‘As an air-breather and a water-drinker, I take offense to the notion that coal company profits are more important than my children’s lives.’
Big Coal’s backlash over the EPA crackdown on future mountaintop removal operations went from denial and anger to the outright absurd last week, as state legislatures conjured their own versions of a sagebrush rebellion and the new Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed a sheath of regulatory gutting amendments to its budget bill.
On the heels of its Tea Party-backed coal rallies last fall, the dirty coal lobby couldn’t have paid for a better show. As millions of pounds of ammonium nitrate fuel oil explosives continued to detonate daily in their ailing districts and affected residents held dramatic sit-ins to raise awareness of the growing health crisis in the central Appalachian coalfields, Big Coal-bankrolled sycophants fell over themselves from Virginia to Kentucky to West Virginia, and in the halls of Congress, to see who could introduce the most ridiculous and dangerous bills to shield the coal industry.
Their breathless message: “The EPA don’t understand mining,” as Kentucky’s House Natural Resources and Environment Chairman Jim Gooch, D-Providence, declared to his colleagues.
That misunderstanding dates back to last spring’s breakthrough announcement by the EPA, following up a memorandum of understanding between the numerous federal agencies, including the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation Enforcement, on finally issuing guidance rules and cracking down on the irreversible and pervasive destruction of mountaintop removal mining operations to waterways. Based on government studies that conclusively demonstrate that “burial of headwater streams by valley fills causes permanent loss of ecosystems,” the EPA issued new conductivity levels “to protect 95% of aquatic life and fresh water streams in central Appalachia” and effectively bring an end to the process of valley fills (and the dumping of toxic coal mining waste into the valleys and waterways).
After an eight-year hiatus of enforcement under the George W. Bush administration, in which an estimated 1,000-2,000 miles of the headwater streams were jammed and sullied by toxic coal waste, along with the destruction of hundreds of mountains and tens of thousands of hardwood forests and the depopulation of historic Appalachia communities, the EPA’s return to its true role as enforcer of the Clean Water Act made it a convenient target for Big Coal outrage.
Not for coalfield residents.
“The actions of these state governments trying to circumvent federal law reminds me of the old, discredited tactic of ‘nullification,'” Coal River Mountain Watch president Bob Kincaid noted. A resident in the Raleigh County, West Virginia coalfields, he added, “Kentucky’s, Virginia’s and West Virginia’s bought-and-paid-for retro-confederate governments have completely forgotten the lessons of history. They want to pick and choose the laws they obey. Where the EPA is concerned, it’s especially bad, since the EPA is all that stands between Appalachia and the utter ruin of what’s left of it. As an air-breather and a water-drinker, I take offense to the notion that coal company profits are more important than my children’s lives.”
Kentucky state legislature had a new take on nullification. Only days afters celebrated author Wendell Berry and 13 other Kentuckians, including a retired coal miner and inspector, occupied Gov. Steve Beshear’s office in a protest over the state’s 40-year crisis of mountaintop removal mining, the Kentucky state legislature attempted to officially establish a “sanctuary state” for the coal industry that would be exempt from “the overreaching regulatory power.” Kentucky already underwrites an additional $115 million each year in state funds for maintenance and health damages beyond any coal industry revenues.
“My friends, we Kentuckians are in a very sick family,” responded Harlan County-raised author George Ella Lyons in the Lexington Herald-Leader. “Our government is owned by big corporations and the result is obscene. Sanctuary — sacred protected space — is declared for those who are abusing the basis of our survival. How long do you think we can live without clean water and air?”
Even the Herald-Leader editorial board lectured its legislature:
Smith’s resolution would declare Kentucky a “sanctuary state” in regard to EPA regulation. Gooch’s bill would exempt from Clean Water Act regulations mining operations involving coal that never leaves the state.
Since coal mining in Kentucky impacts rivers flowing into other states, thus making mining operations subject to regulation under the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, neither measure would accomplish a single thing other than letting its sponsor preen and posture in public while wasting other lawmakers’ time.
Wasting lawmakers’ time, perhaps. But Kentucky state officials were already on overtime in their attempt to divert attention from a stunning circuit court judgment last week that granted citizens participation in the state’s gross mishandling of indisputable acts of Clean Water Act violations by two coal companies in eastern Kentucky.
Last fall, clean water advocates from the Kentuckians for the Commonwealth and Appalachian Voices, among others, filed an intent to sue notice against Kentucky subsidiaries of International Coal Group and Frasure Creek Mining for “over 20,000 incidences of these three companies either exceeding permit pollution limits, failing to submit reports, or falsifying the required monitoring data. These violations could result in fines that may exceed 740 million dollars.” Embarrassed Kentucky state officials rushed to slap a small fine — less than 1 percent of the possible fine — and limited “corrective actions” on the two companies’ admittedly blatant violations, and sought to kick off the citizens groups in the suit as “unwarranted burdens.”
Judge Phillip Shepherds summed up the key reasons for granting the intervention in his order, stating, “The Cabinet, by its own admission, has ignored these admitted violations for years. The citizens who brought these violations to light through their own efforts have the legal right to be heard when the Cabinet seeks judicial approval of a resolution of the environmental violations that were exposed through the efforts of these citizens. In these circumstances, it would be an abuse of discretion to deny those citizens and environmental groups the right to participate in this action, and to test whether the proposed consent decree is “fair, adequate, and reasonable, as well as consistent with the public interest.”
The state’s response? Kentucky is now appealing the ruling. Once unwarranted burdens, in essence, always unwarranted burdens to the state. Kentucky residents, meanwhile, are appealing for Gov. Beshear to spend a little more time in their region and keep his promise to the sit-in activists and simply visit affected residents in the mountaintop removal areas.
“Every time I’m at a particular place in Harlan County, Kentucky, in Appalachia, I go look at the junction of two creeks there,” said Appalachian scholar Chad Berry from Berea, who participated in the sit-in. “One comes off a large mountain that is protected and is clear and looks to be drinkable. The other comes off a surface mining site and often looks like coffee with too much cream in it. Where they join is always interesting tangible proof of the toll surface mining is having on the Appalachian region’s watersheds.”
When the NRDC released a study last year that found that over 293 mountains and nearly 600,000 acres of hardwood forests had been destroyed by mountaintop removal, with reclamation efforts resulting in less than 4 percent of any follow-up economic productivity, fellow sit-in protest Mickey McCoy, from Inez, Kentucky, noted: “This research shows what a sacrificial lamb Kentucky has been for an industry that is not interested in any kind of restoration. Here in Martin County, more than 25 percent of the land has been leveled by coal companies yet we are among the poorest of counties not just in Kentucky, but the entire country.”
In an unflinchingly quick move, the state legislature in Richmond passed a bill that would eliminate citizens’ participation and basic regulatory oversight of clean water laws for strip-mining by shifting control of water quality to a political appointee. In effect, coal lobbyists managed to jam through a bill that placed a stranglehold on state officials by restricting the state’s ability to adequately review stream monitoring or toxicity testing in permitting and enforcement actions. “If the coal industry doesn’t want state officials testing the water, what are they afraid the tests will reveal?” asked Tom Cormons, Virginia director for Appalachian Voices. “The industry is trying to tie state officials’ hands to prevent them from doing their job.”
Accusing the EPA of “soft tyranny,” a West Virginia state delegate introduced “The Intrastate Coal and Use Act” to strip the EPA of its regulatory overview for Clean Water Act permits in West Virginia. In a stunning move last week, a state committee gutted a long-awaited bill to regulate coal slurry injections despite overwhelming evidence that such operations have resulted in widespread health damages and huge cancer rates.
But West Virginia’s state antics over the EPA paled in comparison to the U.S. Congress last week.
In an 11th-hour debate on the floor of Congress, Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-VA, whose Congressional district includes the Abingdon, Virginia-headquarters of Alpha Natural Resources, which recently purchased Massey Energy company to become one of the largest coal companies in the world, chastised the EPA for unfair rules and compared toxic coal waste to Perrier water. In one of the most ludicrous statements in the history of debates on the floor of Congress, Griffith reached deep into the Big Coal depths and responded to one of his colleague’s calm review of mountaintop removal mining destruction with his final delusion: “Our data shows there is greater biodiversity after mountaintop mining than before.”
Despite the fact that the highly mechanized mountaintop removal mining has led to record losses of underground mining employment — nearly 65 percent in the last 20 years — and has left the mining districts at the bottom of virtually all poverty and health care rankings in the nation, Griffith defiantly railed on the House floor over the EPA’s war to create poverty.
In the end, Griffith and his House Republican majority won their battle — though, hardly “the war” in the coalfields. The House passed amendments that would defund the EPA’s authority to implement its recent guidance regarding mountaintop removal or invoke its authority under section 404c to veto Clean Water Act permits. Another amendment would defund the Department of Interior’s role over the “Stream Protection Rule,” which limits the dumping of coal waste near waterways. While the White House has already floated a possible veto balloon, and with the Senate Democrats vowing to scuttle the plethora of House amendments in their budget bill, the future of EPA enforcement of mountaintop removal operations still remains entangled in an endless parade of legal and state legislative challenges.
And mountaintop removal mining blasts on.
Standing at the east entrance of the Kentucky capitol earlier this month, Wendell Berry emerged from his sit-in and reminded me of his four-decades-long struggle to halt reckless strip-mining and mountaintop removal:
You can go to a little stream that’s coming down off the mountain, and you know that one day that stream ran clear and you could have knelt down and drunk from it without any hesitation — it would have been clean. And now it’s running orange or black. And what people have to understand is that there’s heartbreak in that. Harry Caudill said “tears beyond understanding” have been shed over this by people who love their land and have had to sit there and see it destroyed. I live right on the Kentucky River, and that river’s running from those headwater streams. My part of the river is under the influence of this destruction that’s going on up above.
Added Truman Hurt, a retired coal miner in Perry County and member of activist group Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, in a letter to his Kentucky state legislators:
The people and communities of Eastern Kentucky have suffered unnecessarily for years because the state environmental and mine safety agencies have failed to fully and fairly enforce the law. Now that the EPA is finally stepping up to enforce the law and protect our precious water, you and the governor are making every effort to block that enforcement. You seem willing to sacrifice the health and safety of your own constituents and the future of Eastern Kentucky in order to protect the rights of the coal companies to flatten the mountains and fill the valleys with their mine waste.
This blog entry is crossposted from Appalachian Voices’ Front Porch Blog
The Stakes are High for Appalachia as the Fight Moves to the Senate
Late Friday night and into the wee hours of Saturday morning, the long-anticipated assault on clean air and clean water laws began in the House of Representatives. At 4:39AM on Saturday morning, Republicans passed their bill with zero Democratic support, and only three Republican dissenters (Jones (NC), Flake (AZ), Campbell (CA)).
The House approved a number of amendments to the budget bill (H.R. 1) that would prevent the EPA from updating rules on mountaintop removal permitting, coal ash storage, emissions of coarse particulate matter, and a variety of other clean air and clean water safeguards. Those amendments that were attached included the coal lobby wishlist of #109, #216, #217 (previously labeled as #10), and #498 (previously labled as #219/220) These were revenue-neutral amendments, meaning they weren’t aimed at reducing the federal budget deficit, but were designed solely to prevent the EPA and other government agencies from updating and enforcing clean air and clean water laws. In short, it was Christmas for polluters.
Fortunately, the House version of the budget bill is only the first step, and for any of these rules to take effect, they must also pass the Senate and be signed into law by the President.
How did Mountaintop Removal Amendments Fare?
Since three of these amendments were aimed specifically at reversing the actions of the Obama Administration to strengthen permitting requirements for mountaintop removal mines (and thus would reinstate the polluter-friendly rules set up by the Bush Administration), we thought we’d provide a break-down of how these amendments faired, who voted for them and who voted against.
Appalachian Voices’ supported a “NO” vote on each of the following three amendments. Most Republicans voted “AYE,” and most Democrats voted “NO,” with variations noted below each vote.
Ds voting Aye: Altmire, Boren, Costello, Critz, Donnelly, Holden, Matheson, McIntyre, Peterson, Rahall, Ross Rs voting Nay: Bass (NH), Fitzpatrick, Hayworth, Johnson (IL), Lance, McCaul, Reichert, Smith (NJ), Wolf
Appalachian Voices also joined many of our national partners in opposing #217, which limits EPA’s ability to regulate toxic coal ash. Compared to the mountaintop removal amendments, #217 passed with much greater Republican support, but also lost many more Democrats.
Though these votes didn’t go the way we would have liked, we have now seen 206 members of Congress take an anti-MTR action by either cosponsoring the Clean Water Protection Act, or voting “NO” on #109, #216, or #498. It does allow us a clearer picture of where many in Congress stand regarding mountaintop removal, and presents a more clear of who we can work with.
Several Republicans voted with us at least 3 times.
109
216
217
498
Bass
+
+
+
+
Fitzpatrick
+
+
+
+
Johnson (IL)
+
+
+
+
Reichert
+
+
+
+
Smith (NJ)
+
+
+
+
Wolf
+
+
+
+
LoBiando
+
+
+
Hayworth (NY)
+
+
+
Lance
+
+
+
We also have a better picture of Democrats who voted incorrectly 3 or more times, and who will need to hear from their constituents about why mountaintop removal needs to end.
109
216
217
498
Altmire
x
x
x
Costello
x
x
x
Peterson
x
x
x
Boren
x
x
x
x
Donnelly
x
x
x
x
Critz
x
x
x
x
Ross (AR)
x
x
x
x
Rahall
x
x
x
x
Matheson
x
x
x
x
Holden
x
x
x
x
Senate Democrats have been VERY cool to the House Republicans budget, and that was before many of these amendments were passed that not only endanger public health and the environment, but according to some studies would cost more than 800,000 jobs.
Last week, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-HI) said:
It is clear from this proposal that House Republicans are committed to pursuing an ineffective approach to deficit reduction that attempts to balance the budget on the back of domestic discretionary investments, which constitute only a small percentage of overall federal spending.
Once again, even before these bad amendments were added, Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), member of the Environment and Public Works Committee and Chairman of the Water and Wildlife Subcommittee said:
Any effort to limit EPA’s authority “will not be accepted in the Senate. It’s not even in the ballpark.
There is an even smaller chance that these attacks on Appalachia will be signed into law by President Obama, who also released a “Statement of Administrative Position” (SAP) in opposition to HR 1, calling the Clean Water Act language “irresponsible” and “reckless.”
Appalachian Voices will continue engaging with key targets in the Senate and the national base of support for ending mountaintop removal to ensure that he language from the coal lobby wishlist is not included in the federal budget. We’ll have much more to come this week, including details on what will happen when the Senate returns to finalize their budget.
Finally, I just wanted to say a personal word of thanks to the 1000s of people who are participating in this fight by calling their Representatives and encouraging their friends and family to do the same. We will all have to work even harder to ensure that these amendments are signed into law and will be asking folks to call key Senators in the upcoming days and weeks. Because of all of your hard work, we were able to convince roughly 200 members of a very hostile Congress, including 18 Republicans, to act against mountaintop removal.Feel free to leave questions in the comments, and thanks for all you do.
For years, you’ve stood with the people of Appalachia in the fight to end mountaintop removal coal mining. Now, some members of Congress are trying to undo all of the progress we have made to protect Appalachian mountains and streams, and we need your help to stop them.
Several U.S. Representatives are using the federal budget bill (H.R. 1) to add extraneous amendments that could eliminate the ability of the EPA and other agencies to do their jobs to protect Appalachian citizens.
Here is more background on the Congressional amendments to de-fund the EPA:
Amendment 109 — Would remove the EPA’s ability to evaluate mountaintop removal permits and would reverse all of the actions taken by the administration over the past two years to safeguard Appalachian streams and communities.
Amendment 216 — Would remove EPA’s ability to veto “dredge and fill” permits that do not meet Clean Water Act standards. The Spruce No. 1 Mine permit was the first time the EPA used this authority in relation to a mountaintop removal site.
Please, call your member of Congress today at (202) 224-3121 and urge them to oppose Amendments 109 and 216 to the House budget proposal and let our federal agencies do their jobs to protect public health and well-being.
Happy Kentucky Loves Mountains day! Jeff Biggers has some must-see interviews with Wendell Berry, Stanley Sturgill, Teri Blanton, and many others from the weekend sit-in in the Kentucky Governor’s offices.
In Kentucky alone, over 290 mountains have been destroyed by mountaintop removal and Kentuckians are rising to put an end the polluting of their streams and the destruction of their mountains. A sit-in at the governor’s office, a precedent-setting court decision, a rally in the state’s capitol, and peace activists walking across Kentucky are raising the fervor against mountaintop removal all across the state.
Activist and retired high school teacher, Mickey McCoy (who in his words, is ready to pull an Egypt), renowned native son and author Wendell Berry and over a dozen others conducted a sit-in at the governor’s office starting on Friday and were prepared for arrest.
The group was upset by the Beshear administration’s decision to partner with the coal industry to oppose the EPA’s efforts to protect the health and water of coalfield residents.
The governor actually spoke to the group for 40 minutes, listening to the stories of people directly impacted by mountaintop removal, and committed to visiting communities directly impacted by mountaintop removal. But he did not back down of his support of the coal industry or the lawsuit. He did invite the group to stay as long as they’d like, which they did. They are still there. You can read the details at the official blog for Kentucky Rising.
In other news, Appalachian Voices, KFTC and others been able to proceed forward in their legal action against 3 coal companies who they believe have violated the Clean Water Act over 20,000 times. They have been granted a motion by a state judge to intervene in the settlement the state offered the companies after the legal team sent in a requisite intention to sue. The team believes that settlement does not sufficiently redress the companies’ violations or deter future violations. This is the first time that a third party intervention has been allowed in a state proceeding between a potential Clean Water Act violator and a state agency in Kentucky. A court date to review the settlement has been set for June 14. You can go here to get the latest updates.
Also, peace activists are walking over 100 miles in solidarity with the movement to end mountaintop removal. You can read their updates here.
Editor’s note: Live updates will be filed as the historic sit-in and march against mountaintop removal mining unfold today in Frankfort, Kentucky.
Day 4 of the historic sit-in: Valentine’s Day in the Kentucky governor’s office.
As thousands of protesters descend on the Kentucky capitol in Frankfort today for the “I Love Mountains” march today to end mountaintop removal mining, the 14 sit-in Kentucky Rising protesters inside the governor’s office have electrified the clean energy movement across the nation with an unflinching and inspiring valentine for the country:
This is the year to end mountaintop removal mining.
Talk about “one love.” Across the 48 states that rely on coal-fired electricity, we are all connected to the egregious human rights and environmental crime of mountaintop removal mining.
Despite limited EPA moves to reduce the damage of mountaintop removal operations to waterways and communities, devastating mountaintop removal mining, which provides less than 5-8 percent of our national coal production, takes place in eastern Kentucky, West Virginia, southwest Virginia and eastern Tennessee.
A message from our brothers and sisters in Kentucky – jw
—
Contact: Silas House/Jason Howard 606.224.1208
FRANKFORT – A group of twenty Kentuckians has gathered at the state Capitol in an attempt to meet with Gov. Steve Beshear to discuss the issue of mountaintop removal mining. They plan to remain in his office until the governor agrees to stop the poisoning of Kentucky’s land, water, and people by mountaintop removal; or until he chooses to have the citizens physically removed.
Among the group are Wendell Berry, 76, the acclaimed writer who has decried mining abuses for the past fifty years; Beverly May, 52, a nurse practitioner from Floyd County; Erik Reece, 43, who has written extensively about the coal industry; Patty Wallace, 80, a grandmother from Louisa; Mickey McCoy, 55, former educator and mayor of Inez; Teri Blanton, 54, a grassroots activist from Harlan County; Stanley Sturgill, 65, a former underground coal miner of Harlan County; Rick Handshoe, 50, a retired Kentucky State Police radio technician of Floyd County; John Hennen, 59, a history professor at Morehead State University; and Martin Mudd, 28, an environmental activist.
While these Kentuckians realize they are risking arrest by refusing to leave the governor’s office, they say they have repeatedly petitioned Gov. Beshear for help, yet their pleas have been ignored. This action is a last resort to seek protections for their health, land, and water.
In a letter to Gov. Beshear, the citizens expressed their desire to communicate “respectfully and effectively” with the governor about the urgent need to stop the destruction of mountaintop removal mining. Among their requests were the following:
§ Accept a long-standing invitation to view the devastation in eastern Kentucky caused by mountaintop removal mining
§ Foster a sincere, public discussion about the urgent need for a sustainable economic transition for coal workers and mountain communities
§ Withdraw from the October 2010 lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency, in which the Beshear administration partnered with the coal industry to oppose the EPA’s efforts to protect the health and water of coalfield residents
“The office of the governor must be held accountable,” they citizens explained in a joint statement. “We are once again asking Gov. Beshear for help.”
Hal Rogers district in eastern Kentucky (KY-05) has been the victim of more mountaintop removal than any other district or even state, for that matter. Out of 435 Congressional districts, it is #1 in destruction of mountains and streams, and yet it ranks:
– 435th in physical health (dead last)
– 435th in overall well-being (dead last)
– 435th in emotional health (dead last)
– 435th in life expectancy (dead last) (although it switches back and forth with Rahall’s district WV-03, depending on whose data you go by)
As a state Kentucky ranks dead last in healthy behavior, and 49th in overall well-being, emotional health, and physical health (behind WV of course). More mountaintop removal will only make these problems with the health of Appalachian people even worse. Its hard to get worse than worst, but many Kentucky Representatives are trying. Our thoughts and prayers are with our friends at the state house.
We stand in solidarity with Kentucky Rising, a group who entered the office of Gov. Beshear at 10 AM asking for a real discussion about stopping MTR and creating economic stability for the region.
If you’d like to help. 1) Call the Governor’s office and demand he meet with his constituents. 502-564-2611
2) Consider joining 100s of Kentuckians for “I Love Mountains Day” at the state Capitol on February 14th.
Hendryx found that mountaintop removal coal mining areas had “significantly higher mortality rates, total poverty rates and child poverty rates every year” as compared to other counties. He concludes that people living in mountaintop removal coal mining areas experience persistently elevated poverty and mortality rates and that efforts to reduce these disparities must focus on the Appalachian coalfields.
Hendryx, M. (2011) “Poverty and Mortality Disparities in Central Appalachia: Mountaintop Mining and Environmental Justice.” Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice: Vol 4 (3) pp 44-53.
This study found that mountaintop removal coal mining activity is “significantly” associated with elevated chronic cardiovascular disease mortality rates and recommends more research on the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of mountaintop removal coal mining on public health.
Esch, L. and M. Hendryx. (2011) “Chronic Cardiovascular Disease Mortality in Mountaintop Mining Areas of Central Appalachian States.” Journal of Rural Health.
This study focuses specifically on the risks for residents living in communities with mountaintop removal coal mining. Using data from a health survey, the authors found that the incidence of self-reported cancer was much higher in mountaintop removal coal mining communities. The authors state that “if the rates found in this study represent the region, a 5% higher cancer rate translates to an additional 60,000 people with cancer in central Appalachian mountaintop mining counties.”
Hendryx, M., L. Wolfe, J. Luo, and B. Webb. (2011) “Self-Reported Cancer Rates in Two Rural Areas of West Virginia with and without Mountaintop Coal Mining.” Journal of Community Health.
