The following email was sent to the 44,000+ supporters of iLoveMountains.org. To sign up to receive free email alerts, click here.
Last April, the Environmental Protection Agency took a bold step toward curtailing mountaintop removal coal mining when it issued draft guidelines to minimize the practice of “valley fills” — which bury streams and poison Appalachia’s water sources — unless they meet a high standard.
The guidelines were just one of a series of draft rules issued that day designed to curtail the impacts of destructive surface mining. And every day since, Big Coal has argued that the rules are too costly and need to be overturned.
But now it’s our turn to be heard. The EPA is accepting public comments on the proposed restrictions for mountaintop removal. Will you take a moment to tell the EPA to stand firm on limiting the devastating effects of mountaintop removal coal mining?
Click here to contact the EPA today:
http://ilovemountains.org/epa-guidance
We know that Big Coal has been working hard to flood the EPA comment boxes with demands to roll back the new guidelines.
We can’t let Big Coal and their front groups frighten the EPA into backing down. That’s why we need you to take just a moment today to speak up and make your voice heard.
Submitting a comment takes just a few moments. Please, act now.
Thanks for all you do,
Matt Wasson
iLoveMountains.org
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One of West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd’s last public statements was that a majority of Americans and a majority of Congress oppose the practice of mountaintop removal. Since that statement less than one year ago, we have seen an enormous growth in the public opposition and political opposition to mountaintop removal. Faith groups such as Restoring Eden and organizations like Society for the Study of Social Programs are leading the way in demanding an end to mountaintop removal.
Political will to end mountaintop removal has gotten so strong that last week, fifty Congressional Representatives from twenty-four states sent a letter to the EPA thanking them for their efforts in protecting Appalachian communities from toxic mountaintop removal waste. The signers included five Representatives from MTR states, and nine from eastern coal states.
It read: (more…)
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The following email was sent to the 43,000+ supporters of iLoveMountains.org. To sign up to receive free email alerts, click here.
After last week’s election, we’ve heard from many iLoveMountains.org supporters who wonder what the results mean for our movement to end mountaintop removal coal mining.
While we are aware that Democrats will hand over the reins to Republicans on key committee positions in the House this Congress — we also know that the effort to end mountaintop removal coal mining is gathering an historical force that rises above and beyond partisan politics.
That said, we wanted to share with you a great post that we came across from long-time mountaintop removal activist Mark Sumner, aka Devil’s Tower over at Daily Kos. He shares a key insight on why it’s beneficial for us to redouble our efforts right away:
With the election behind us and the prospect of the a more Republican legislature ahead, the lame duck session could be wasted in throwing out symbolic bills with no opportunity of passage, or in hand wringing over what might have been. Or it could be used to do something worthwhile, something lasting, something that will save lives, livelihoods, and communities. We can ennoble this brief session with an accomplishment that will literally outlast the nation.
We can end mountaintop removal…
There are already bills in both the House and the Senate to address this issue. The House bill is the Clean Water Protection Act (H.R. 1310). The Senate bill is the Appalachia Restoration Act (S. 696). Right now, the CWPA has 172 cosponsors in the current congress. In case you think this is one of those thousand page telephone book-sized bills laden with side issues and favors to individual districts, the whole bill [is less than 5 paragraphs long.]
Why do this now when the days of the lame duck session are both few and potentially precious? Because we can. Because the legislation is ready…
We can pass this quickly. We can have it behind it us. We can see that the mountains which have survived for geological ages, and the people who have held tight through hard times, are both given their chance to go into a future not shadowed by coming destruction.
Please, take a moment to read Mark’s full post. Then, take a moment to write your representatives and ask them to pass the Clean Water Protection Act (H.R. 1310) and the Appalachia Restoration Act (S. 696)..
Thank you for everything you do.
Matt Wasson
iLoveMountains.org
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Diana Richardson is a professor at San Diego State University. This blog part of the “Voices from the Field” series which highlights testimonies of supporters across the country fighting to end the practice of mountaintop removal coal mining. Do you have a story to share? Email kate@appvoices.org to be featured in this series.
I believe that Mountaintop Removal is the greatest intentional environmental and human rights abuse occurring in our country today. Yet, aside from the victims who are living the nightmare, and the people allied in their fight for these people and mountains, it is largely unknown to most Americans.
I became generally aware of mountaintop removal only 4 years ago, though I knew of “strip mining” and its impacts. This fills me with shame, as I pride myself on being aware of anything damaging the natural environment and the people of our country. I have travelled to the north coast of Alaska to learn about and write of the native Inupiat conflict with oil drilling. I have written of the political and economic practices that led to the tragic flooding in New Orleans from Katrina, I have worked in environmental policy since the late 1970s, and I teach of environmental issues at the university level. So, how did this disaster in Appalachia elude me? Ok, I’m not perfect. But, I try. It was a Vanity Fair article in 2006 (no, I don’t get the magazine – but, good lesson in preconceived notions!) that woke me up. I began to research the issue and to teach it to my classes. However, I didn’t know enough. My mother is from Wheeling, WV, and her father from Fairmont. I have Appalachia in my roots, and this issue was not only challenging me on an academic level, but was also haunting me from a much deeper level. I had to go.
A stab-in-the-dark response to a mass email from iLoveMountains.org led to a quick response from Kate Rooth (Appalachian Voices), who so generously helped organize my opportunities during a trip to see mountaintop removal first hand. I couldn’t believe my luck that the time I planned to go coincided with the Alliance for Appalachia’s Community Leader Training Weekend in Charleston, WV. Details came together seamlessly and off I went.
The best way to describe my experience was “an amazing overload of beauty, heartache, hope and tragedy”. The people I met are unforgettable. The scenes I saw are tattooed in my mind. The stories I heard replay over and over in my memory.
The mountains aren’t like the western ranges that surround me. They are, instead, close, dense, heavily forested, soft, embracing. They are beautiful. Full of life. The destruction from mountaintop removal is appalling, overwhelming. The peoples’ stories are heart wrenching, unbelievable truths that go with corrupt third-world governments – not ours.
The training weekend was excellent. The greatest hope that I have for ending mountaintop removal comes from the large number of intelligent and resourceful people that I met there – the people from local communities’ who are involved in grass roots activities, from direct action to infrastructure building and improvements, and the people from all the non-profit organizations who bring experience, education and great talent in policy development, and in education and outreach. Information disseminated during the weekend was educational, useful, and inspiring. It was well organized and effective.
Thanks to Dustin White (Cook Mountain) and Kate Rooth, I was able to go to Kayford Mountain and view mountaintop removal. That evening, I had dinner with Larry and Carol Gibson of Kayford Mountain, and then visited with them at their home.
Who cannot cry, fight back, work hard to change – be affected at the deepest levels when presented this information and these experiences? Not me.
In my work at San Diego State University, I have accelerated and extended this issue in my courses. My students will be researching and giving term presentations on the issue, I am speaking to the Green Lunch Bag series in November on campus on the topic, and all of my classes will have a significant section on mountaintop removal. We need more people in California and the west involved in this issue. We need policy makers from non-fossil fuel states to support the Clean Water Protection Act in the House, and the Appalachia Restoration Act in the Senate, and to demand enforcement of existing laws. This is not an Appalachian issue only, and it is not an eastern U. S. issue only. These are our mountains, these are our people, and this is our issue. This is our collective goal as Americans – work hard for change that is coming to improve the lives of the people in this spectacular mountain region.
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