Martin County Kentucky is no stranger to the dangers posed by coal slurry dams. In 2000, a slurry dam broke inundating two forks of the Tug River with over 300 million gallons of toxic sludge. This spill as thirty times the size of the Exxon Valdez Spill, and was called one of the worst environmental disasters to occur in the Southeast by the EPA.

Early Tuesday morning, Martin County Coal Company reported to the Kentucky Department of Environmental Protection that a spill had occurred in Coldwater Creek. An unknown amount of slurry has leached into the creek, and clean up crews are working to contain the spill. Water levels have not risen, but Martin County resident Mickey McCoy said ” we just got a mainline injection of toxic heavy metals into our creek”.

Martin County Kentucky is no stranger to the dangers posed by coal slurry dams. In 2000, a slurry dam broke inundating two forks of the Tug River with over 300 million gallons of toxic sludge. This spill as thirty times the size of the Exxon Valdez Spill, and was called one of the worst environmental disasters to occur in the Southeast by the EPA.

Early Tuesday morning, Martin County Coal Company reported to the Kentucky Department of Environmental Protection that a spill had occurred in Coldwater Creek. An unknown amount of slurry has leached into the creek, and clean up crews are working to contain the spill. Water levels have not risen, but Martin County resident Mickey McCoy said ” we just got a mainline injection of toxic heavy metals into our creek”.

On February 11, Virginia citizens convene at 4 p.m. to participate in a public hearing on the Stream Saver Bill (S. 564), before the Senate Agriculture, Conservation and National Resources Committee held in Richmond, Va. This is the first time ever Virginia has had a state bill to address mountaintop removal! The Stream Saver bill would stop the burial of headwater streams with strip mining spoil and curtail the destruction of the mountains.

Proponents of the bill are hosting a “A Rally for the Mountains” before the hearing at 3pm at Bell Tower on 101 N 9th St.

According to the Stream Saver Bill, introduced by Senator Patricia Ticer, “No spoil, refuse, silt, slurry, tailings, or other waste materials from coal surface mining and reclamation operations will be disposed of in any intermittent, perennial, or ephemeral stream.”

To learn more read Debra McCown’s article, “Virginia Lawmakers to Consider ‘Stream Saver’ Fill Ban.”
It is not just the waste that raises environmental and human concern over mountaintop removal mining, a practice deemed efficient by the coal industry–a practice that southwest Virginia is no stranger to, particularly in Wise County, Va.

“Environmental and community activists contend that this efficient method of extracting coal is just as efficient at wholesale destruction of the environment, the landscape and the communities,” said Debra McCown in her article, “Coal Mining Practices That Destroy, not Just the Land, but Entire Communities.”

What is left after mountaintop removal? In many cases a devastated landscape and community, as well as streams polluted by the practice.

“It’s not even about what you see; it’s about what you can’t see. The pollution in these headwater streams is the 900-pound gorilla here,” said Matt Wasson, director of programs for Appalachian Voices, in Debra McCown’s article “Is it possible to pick up the pieces and rebuild a mountain?”

As we search for energy solutions, “clean coal” may only serve to exacerbate the problems inflicted by mountaintop removal.

“The term clean coal ignores the consequences of coal mining, particularly the mining practices of mountaintop-removal coal mining,” said Glen Besa, Virginia director for the Sierra Club in Debra McCown’s article “Can the Myth of Clean Coal Become a Reality.” “There’s nothing clean about mountaintop-removal coal mining. It’s devastating.”
If you live in Virginia and can’t make it to the rally or public hearing, click here to write your state representative about Stream Saver Bill (S. 564).

The EPA signed off on a Clean Water Act permit releasing Patriot
Coal’s Hobet 45 mountaintop removal mine operation permit, one of 79 withheld for further review due to environmental concerns, to the Army Corps of Engineers for approval.

The addition to the Hobet complex, which already spans tens of
thousands of acres of contiguous mining will obliterate three more
miles of already impaired streams by simply “mining through” them.
These headwaters are within the watershed of the Mud River system,
which is already on the brink of a major toxic event due to Selenium
discharges at other parts of the Hobet complex. The original plans would have buried six miles of streams.

According to the EPA, Patriot Coal will still be able to mine 91 percent of the coal they were originally planning to produce, even
without any new valley fills.

Mountaintop removal has shown to be a disaster for the communities, economy, and ecology of Appalachia. Mountaintop removal has buried and
polluted nearly 2,000 miles of headwaters streams in Appalachia and contaminated them with toxic heavy metals and chemicals.

“We, the affected citizens that are living with the impacts of this destructive mining practice, pray that this decision is not a preview of other destructive mining permits being approved,” said Judy Bonds with Coal River Mountain Watch. “We certainly hope this is the last destructive permit approved that will allow the coal industry to continue to blast our homes and pollute our streams.”

To find out more read “Hobet deal cuts stream impacts, preserves jobs” by Ken Ward Jr or listen to The Diane Rehm Show’s discussion on the topic.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency stated that this year it will provide $2 million to the Community Action for a Renewed Environment (CARE) program to fund localized solutions to pollution reduction.

CARE projects will focus on two types of communities: ones striving to develop local environmental solutions and ones taking the next steps to implement toxin reduction stages in an effort to become a healthy, sustainable community.

With last year’s EPA funding, CARE helped nine communities across the nation achieve their goals. From water pollution to indoor pollutants and hazardous waste, CARE enabled communities to address pollution issues in order to establish a safer environment.

If you would like your community to apply for a CARE grant, click here to find out more information.

On Dec. 9, a petition with over 1,000 signatures was presented to West Virginia University’s President Jim Clements by the university’s Sierra Student Coalition.

The petition is a formal request that in the future the university reject donations from coal corporation CEOs Bob Murray and Don Blakenship.

“West Virginia University has received $1.5 million from two corrupt coal company leaders, Don Blankenship and Bob Murray. Both of these men have threatened the lives and health of innocent people through their companies’ practices. WVU has even honored Murray by creating a chairmanship in his name,” stated the West Virginia University Sierra Student Coalition.

The petition they issued requested that the chair name be changed to honor miners who have died in the course of duty.

According to a press release by Joe Gorman, “1,000 WVU Students Petition Against Dirty Coal Money,” as a result of their meeting with the Clements, the university president has agreed to put future donations under a stricter lens of ethical scrutiny.

For more information contact:
{encode=”joe.madpj7@gmail.com” title=”Joe Gorman”}

{encode=”the_annoyance2002@yahoo.com” title=”Calvin Smith”}

Recent reports reveal that 2.66 million pounds of 10 toxic pollutants contaminated the Emory River when TVA’s Kingston plant spilled 1 billion gallons of coal ash in 2008.

The Toxics Release Inventory, filed by TVA with the Environmental Protection Agency, reports high levels of toxic pollutants arsenic, barium, chromium, copper, lead, manganese, mercury, nickel, vanadium and zinc in Tennessee’s Emory River.

These toxins pose a serious threat to human health. For instance, arsenic and chromium are carcinogenic substances. Mercury can cause severe damage to the brain and other organs as well as serious fetus complications. Barium can cause gastrointestinal issues or when dissolved in water and ingested it can change heart rhythms and may even lead to paralysis or death.

“The enormous increase in heavy metals discharged by TVA is very troubling. First, many of these metals bio-accumulate and pose significant risks to human and environmental health. Second, TVA has repeatedly attempted to hide the potential toxicity of the coal ash. For example, TVA’s Anda Ray said to 60 Minutes host Leslie Stahl, ‘I’d say that the constituents, the things that are in the coal ash, are the same things that are naturally occurring in soil and rock.’ But if you compare Kingston discharges from 2007 to 2008 you see an astronomical increase in at least 10 very dangerous metals. If it wasn’t for EIP bringing the data and facts forward, the public would never learn the truth from TVA.”
-Donna Lisenby, Upper Watagua Riverkeeper

The 2.66 million pounds of pollutants contaminating the Emory River is over a half a million pounds more than the total amount of discharges from all U.S. power plants combined into surface water in 2007.

There are no federal regulations regarding coal ash disposal or the discharge of toxic leachate into our waterways. The EPA has recently announced that it will propose regulations for coal ash disposal in December.

Click here to read the Environmental Integrity Project’s Press Release.

For More information click the following links:

CNBC

Forbes

Washington Business Journal

Knoxville News Sentinel

Chattanooga Free Times Press

Yahoo News

US Politics Today

Nashville Business Journal

Yesterday, despite cold weather and chance of snow, hundreds of concerned citizens gathered in front of the headquarters of West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection in Charleston, W.Va. The protest and rally was held to demand that the DEP halt the blasting on Coal River Mountain.

Impacted residents, members of the clergy, musicians and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. were among the list of speakers who raised their voices for the protection of the last intact mountain in the Coal River Valley.

Blasting has already started on Coal River Mountain; this beautiful ridge has been shown to be an excellent location for a commercial renewable energy wind farm. Lorelei Scarbro, the widow of an underground miner whose home rests in the shadow of Coal River Mountain, has led the fight to stop proposed mountaintop removal mining in order to build a sustainable wind farm. Lorelei asked a jeering crowd of counter protesters to “stand with us, come to Washington D.C, and demand job diversification in the coalfields.”

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., son of late U.S. Senator Robert Kennedy, decried the practice of mountaintop removal and the companies that operate strip mines. “This is a moral issue,” he said. “We don’t have a right to destroy what we can’t re-create. It was God who made these mountains, and it’s [Massey Energy President] Don Blankenship who is tearing them down.”

For more on this story see Ken Ward Jr’s blog post on Coal Tattoo: Coal Tattoo

Excellent short film on the Protest and Rally produced by Jordan Freeman:
DEP Protest

“With respect to climate pollution, we will act,” Lisa Jackson, Environmental Protection Agency administrator, said Monday in a press conference.

Jackson announced that the EPA has finalized their endangerment findings on greenhouse gas pollution, deeming it a threat to human and environmental health.

With the conclusion of this three-year study, the organization is now legally authorized under the Clean Air Act to take regulatory strides to reduce greenhouse gas pollutants.

In January 2010, in accordance with the EPA, the U.S. will begin to monitor large greenhouse gas emitters.

In 2011, large emitters will be required to submit publicly available reports of their greenhouse gas emissions, allowing for the EPA to determine long-term trends.

“This reporting will also bring to light opportunities to jump-start private investment in energy efficiency and new technologies and products – saving money, improving bottom lines and growing the economy,” Jackson said.

Jackson added that she hoped this announcement would help to build the foundation for developing green jobs, alleviating dependence on foreign oils, and securing a better future for generations to come.

“These long-overdue findings cement 2009’s place in history as the year when the United States government began addressing the challenge of greenhouse-gas pollution,” Jackson said.

The announcement is timely, as the United Nations Climate Change Conference at Copenhangen-where President Obama is meeting with leaders from around the globe-commences today.

To read Lisa Jackson’s full speech click here.

Over 500 mountains have been leveled by mountaintop removal coal mining-nearly a half million acres of Appalachian land in Kentucky alone.

Coal companies have defended mountaintop removal with claims that the flattened mountains provide ideal land for development and it will actually help the Appalachian economy, yet very little of the permitted land has been scheduled for commercial, residential or industrial development.

According to the Surface Mining Control and Reclaimation Act (SMCRA) of 1977, companies applying to mine an area must submit a plan to reclaim the land post-mining.

Since 1999, almost 500,000 acres have been permitted for blasting followed by a post-mining project. Less than 3 percent of this acreage has actually been reclaimed. Add to that total the tens of thousands of acres blasted away before reclamation was required, and you have a topography pockmarked with barren, exposed rock that supports neither human nor environmental development.

Some reclamation projects that are underway include fish and wildlife habitats, housing developments and municipal structures, including prisons, hospitals, ball parks and road beds. But with the population of coal field counties steadily decreasing, the demand for large-scale infrastructure on reclaimed sites is weakening.

Read “Mountains of potential? Reclaimed Surface Mines Offer Level Land, but Very Little of it is Used for Development” for the full story.

This Monday, Dec. 7 at 2 p.m., iLoveMountains.org supporters and fellow mountain activists will join Coal River Mountain Watch at the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection headquarters in Charleston, W.Va., for a rally and protest to save Coal River Mountain.

Massey Energy is actively blasting and mining on Coal River Mountain in southern West Virginia. The blasting is taking place only a few hundred feet away from the Brushy Fork impoundment dam, which holds over 9 billion gallons of toxic coal sludge above the Coal River Valley.

This blasting is happening despite studies that show Coal River Mountains has the highest and most productive potential for wind power generation in the Appalachian Mountains.

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection needs to see that West Virginia resident support a clean energy future — not the dirty energy and destructive practice of mountaintop removal.

Please join us:
Where: West Virginia Dept. of Environmental Protection Headquarters, Charleston. Click here for directions. 

When: Monday, December 7th, 2 pm.

For more information on the rally and protest, please visit https://savecoalrivermountain.org/
For more information on Coal River Mountain, please visit https://www.ilovemountains.org/coalriver/background/

2010 is the year to end mountaintop removal coal mining- and how helpful would it be if we had a cool million to do it? JP Morgan Chase, one of the largest financiers of mountaintop removal coal mining, is sponsoring a community giving contest exclusively through Facebook. Wouldn’t it be great if we could win up to 1 million dollars to stop a horrendous practice that Chase itself was funding?

Already, over 700 people have cast their vote for Appalachian Voices, the creators of iLoveMountains.org for the Alliance for Appalachia, a regional coalition of organizations working to end mountaintop removal. Thank you so much to all of you that have already voted!

If you haven’t voted yet, take five minutes today to let your voice be heard. The steps are simple:

1. Go to https://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/ and allow the application access to your facebook profile.

2. Through the Chase Community Giving page, Search For Appalachian Voices (the direct link is https://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/41514?isrc=google_map)

3. When you get to the page, you have to Become A Fan of the “Chase Giving Program” in order to vote. (You can always “unfan” later if you want)

4. Click on the VOTE button. Also post on your wall, and tweet it too!

You have 20 votes to cast for your favorite non-profit organizations, but you cannot vote more than once for the same group. With the 19 you have left after voting for Appalachian Voices, you can support other members of the Alliance for Appalachia!

Appalachian Citizens Law Center Inc

Appalshop, Inc.

Coal River Mountain Watch

Heartwood, Inc.

Keeper Of The Mountains Foundation

Thanks so much!