Among the most damaging methods of mining is mountaintop removal. As the name implies, a company uses explosives to destroy the top of a mountain and expose a thin seam of coal. After removing the coal (a nonrenewable, highly polluting fuel) the company pushes the debris into valleys, destroying the local ecosystem.
What You Can Do
Earthjustice Alerts sent out the following message, which includes a couple of different ways you can help stop mountainop removal.
TAKE ACTION: Tell the President: Mountaintop removal mining is destroying Appalachia!
They blew the top off West Virginia’s Cherry Pond Mountain a few weeks ago, and pushed it into streambeds to get the coal. Appalling? Yes. But hundreds of thousands of acres of mountains and forests and more than 2,000 miles of streams have already been destroyed by this vicious form of strip mining.
What makes Cherry Pond different is the timing.
Cherry Pond is just the most recent victim of mountaintop removal mining. A panel of federal judges may turn dynamiters loose across Appalachia. On February 13, they ruled against Earthjustice and said: The Clean Water Act — as written – won’t protect streams in this ancient mountain range.
About 100 mountaintop removal mining permits were on hold pending this case. The ruling potentially opens the floodgates for more destruction in Appalachia. These permits will destroy 432 valleys and 213 miles of streams in Kentucky and West Virginia alone. We need your help to change the rules and silence the explosions.
Tell President Obama to prevent this irreversible destruction and work quickly to undo changes in Clean Water Act rules that allow industries to bury streams and other waters under their wastes by calling it “fill” material.
Mountaintop removal mining destroys entire forests and threatens nearby communities with floods and poisoned drinking water. It’s been described by locals as “strip mining on steroids.” No one should ever again have to hear the sound of a mountain torn apart by mountaintop removal mining, with coal companies bent on quick profit whatever the cost.
Thirty-six years ago, a coal slurry impoundment dam in Logan County, West Virginia burst, sending 132 million gallons of black water into Buffalo Creek Hollow, killing 125 people, injuring 1,121 and leaving over 4,000 people homeless. The tragedy made abundantly clear the dangers of allowing coal companies to sacrifice Appalachian headwater streams as garbage dumps for their industrial waste.
But the court says current law does not stop them. So, please, join with us. Ask President Obama to undo rule changes to the Clean Water Act and end the Bush administration’s attack on our mountain communities. Act quickly — because once the mountaintops and headwater streams are gone, they’re gone for good.
- Earthjustice
Because the earth needs a good lawyer
426 17th Street, 6th Floor, Oakland CA 94612
P.S. Every voice counts! Please tell a friend to take action!
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