tagged w/ Appalachians
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I just called and was told there have been several hundred other calls and that they are looking into legal ways to stop it. The person I spoke to didn't sound very enthused though. But please, call the number at the link and tell the EPA to intervene. It is the one way we can stop this once and for all!
Is the Earth worth one phone call?
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Mountaintop removal blasting has begun on Coal River Mountain.
These operations are happening only a few hundred feet away from the Brushy Fork impoundment dam, which holds over 8.2 billion gallons of toxic coal sludge above Pettus, WV. If the dam bursts, nearly a thousand people in the Coal River Valley would likely lose their lives within minutes.
At the same time, Coal River Mountain is the proposed site of an industrial wind farm. Studies have shown that its ridges have the highest and most productive wind potential. The Coal River Wind Project has done research to demonstrate that a wind farm on top of the mountain could generate approximately 1.2% of West Virginia's total energy needs, create 300 jobs in the area, and generate a long-term tax revenue stream. Every day that blasting happens, the possibility for the wind farm diminishes.
The state of West Virginia refuses to do anything about this destruction. Please contact the EPA and ask them to intevene at Coal River Mountain.
Call Lisa Jackson's office at (202) 564-4700.I just called and was told there have been several hundred other calls and that they... more
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Where's the outrage? Hello, Mr. Gore?
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The Obama administration late last week quietly approved one of six major mountaintop removal permits that were said to be undergoing close scrutiny by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Without announcing the move publicly, EPA gave the nod for the federal Army Corps of Engineers to issue a Clean Water Act permit for CONSOL Energy Inc.'s Peg Fork Surface Mine near Chattaroy in Mingo County.
EPA approved all eight valley fill waste piles originally proposed by CONSOL, provided that additional water testing is done before six of those fills are constructed, agency officials said.
Corps officials in Huntington approved the permit on Friday. Copies of key permit documents were not yet being made public, despite a promise from the Obama White House of increased transparency in the permit review process.
"We are disappointed that the administration has approved a new mountaintop removal mine without making any commitment to adopt new regulations or policies that would end this destructive practice," said Ed Hopkins, director of the Sierra Club's environmental quality program. "While we appreciate that the Obama administration is taking a harder look at mountaintop removal coal mining, unless that results in decisions that end the irreversible destruction of streams, the harder look isn't going to do the job."
After announcing a crackdown on mountaintop removal in late March, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson less than two months later cleared dozens of valley fill permits for issuance by the corps. Under federal law, the corps directly reviews these "dredge-and-fill" permits, but EPA has veto authority and is supposed to make sure the corps is doing a good job.Where's the outrage? Hello, Mr. Gore?
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The Obama administration... more
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People are speaking out. Where is this government? Where are the windmills? Where are the Green jobs?
Description:
The Struggle Against Mountaintop Removal: Leading Activist Mike Roselle Continues Fight Against Destructive Coal Mining
The Environmental Protection Agency recently dealt a blow to the coal mining industry when it delayed hundreds of mountaintop coal mining projects for a new review of their environmental impact. But the EPA decision still leaves in place hundreds of existing permits for mountaintop removal. The group Climate Ground Zero has been leading protests and peaceful direct actions against the company Massey Energy to prevent mountaintop removal at Coal River Mountain in West Virginia. We speak with leading activist Mike Roselle of Climate Ground Zero.People are speaking out. Where is this government? Where are the windmills? Where are... more
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"It’s the one environmental crime that no US politician will confront – the destruction of Kentucky’s mountains. Leonard Doyle visits the Appalachian peaks being blasted by Big Coal
The road slicing through the thickly forested hills of eastern Kentucky used to be called the Daniel Boone Parkway. It was named for the controversial American folk hero who fought his way across Indian country to settle a state where many of his descendants still live.0520 02 1
That was before the coal industry began blowing up the Appalachian Mountains as a cheap way of getting at the black stuff below, behaviour decried by the environmental group Appalachian Voices as “one of the greatest human rights and environmental tragedies in America’s recent history”."It’s the one environmental crime that no US politician will confront... more
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