of Delaware. According to EPA they have already buried 1200 miles of America’s rivers and streams, these critical headwater streams that are critical to the hydrology and to the water quality and to the abundance of wildlife and the forests and the biota of those regions. Its all illegal. You can not in the United States under the Clean Water Act dump rock, debris, and rubble into a waterway without a Clean Water Act permit and you can not get such a permit.
So, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, and my good friend Joe Lovett sued the companies in federal court in front of a conservative Republican federal judge, Judge Charles Hayden, and he said during this hearing. He said to the Corps of Engineers Colonel, who was there to testify, “You know this is illegal. It says so in the Clean Water Act. How did you happen to start writing these permits to allow the companies to break the law, and engage in this criminal activity?” The Colonel answered, “I don’t know your honor, we just kind of oozed into it.” And Judge Hayden at the end of that hearing said exactly what I just said. Its all illegal, its been illegal since day one, and he enjoined all mountaintop mining. Two days from when we got that decision lobbyists for Peabody coal and Massey coal met in the back door of the Interior Dept with Gale Norton’s first deputy chief Steven J. Griles, who was a former lobbyist for those companies, and together they re-wrote they interpretation of one word of the Clean Water Act – the definition of the word “fill” to change 30 years of statutory interpretation and make it legal not just in WV, but in every state of this country to dump rock, debris, rubble, garbage, any solid material into any waterway in the united states without a Clean Water Act permit. All you need today, according to the Administration is a rubber stamp from the Corps of Engineers, which in some districts you can get through the mail or over the telephone. Now, the last vestige of protection that we had in WV was a Stream Buffer Zone law that was upheld also by Judge Charles Hayden, which said that you can’t do this if you are within 100 feet of a stream. Well this is the law today that this Administration is trying to get rid of before it leaves office to make it so there is absolutely no way – there is not a single obstacle or impediment – to these companies just coming and flattening the entire Appalachian chain.
Please help us end this nightmare in Appalachia by joining iLoveMountains.org, and by asking your Congressperson to co-sponsor the Clean Water Protection Act (HR 2169), which currently has 153 co-sponsors in the House.
Today we discovered a wonderful new kids cartoon by the folks at SustainLane. The kids discover where their power comes from, do internet and database research, save a mountain, and make a difference in their community, all in 8 minutes!
The iLoveMountains.org team loved it, and we think you will too!
After the Washington Post reported that President-elect Obama was considering Duke Power CEO Jim Rogers for Secretary of Energy, my soaring hopes for Obama’s promise to create “change we can believe in” swiftly turned to despairing thoughts of “change we can grieve in.”
Appointing Mr. Rogers to head the nation’s Department of Energy is like to placing the proverbial fox in charge of the hen house.
As one of the nation’s leading energy executives, Mr. Rogers is an integral part of what one colleague describes as the “coaligarchy” – shorthand for the coal-based electricity industry’s iron-fisted grip on, and historic devastation of, the people, communities and ecosystems wherever coal is mined, processed, burned and disposed of as air pollution and other hazardous post-combustion waste.
Publicly, Mr. Rogers’ waxes poetic about our need to address global climate change and Duke Energy Carolinas has made much ado about building one of the nation’s largest solar energy projects in North Carolina. Yet, his deeds – and those of his company – belie the fact that these statements and actions are little more than a “green” facade hiding the fact that Mr. Rogers, his company and their ilk are hell-bent on building costly and unnecessary coal and nuclear power plants.
The mountaintop removal coal mines providing coal to Duke Power’s Cliffside Power Plant
I live in North Carolina – a state with too many Duke power plants to count, located in a region ravaged by mountaintop removal coal mining. In fact, North Carolina is second only to Georgia in its consumption of mountaintop removal coal. If Mr. Rogers’ actions reflected his public statements about minimizing the impacts of coal-based energy, he would not have proposed to build two 800-megawatt coal-fired power plants in North Carolina and one in Indiana. While the N.C. Utilities Commission mercifully denied one of the two plants, Duke is feverishly constructing the other.
Duke Power’s Cliffside Power Plant, the site of Duke’s new coal fired electricity generators
This plant is estimated to pump the air pollution-equivalent of one million additional cars into the atmosphere during each of its fifty-year lifespan. Moreover, while North Carolina is experiencing one of the worst droughts in its history, the new plant is expected to evaporate 21 million gallons of water per day for cooling. Worse, Duke manipulated the political process in order to ensure that its ratepayers – rather than shareholders – bear the financial risks of proceeding with this plant whether or not it’s ever completed! Worst of all, however, is the fact that the electricity from the new plant may be unnecessary for meeting alleged growing demand. According to the Raleigh News & Observer, Duke “appears to be lining up cities it hasn’t previously served to be future customers.”
As a Mea culpa for foisting this plant upon us, Mr. Rogers and Duke have made several promises to North Carolinians in exchange for their complicity in allowing Duke to move forward with new coal and nuclear power plants. First, Duke softened the blow of making ratepayers responsible for financing the new coal plant by agreeing to a provision that it deploy some renewable sources of energy. In terms of addressing global climate change, the goal is no better than rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic.
Second, Mr. Rogers has promised that the new coal-fired power plant will be the last one built in the state. This promise rings hollow when one considers the fact that impending climate change legislation will likely require new power plants to capture, transport and store carbon dioxide. Because North Carolina has no viable storage sites, Duke would need to build a cost-prohibitive pipeline in order to move the captured carbon.
coal-fired CO2 emitting smoke stacks
Third, Duke is seeking to implement an energy efficiency program euphemistically known as Save-A-Watt. Save-A-Watt has been lambasted as being too expensive and accomplishing too little. According to a Winston-Salem Journal editorial criticizing the program, Duke is seeking “a much higher return on the investment it makes trying not to sell us electricity than it is guaranteed for the investment it makes producing the electricity we use. … the principle is ridiculous. … The effort to save energy should be part of a utility’s normal course of business. Considering that utilities are guaranteed a profit on the costs of doing that business, the profit from trying to save electricity would have been in line with that for trying to sell it.”
Finally, Duke has ignored pleas from North Carolina residents to minimize the impacts of mountaintop removal coal mining – the most destructive form of surface mining which has transformed more than 470 mountain peaks into flat, eerily lifeless moonscapes and buried more than 1200 miles of streams in Appalachia. Duke glibly claims that it has no control over how coal is mined. However, if Bank of America, headquartered in North Carolina can do it, see http://environment.bankofamerica.com/articles/Energy/COAL_POLICY.pdf, so can Duke.
In sum, the evidence is clear. While Mr. Rogers speaks eloquently about cleaning up his industry, his actions as a prominent “coaligarch” reflect no compunction about the devastating impacts his industry has on the people, communities and ecosystems wherever coal is mined, processed, burned and disposed of as air pollution and other hazardous post-combustion waste.
As Mr. Obama repeatedly recognized during his campaign, America stands at a crossroads – facing a choice between a safe, clean energy future and business as usual. If Mr. Obama seeks “change we can believe in,” he must appoint a visionary and effective leader at the Department of Energy in order to create that change. Appointing a “coaligarch,” on the other hand, heralds change we should all grieve in.
Please join me in contacting the Obama transition team and request that he appoint a leader willing to create green jobs, not snow jobs.
Via phone: 202.540.2000 (After instructions, press “2” to speak to staff.)
Film’s inspiring message of energy conservation reaches key audiences, prime time!
KILOWATT OURS: A PLAN TO RE-ENERGIZE AMERICA is an award-winning film that provides simple, practical, affordable solutions to America’s energy crisis and shows how we can save electricity, save money and make a difference for ourselves and the planet. Visit KilowattOurs.org for a short sneak preview or to locate a TV broadcast or community screening in your state.
The film has reached more than 50% of the public TV viewing audience nationwide this fall. More stations are added weekly so visit www.KilowattOurs.org or check local listings to see if your station is planning to show the film.
DC
Washington, DC, WETA, 12/28 at 6pm KY
Louisville, KY, KET2, 12/14 Sun 6pm, 12/26 Fri 3:00 PM
NE Kentucky, WOUB-Athens OH, Channel 20.1, 20.2, 44.2, 12/15 at 9pm, 12/16 at 2am
NE Kentucky, WOUB-Athens OH, Channel 20.3, 12/16 at 3PM, 12/20 at 8pm
NE Kentucky, WOUB-Athens OH, Channel 44.1, 12/16 at 9pm
Statewide, KY, KET3 Instructional Television (visit www.ket.ort/tv/schedules/stations_ket3.htm, 12/15 Mon 11:00am, 12/27 Sat 12:00am
Statewide, KY, KET1, 12/30 Tue 3:00am, 12/30 Tue 9:00pm NC
Charlotte, NC, WTVI & WTVI-DT, 12/5 at 1am, 12/5 at 4am (if you are in Charlotte and would like more waking hours to view KO, please contact viewer services and ask for a rebroadcast at a more decent hour) OH
Athens and SE Ohio, OH, WOUB, Channel 20.1, 20.2, 44.2, 12/15 at 9pm, 12/16 at 2am
Athens and SE Ohio, OH, WOUB, Channel 20.3, 12/16 at 3PM, 12/20 at 8pm
Athens and SE Ohio, OH, WOUB, Channel 44.1, 12/16 at 9pm VA
Richmond/Charlottesville, VA, WCVE, WHTJ, 1/8/09 at 10pm WV Western West Virginia, WOUB-Athens, OH, Channel 20.1, 20.2, 44.2, 12/15 at 9pm, 12/16 at 2am
Western West Virginia, WOUB-Athens, OH, Channel 20.3, 12/16 at 3PM, 12/20 at 8pm
Western West Virginia, WOUB-Athens, OH, Channel 44.1, 12/16 at 9pm
PLEASE HELP! If a broadcast is scheduled in your city, the Kilowatt Ours nonprofit organization has several opportunities for you to help get the word out about this important documentary:
* Email this announcement to your community contacts and/or post it in your organizations’ newsletter and website. Kilowatt Ours has materials to support the following efforts at www.KilowattOurs.org/toolkit.php
* Host a viewing in a home or community setting. Please contact Screening@KilowattOurs.org
* Consider a donation or sponsorship to support this effort and bring this film to a wider audience. Donations of $25 or more entitle you to a DVD and bulk rates are available.
If the film is not currently scheduled in your community, you may wish to contact the viewer services department at your local public television station to find out if they are planning to show this hopeful film that inspires energy conservation and change for most people who see it.
Kilowatt Ours’ is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Sponsors include: Turner Foundation, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, The Sierra Club Foundation, Johnson Controls, Mother Earth News, Utne Reader, Stonyfield Farm, and Renewable Choice Energy. For more information, visit www.KilowattOurs.org.
Last, but not least, more good news. During the campaign, President-elect Barack Obama pledged to end mountaintop removal coal mining.
“We’re tearing up the Appalachian Mountains because of our dependence on fossil fuels,” Obama said in Lexington, Kentucky in August of 2007. “We have to find more environmentally sound ways of mining coal than simply blowing the tops off mountains.”
During the campaign, President-elect Barack Obama pledged to end mountaintop removal coal mining.
“We’re tearing up the Appalachian Mountains because of our dependence on fossil fuels,” Obama said in Lexington, Kentucky in August of 2007. “We have to find more environmentally sound ways of mining coal than simply blowing the tops off mountains.”
Today, we’re launching a major campaign asking President-elect Obama to deliver on his campaign pledge to end mountaintop removal coal mining – and to do so within the first 100 days of his presidency. This campaign will only succeed if you take action today.
We know that President-elect Obama is committed to transforming our nation’s energy economy, and building a sustainable energy future for all Americans.
But there is nothing sustainable about allowing Big Coal to continue to blow the tops off of America’s oldest mountains.
The good news is that President Obama has the power to stop most current mountaintop removal mining within his first 100 days in office.
And by working with Congress, he can permanently end mountaintop removal coal mining and help Appalachia make a sustainable contribution to our nation’s energy needs.
Obama can fulfill his campaign pledge to end mountaintop removal coal mining in four easy steps:
Reverse the Bush Mine Waste Giveaway: On his first day in office, Obama should reverse the lame-duck Bush administration rules that have allowed Big Coal to dump toxic mine waste into streams and rivers.
Enforce Existing Laws: For eight years, the Bush administration has refused to enforce the Clean Water Act and other environmental rules, allowing Big Coal to ignore our nation’s laws with few if any consequences. Obama should demand that these and other rules be enforced, and hold the EPA, Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation, and Enforcement, and the Army Corps of Engineers
responsible.
Prioritize Appalachia in America’s Clean Energy Future: The mountaintops of Appalachia provide a valuable wind energy resource – a resource that is severely impacted or destroyed by mountaintop removal coal mining. Obama should mandate Environmental Impact Assessments and economic analyses as part of his New Energy for America Plan. With finite declining coal reserves and jobs, Obama needs to ensure Appalachia receives attention and support in the Administration’s new energy plan – which includes a $150 billion dollar investment in green, union jobs.
Tell Congress to Pass the Clean Water Protection Act: The Clean Water Protection Act would prevent future administrations from gutting the Clean Water Act through executive action, and it would permanently protect clean drinking water for many of our nation’s cities. Obama should tell Congress to pass the Clean Water Protection Act and deliver it to his desk for his signature within the first 100 days.
With all the issues facing his new administration, it is vitally important that President-elect Obama hears from people like you who love our mountains and who want to see an end to mountaintop removal coal mining. That’s why we need you to act today.
President Bush will leave a sad legacy in Appalachia. One of the few things to expand during his time in office was the use of a barbaric and devastating form of coal-mining called mountaintop removal. This practice in which mountains are blasted apart and recklessly dumped into the adjacent valleys has destroyed over 1 million acres of America’s oldest mountain range. During a time of crushing drought, we have polluted and completely buried up to 2000 miles of our best headwater streams. Coal-mining jobs have been lost and communities left in poverty, while our investments in wind and energy efficiency languish.
Well, fortunately for us, change is coming.
Recognizing the collective desire for action on all of our own key issues, we hope that health advocates, renewable energy activists, fiscal conservatives, national security hawks, and ardent environmentalists will join the collective call from Appalachia and from around the nation to protect the universal human rights of health, safety, and dignity and join Appalachian Voices and iLoveMountains.org in asking President Obama to take immediate action to stop mountaintop removal coal-mining.
Mountaintop removal coal-mining is truly one of the worst human rights and environmental tragedies of the 21st century. It will also go down as one of the many embarrassing legacies of the Bush Administration. Just last week, in the 11th hour, the Bush Administration was able to effectively repeal the Stream Buffer Zone rule, which was one of our last legal protections against the destruction of Appalachian streams. Overturning this rule change will be an important first step for President Obama come January.
We wanted you to be the first to know that this Wednesday iLoveMountains.org be launching a campaign to have Senator Obama end mountaintop removal within his first 100 days in office. The steps he can take are simple.
Reverse the Bush Mine Waste Giveaways: The Bush Administration has effectively repealed the Stream Buffer Zone and (in 2002) changed the definition of “fill material” to include toxic mining waste. President Obama should overturn these Bush-era policies that allow for our streams to be polluted and buried by toxic waste.
Enforce the Law: The coal industry has routinely ignored the Clean Water Act and the Stream Buffer Zone Rule. President Obama should demand that these and other rules be enforced, and hold the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation, and Enforcement (OSMRE), and the Army Corps of Engineers accountable, and appointments leaders in these organizations which “believe in the environment.”
Urge Congress to Pass the Clean Water Protection Act: The Clean Water Protection Act is necessary to both permanently protect clean drinking water for many of our nation’s cities and to protect Appalachian coalfield residents who face frequent catastrophic flooding and pollution as a result of mountaintop removal.
Include Appalachia in America’s Clean Energy Future: Some mountaintops in Appalachia have huge wind power potential and would be more beneficial in that regard than as flattened landscape. President Obama should make Environmental Impact Assessments and economic analyses mandatory as part of his New Energy for America Plan. With finite and declining coal reserves and jobs, President Obama needs to ensure Appalachia receives attention and support in the Administration’s new energy plan that includes $5 million dollars invested in green jobs.
Please join the people of Appalachia in this historic effort by signing up for iLoveMountains.org as we work with the new Administration to bring morning to Appalachia.
I’ve filed very detailed testimony about some of the worst of these actions, but I just wanted to give you a real life expression of what’s going on. I flew only a few weeks ago over the Appalachian Mountains over eastern Kentucky, and West Virginia mainly, and the Cumberland Plateau. If the American people could see what I saw on that trip, there would be a revolution in this country. We are literally cutting down the Appalachian Mountains, these historic landscapes where Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett roamed. The Appalachians, Chairman, were a refuge during the Pleistocene ice age 20,000 years ago when – where I live and the district Congressman Hall represents was under 2 miles of ice at that time. The rest of North America turned into a tundra where there was no forest. And the last refuge for those forests was the Appalachian Mountains. And when the tundras and glaciers withdrew, all of America was reseeded from the seed stock in those forests. So it’s the mother forest of all north America, and that’s why it’s the most diverse and abundant temperate forest in the world. Because it’s the longest living. And today, these mining companies with the help of their indentured servants in the White House are doing what those glaciers couldn’t accomplish. What the Pleistocene Ice Age couldn’t accomplish which is to flatten the Appalachian mountains and destroy those forests. They’re using draglines, which are 22 stories high. I flew under one of them in a Piper Cub. They cost 1/2 billion dollars and practically dispense of the need for human labor. 
When my father was fighting strip mining in Appalachia back in the 1960s – I remember a conversation I had with him when I was 14 years old – where he said they are not just destroying the environment, they are permanently impoverishing these communities, because there is no way that they will ever be able to regenerate an economy from these barren moonscapes that are left behind And he said they are doing it so they can break the unions. And that’s exactly what happened. When he told me that there were 140, 000 union miners in WV digging coal out of tunnels in the ground. Today there are fewer than 11,000 miners left in the state, a very few of them are unionized because the strip industry isn’t. They are taking more coal out of WV than they were in 1968, but the difference is back then at least some of that money was being left in that state for salaries and pensions and reinvestment in that communities. Today, virtually all of it is going to leaving the state and going straight up to Wall Street to the big banking houses and to the corporate headquarters of Arch Coal, Massey Coal, and Peabody Coal – mainly Massey coal and then to the big banking houses like Bank of America and Morgan which own these operations.
95% of the coal in WV is owned by out of state interests which are liquidating the state for cash, literally, using these giant machines and 2500 tons of explosives that they detonate every day, in West Virginia – the power of a Hiroshima bomb once a week. They are blowing the tops off the mountains to get at the coal seams beneath, they take these giant machines and they scrape the rock and debris and rubble into the hollows and into the adjacent river valleys. They flattened out the landscapes, they flatten out the valleys. They have already flattened 400,000 acres of the Appalachian Mountains. By the time they get done, within a decade, if this rule goes through and you don’t succeed in getting rid of it, they will have flattened 2200 miles, – an area the size of Delaware. According to EPA they have already buried 1200 miles of America’s rivers and streams, these critical headwater streams that are critical to the hydrology and to the water quality and to the abundance of wildlife and the forests and the biota of those regions. Its all illegal. You can not in the United States under the Clean Water Act dump rock, debris, and rubble into a waterway without a Clean Water Act permit and you can not get such a permit.
interpretation and make it legal not just in WV, but in every state of this country to dump rock, debris, rubble, garbage, any solid material into any waterway in the united states without a Clean Water Act permit. All you need today, according to the Administration is a rubber stamp from the Corps of Engineers, which in some districts you can get through the mail or over the telephone. Now, the last vestige of protection that we had in WV was a Stream Buffer Zone law that was upheld also by Judge Charles Hayden, which said that you can’t do this if you are within 100 feet of a stream. Well this is the law today that this Administration is trying to get rid of before it leaves office to make it so there is absolutely no way – there is not a single obstacle or impediment – to these companies just coming and flattening the entire Appalachian chain. 
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President Bush will leave a sad legacy in Appalachia. One of the few things to expand during his time in office was the use of a barbaric and devastating form of coal-mining called 
Mountaintop removal coal-mining is truly one of the worst human rights and environmental tragedies of the 21st century. It will also go down as one of the many embarrassing legacies of the Bush Administration. Just last week, in the 11th hour, the Bush Administration was able to effectively repeal the Stream Buffer Zone rule, which was one of our last legal protections against the destruction of Appalachian streams. Overturning this rule change will be an important first step for President Obama come January.
Enforce the Law: The coal industry has routinely ignored the Clean Water Act and the Stream Buffer Zone Rule. President Obama should demand that these and other rules be enforced, and hold the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation, and Enforcement (OSMRE), and the Army Corps of Engineers accountable, and appointments leaders in these organizations which “