A dynamic group of academics, local community members, and business leaders have produced a unique special issue of Solutions journal dedicated to creating a brighter future for Appalachia. Hear from Wendell Berry, John Todd, Adam Lewis, Sarah Forbes, Erik Reece and many more in the July/August Appalachia special Issue of Solutions.

Here’s what the Folks at Solutions Journal have to say about the issue:

Together with a dynamic group of academics, business leaders, and activists—each living and working in Appalachia—Solutions will present a special issue dedicated to creating a brighter future for Appalachia. Appalachia is a special place—one of the most biologically diverse and culturally rich regions on the planet. But it is only one of several regions in the United States with an economy dependent on fossil energy production and where the people fear they will suffer when America makes its necessary transition to a low-carbon economy. The challenge in each of these regions will be to make the transition as deliberately and thoughtfully as possible. Central Appalachia has the potential to become a national model of the positive transition to America’s clean energy future. Our members will receive $5.00 off the low subscription rate that keeps Solutions going.

To get your copy:

• • Current AV members: Receive a free copy by emailing us or calling 828-262-1500
• • Become a member of AV and receive a free copy
• • Subscribe to Solutions Journal

Making good on a promise made back in April, the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) will begin holding a series of open houses to accept public comments on Stream Protection Rule revisions currently in development by the agency.

The proposed revisions are intended to change stream protection in regards to surface mining, with regulating mining activities in and near streams, cracking down on monitoring of surface and ground water quality during and after mining, and revising approximate original contour restoration requirements among the items on the table.

OSMRE will hold nine separate open houses in mining heavy states, including West Virginia, Kentucky, Wyoming, Indiana, New Mexico and Texas.

Open houses will take place at the following locations in July:

July 19, 2010, 3 p.m. – Carbondale, IL, Southern Illinois University Student Center
July 20, 2010, 3 p.m. – Evansville, IN, Holiday Inn Conference Center North
July 20, 2010, 3 p.m. – Fairfield, TX, Fairfield Elementary School
July 22, 2010, 3 p.m. – Birmingham, AL, Embassy Suites Birmingham – Hoover
July 26, 2010, 3 p.m. – Hazard, KY, Hazard Community College
July 27, 2010, 3 p.m. – Beckley, WV, Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center
July 27, 2010, 3 p.m. – Farmington, NM, Farmington Civic Center
July 28, 2010, 3 p.m. – Morgantown, WV, Mylan Park
July 29, 2010, 3 p.m. – Gillette, WY, Campbell County Library

If you are unable to attend an open house, be sure to submit your comments via email to sra-eis@osmre.gov. Comments will also be accepted via mail, hand delivery, or courier. Send comments to:

Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement
Administrative Record
Room 252–SIB 1951
Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20240

OSM will post updated information as it becomes available via Twitter and on the OSM web site. For additional information on the Stream Protection Rule, see OSM’s special section entitled “Building A Stream Protection Rule.”

Thanks to the folks at Powder River Basin Resource Council for the alert!

Larry Gibson speaks to the crowd

John Ruth leads the impromptu auction for the Vespa

The coordinating committee for the Larry Gibson Earth Day event and fundraiser
View more pics from the event

By Tricia Feeney

On Earth Day in Boone, N.C., Keeper of the Mountains Larry Gibson spoke at Appalachian State University and to a downtown gathering at The Greenhouse about the destruction caused by mountaintop removal.

Appalachian Voices and the Appalachian Institute for Renewable Energy teamed up with local volunteers, student group ASU Sustainable Energy Society, and a West Virginia-based Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition for a truly grassroots effort to honor Larry on Earth Day. The coalition effort was a success! Together, we collected enough donations to install a security system at Larry’s homeplace on Kayford Mountain, W. Va.

Larry is a leader in the movement to end mountaintop removal. He started organizing to protect his homeplace in 1985 and successfully protected 50 acres, which now sit like an island in the middle of a 7,000-acre mountaintop removal site. Larry has dedicated his life to ending mountaintop removal and protecting Appalachian mountains. From his educational park, a rare spot where people can witness mountaintop removal first-hand, Larry has empowered thousands upon thousands of people to take action and defend Appalachian land and heritage. Because of his activism, Larry and his family have suffered escalating levels of violence.

To help raise funds, a drawing was held for a new Vespa Scooter. The winner of the Vespa was a local man, Ray Moltz of Blowing Rock, N.C., who immediately gave the keys to Larry. He then asked the crowd to participate in an auction for the new scooter, with the proceeds going to Larry’s cause. Another man, John Ruth, volunteered to be the auctioneer, and after a lively bidding “war,” over $800 more was raised from the highest bidder!

Appalachian Voices and AIRE – along with online donations, local volunteers, and ally organizations – successfully raised the needed $10,000 to keep Kayford Mountain and Larry Gibson safe! The Earth Day Spirit was definitely alive in Boone on April 22.

Thank you to everyone who came out to support Larry, and to those who contributed to make this grassroots effort a success!

If you are ever in Boone, Please Support the Restaurants that donated food for the event.

• The Bead Box
• Our Daily Bread
• Melanie’s
• Pepper’s
• Stick Boy Bakery
• Char
• Jimmy Johns
• Lynne Lear

Thank You to the Musicians:
Major Sevens
Jordan Okrend

The best way to start a Monday is with good news, and this week we have that in triplicate.

Last week, three new co-sponsors signed on to H.R. 1310, the Clean Water Protection Act, a historic bill to protect our water and bring an end to the harmful effects of mountaintop removal mining valley fills. Representatives John Adler (D-NJ), Stephen Lynch (D-MA) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM) all signed on as co-sponsors, bringing the total number of representatives supporting the bill to 170.

Rep. John Adler is a 1st term Democrat from New Jersey 3rd District, and is the 168th member of the U.S. House of Representatives (including Rep. Pallone) to cosponsor the Clean Water Protection Act (HR1310). Rep. Adler serves on the Financial Services, and Veterans Affairs committee’s.

Rep. Stephen Lynch is a 5th term Democrat from Massachusetts 9th District and the 169th cosponsor of the Clean Water Protection Act.  Rep. Lynch serves on the Financial Services committee, and the Oversight and Government Reform committee where he is the chairman of the Federal Workforce, Postal Service, and the District of Columbia subcommittee.

Thanks to the hard work of our terrific activists in MA, and NJ including the “Jersey Girls!”

Rep. Martin Heinrich is a 1st term Democrat from New Mexico’s 1st District, and signed on as the 170th cosponsor.  Mr. Heinrich serves on the Armed Services, and Natural Resources committees.

Thanks go out to all of the great activists in the Albuquerque area!

To date, the Clean Water Protection Act has full delegations from MA (9), DC (1), CT (5), MA (10), VT (1), NH (2), ME (2), HI (2), and RI (2).

Read more about the Clean Water Protection Act (H.R. 1310) and the Senate’s companion bill, the Appalachia Restoration Act ( S. 696) on iLoveMountains.org.

On the heels of the EPA’s bombshell yesterday announcing a strict new policy for mountaintop removal coal mining, The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced today that it will “initiate regulatory rulemaking aimed at providing better environmental protection of aquatic resources from the impacts of Appalachian surface coal mining.”

“The proposed rule change, reflecting an Administration change in policy, would expand the Corps’ National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) scope of analysis to include all of the effects of proposed surface coal mining ‘valley fills’ on downstream aquatic resources, while ensuring that future mining operations remains consistent with federal law.”

This rulemaking implements, in part, a June 11, 2009, agreement between the Army, the Department of Interior (DOI), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in which the agencies committed to review existing authorities and procedures to determine whether regulatory modifications should be proposed to address environmental and public health concerns associated with surface coal mining in Appalachia.

“Today’s announcement is a major step in the direction of fulfilling this commitment. The Corps will continue to work closely with EPA and DOI to coordinate its rulemaking effort with other administration initiatives already underway focused on protecting aquatic resources from the adverse environmental impacts of surface coal mining,” said Darcy.

The Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward provides more insight on his Coal Tattoo blog.

The EPA took a major new step towards ending the environmentally destructive practice of Mountaintop Removal Mining today.

New guidance standards, effective today for new and pending surface mining permits in Appalachia, will mean that the practice of filling in valleys with mountaintops will probably not be permitted unless they meet a high standard, according to Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson.

“Either no or very few valley fills are going to meet standards like this,” Jackson said in a press conference today. “If we keep doing what we have been doing we’re going to see increasing degradation of water quality.”

The new EPA standard involves a general measure of water health called conductivity, or specifically, the ability of water to pass an electrical current.

Appalachian streams below MTR valley fills typically have a conductivity of 900 microSeimens per centimeter or more, according to Donna Lisenby, Waterkeeper for the Wautauga River.

The EPA standard sets conductivity below 500, with 300 to 500 in the suspect range, Jackson said. This is the first time a numeric standards have been used to measure stream health, she said.

“The intent here is to tell people what the science is telling us,” Jackson said. “It would be untrue to say that you can have numbers of valley fills, anything more than very minimal valley fills, and not expect to see irreversible damage to stream health. And that’s just the truth. That’s what we’ve learned, and the beauty of this is that it’s entirely based on what we believe the science is telling us.”

Existing operations will not be canceled, Jackson said, but 79 major surface mining permits now undergoing review would have to comply with the new standard.

Other scientific standards, such as selenium contamination, may also be a factor in future EPA consideration of permits for valley fills, but the advantage of the conductivity standard is that a test can be done on site and it can provide instant results.

Questioned about the somewhat technical issue of how closely such measurements would be taken, Jackson said the point of the tests is to measure how much contamination is entering a stream, and that would mean testing as close to the source as possible.

Environmental groups reacted with applause today, while mining companies threatened more job losses.

“Appalachia thanks Lisa Jackson and the EPA for taking the impacts on human health and environmental justice into consideration when issuing permits,” said Judy Bonds of Coal River Mountain Watch in West Virginia.

The National Mining Association objected, called the new standard “a sweeping regulatory action that affects not only all coal mining in the region, but also other activities.”

Anticipating the mining industry’s reaction, Jackson said:

“This is not about ending coal mining – this is about ending coal mining pollution.”

“The people of Appalachia shouldn’t have to choose between a clean, healthy environment in which to raise their families and the jobs they need to support them. “

Legislation to further curb MTR mining and protect Appalachian communities, the Clean Water Protection Act, is still needed, said Lenny Kohm with Appalachian Voices. The bills are pending in the US House and Senate.

For more on the EPA’s action today see:

• EPA Issues Comprehensive Guidance to Protect Appalachian Communities from Harmful Environmental Impacts of Mountaintop Mining
• Coal Tattoo blog by Ken Ward
• Information about stream conductivity tests
  

By Marsha Johnston
A citizen participant in the Alliance for Appalachia’s annual Week in Washington

Over 200 citizen lobbyists from as far away as California and Oregon converged on Washington, DC this weekend to push Congress to pass legislation in 2010 that will put an end to mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia. Our excitement built throughout the day as a series of passionate, well-organized presentations from staff members and coalfield residents inspired, shocked, informed and amused us into readiness for tackling Capitol Hill.

Deftly ironic, Mickey McCoy from Kentuckians for the Commonwealth made us laugh while presenting the horrific facts of mountaintop removal. “They have a lot of soft words for what they’re doing. Like `pond’ for slurry. We’re talkin’ 72 acres! That’s a lake. And `spill’. `Spill’ is what happens when your son reaches over the table and spills his sister’s milk. These are floods. Even mountaintop removal doesn’t sound too bad if you say it real fast. They should really be calling it `mountain bombing’.”

As new citizen lobbyists, we began doing just that.

View pics of Week in Washington

Among several inspiring coalfield resident testimonies, Cari Moore was particularly compelling. An eighth-generation Appalachian and grand-daughter of a preacher-miner, Cari recounted how, incredibly, fellow Appalachians label her “outsider” for opposing the destruction of her family’s beloved mountains. “I try to imagine how he would react if someone said that children are breathing the same dust that gave him black lung, and I cannot imagine in my heart that he would support mountaintop removal mining,” she said. She also recounted how her community, trying to provide cleaner water by switching systems, now finds that its new system–which is closer to a mountaintop removal site–has 3 times the recommended levels of manganese instead of just 2.5 times.

Despite the money and purchased politicians behind King Coal, many presenters confessed a sense of guarded optimism. Long-time activist Lorelei Scarboro, of Coal River Mountain Watch, said she saw the momentum change with the arrival of the Obama Administration, and that we are getting more meetings with higher-level officers than ever before, who are listening. One staff member, noting that Appalachian state legislators are getting a bit desperate since the EPA said it would scrutinize MTR permits more closely, with West Virginia passing legislation naming coal the state rock.

More than once, staff members reminded us of Gandhi’s wisdom about fighting Goliath, saying we are in the last phase before winning: “First they laugh at you, then they ignore you, then they fight with you, then you win.”

Citizens will be lobbying representatives and senators Monday through Wednesday of this week. A national call-in day will take place on Tuesday, March 9. To find out how you can participate by calling your Congressperson or Senator, or to learn more about the Clean Water Protection Act or the Appalachia Restoration Act, visit iLoveMountains.org

A much publicized tree-sit at the Bee Tree mine on Coal River Mountain has come to an end after nine days. Eric Blevins, 28, and Amber Nitchman, 19, descended from their trees this morning citing concerns from cold temperatures. Read the full press release by Climate Ground Zero.

Photo by Climate Ground Zero

Representatives from Climate Ground Zero met with West Virignia Governor Manchin today to discuss the harassment of two tree sitters who have halted blasting on Coal River Mountain since last Wednesday.

Eric Blevins, 28, and Amber Nitchman, 19, have occupied trees in the Bee Tree strip mine for the past eight days. The two protestors have been constantly bombarded with air horns, bright lights, and threats from Massey Energy security officials.

A third tree sitter descended and was arrested on day five of the protest.

The meeting follows a statement by Manchin that called for a cease to violence in the coalfields on both sides of the coal debate.

According to CGZ website, the meeting resulted in a temporary moratorium on the use of air horns and flood lights, but the sitters are concerned about other, possibly more dangerous, forms of harassment.

Read the full Climate Ground Zero press release.

On Thursday, I was greeted with this headline by Pam Kasey of the WV State Journal in my inbox:

“North-Central W.Va. is Ground Zero for Surface Mine Coal Ash”

The topic of the story in a nutshell is this:

“Mine operators are spreading serious amounts of coal combustion waste in W.Va. before the EPA declares it to be a hazardous material.”

Thanks to investigative research and testing following the TVA coal ash disaster in Harriman, TN., a year ago, it is now common knowledge that coal fly ash (also known as coal combustion waste, or CCW) contains numerous toxic metals such as selenium, mercury and lead, and according to the National Academy of Sciences, “can potentially be harmful to human health or the environment.”

Following a Senate investigation last summer into the properties of coal ash, committee chairperson Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) forced Homeland Security to release a list of the most toxic coal ash ponds in the country and is calling for stronger regulations on coal fly ash.

According to Kasey’s article, in the absence of federal regulation states handle the disposal of coal ash differently.

West Virginia, for instance, allows coal ash to be dumped directly into landfills or recycled into building materials such as concrete or drywall.

The state also has “by far the highest concentration of CCW mine placement in the country,” with “80 or 90 mine dumps” in just three counties.

Also according to Kasey, “A hazardous designation from the EPA would trigger the development of a federal disposal standard,” which means the mine operators and coal fired power plants could not simply dispose of coal ash in the traditional ways, but would have to handle the material as a hazardous waste.

Coal industry leaders complain that this would increase company costs, thereby increasing the price of electricity for consumers in West Virginia. At least one environmental advocate, Jeff Stant from the Environmental Integrity Project, believes that increased regulations on CCW will only mean a decrease in the use of that method of coal processing.

Read the full article at the WV State Journal.

By_Bill_Kovarik

An often pointed but unfailingly polite debate Thursday demonstrated a wide gulf between environmental and coal industry positions on Appalachia’s environmental woes.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., president of the Waterkeeper Alliance, challenged coal baron Don Blankenship to be honest about the coal industry’s environmental record, especially mountaintop removal mining.

“This is the worst environmental crime that has ever happened in our history,” Kennedy said, advocating an end to MTR and a gradual shift to renewable energy sources. “We all have a moral obligation to stop this from happening.”

Blankenship, chairman of Massey Energy Company, said the issue was one of industry competitiveness in the face of “environmental extremism.”

Blankenship also challenged Kennedy on the cost of renewable energy, asking why more was not being developed. “If windmills are the thing to do, it will happen naturally.”

Wind is cheaper than coal power, Kennedy responded. “I’m stunned that Mr Blankenship doesn’t know that this is going on.”

The debate, a Forum on the Future of Energy, was sponsored by the University of Charleston in Charleston, WV on Thursday evening, Jan. 21.

Although the debate developed little common ground, its civil tone contrasted with the rancor of hearings and other public events in recent years.

“Its sadly rare in our society to have a serious conversation between people with opposing opinions on a sensitive issue,” said debate moderator Edwin Welch, President of the University of Charleston WV.

At one point, Blankenship was asked if there were points of agreement between himself and Kennedy.

Blankenship: “We have some agreement on the fact that the world has to be part of the solution, not just the United States, and that we have to have a competitive industry if we are going to compete in a free world… Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Gore and all these other people who espouse this environmental stuff are basically mistaken as opposed to evil, because the bottom line is that if we don’t agree that homeland security, good use of our energy, low cost electricity for our houses, low cost gas for our industry, jobs, good households, high quality of life are the objective … If we don’t agree on that, then we are fundamentally on different pages.”

Kennedy said there were a few points of agreement. “I agree with a lot of Don’s rhetoric,” Kennedy said, “but I think there is a big gap between his rhetoric and what I see happening on the ground in these communities.” Kennedy also that they agreed on opposition to free trade and that “geological carbon sequestration is a joke.”

“That’s true,” Blankenship said, referring to carbon sequestration as a joke.

Kennedy and Blankenship sharply disputed topics such as: :

• Economic impacts and benefits of coal mining for Appalachia;

Kennedy: You look at the way people are living in this state. The Hendryx study shows that the closer you live to a coal mine, the sicker you are.”

Blankenship: This industry is what made this country great. If we forget that we’re going to have to learn to speak Chinese.

• Enforcement of environmental laws;

Kennedy: In a true free market system, the price of a product would reflect all of its costs. A producer like Mr Blankenship would have to pay all of the costs of his product before he gets it to market, instead of forcing you and I and my children to pay through bad health by externalizing those costs.

Blankenship: Unfortunately the laws are so difficult and the lawsuits so common and the cost of doing business is so high … To force the coal business out of West Virginia or surface mining would be a huge mistake for household budgets, for industry and for homeland security.

• Massey Energy company’s environmental record;

Kennedy: Just this last year, Massey had 12,900 (water quality) violations — A greater concentration than even before the $20 million fine (of 2008).

Blankenship: There is no country that mines coal more safely or more envirionmentally consciously than this country, and no company that does better at that than Massey.

• The cost and benefits of renewable energy;

Kennedy: The mining industry makes a few people rich by making everyone else poor, whereas the wind industry distributes wealth and the benefits of that industry more evenly.

Blankenship: Solar energy, it works well in the daytime, but it gets cold at night. Solar… and windmill parts will be made overseas…

Kennedy and Blankenship avoided a pitched debate over climate change, with Blankenship noting that he thought it was a “hoax” and Kennedy saying that the “science is settled.” However, Blankenship said there was a practical reason for his position on climate change. “If you look at 6.5 billion tons of coal in the world to raise their quality of life its not going to be possible to change the temperature of the earth by limiting the industry in this country and taking people’s jobs away.”

Kennedy also described the biodiversity being lost through Mountaintop Removal Mining:

Kennedy: During the Pleistocene ice age, 20,000 years ago, when there were 2 and a half miles of ice above the place where I live in NY, the rest of the country became a tundra, and all the trees disappeared except for one tiny refuge in the mountains of Kentucky and West Virginia. After the ice withdrew 12,000 years ago, all of North America was reseeded from those seed stocks. And that’s why the mountains of Appalachia are so important. They are the most biologically abundant temperate forests on the planet. A typical forest, all over the world, has three dominant species of trees. Appalachia has 80.

There were also moments of levity in the debate. At one point, Blankenship said he was glad Kennedy didn’t blame him for the ice age 20,000 years ago. And moderator Edwin Welch noted at the end of the debate that he didn’t think there would be a need for any “altar calls” for the converted.

In his summary statement, Kennedy said:

Kennedy: Don says we have to choose between environmental protection on the one hand and economic prosperity on the other. I say that’s a false choice… Good environmental policy is identical to good economic policy. We want to measure or economy … based upon on how it produces jobs, and the dignity of our jobs, over the generations, over the long term, and how it preserves the value of the assets of our community. If on the other hand we want to do what Don himself and his company have been urging us to do, which is to treat the planet as if it were a business in liquidation, convert all of our natural resources to cash as quickly as possible, have a few years of pollution based prosperity, we can generate an instantaneous cash flow and the illusion of a prosperous economy, but our children are going to pay for our joy ride, and they are going to pay for it with denuded landscapes and poor health and huge cleanup costs that are going to amplify over time.

Environmental injury, particularly of the kind that is happening today in West Virginia, is deficit spending. It’s a way of loading the costs of our generation’s prosperity onto the backs of our children…. An investment in our environment is (not) a diminishment of our nation’s wealth. Its an investment in infrastructure, like telecommunications or highways.

What I would say to the coal industry is go underground, employ lots of people, and do this safely as West Virginia makes a transition to a new energy future and to the prosperity that that’s going to bring this state.

Photos by Jamie Goodman, Appalachian Voice

Thanks to Joseph E. Lowery of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, we are reminded today, on this day celebrating the life and mission of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., that he would have fought against ALL injustices toward minorities, including the construction of coal-fired power plants in the poor minority communities across the south.

Lowery writes: “We are all grimly aware that inequality and discrimination remain potent in all walks of life, from job pay to matters of common decency. But too many are unaware of the injustice placed on low-income communities and people of color in rural areas.”

Here are other excerpts from Lowery’s full article:

“‘When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, militarism and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered,’ King preached in a 1967 sermon in Atlanta.”

“Georgia doesn’t need to be the last irresponsible place on earth choosing coal. As Genesis reminds us, we must all rise to the challenge of thoughtful stewardship of what has been entrusted to us, to care for ‘the fish of the sea … the birds of the air … the cattle, and all creatures upon earth.'”