[Sweden] Genetic tests of North American birds show what may be 15 new species including ravens and owls — look alikes that do not interbreed and have wrongly had the same name for centuries, scientists said on Sunday. If the findings from a study of birds’ DNA genetic “barcodes” in the United States and Canada hold true around the world, there might be more than 1,000 new species of birds on top of 10,000 identified so far, they said. A parallel study of South American bats in Guyana also showed six new species among 87 surveyed, hinting that human studies of the defining characteristics of species may have been too superficial to tell almost identical types apart.

News notes are courtesy of Southern Forests Network News Notes
www.southernsustainableforests.org

[Kenya] The severe degradation of the environment and its impact on climate change are dominating discussions currently underway at the 24th meeting of the governing council of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in the Kenyan capital. Delegates at the five-day meeting are in agreement that climate change, which remains the world’s overriding environmental challenge, requires global efforts to counter it. Reducing deforestation is being cited as a key measure to mitigate some of the effects of climate change. Still the climate change discussions also include concerns that another solution involves the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by industrialised countries.
News notes are courtesy of Southern Forests Network News Notes
www.southernsustainableforests.org

[Minnesota] A 1,300-square-foot wooden house that’s made almost entirely of locally harvested, sustainably grown wood was built recently to demonstrate green building principles and the use of local, certified products. The developer, Minneapolis-based Dovetail Partners, and local officials also hope the project will help create jobs, economic opportunities for business owners and long-term affordability for homeowners. Eric Hovland, owner of Hovland Lumber, said he’s seen a significant increase in demand for his products since the home was completed. Hovland’s lumber mill is in the process of acquiring FSC certification. He says the market for sustainably harvested wood is growing. “It’s just a good idea and I like seeing our local forests promoted and used wisely,” he said. “It also keeps more business in the area and helps create jobs.”
News notes are courtesy of Southern Forests Network News Notes
www.southernsustainableforests.org

Yesterday on the Dianne Rehm show, a nationally syndicated call-in show on National Public Radio, Dianne Rehm was interviewing bestselling author Adriana Trigliani, who grew up in southwest Virginia and has a series of novels about the town of Big Stone Gap. The topic of mountaintop removal came up, and Ms. Trigliani said she had seen it and was very much opposed to it, and had included it as part of the plot in her latest Big Stone Gap novel.

Larry Shalda, who had seen our Appalachian Treasures presentation in Michigan, called in to the show and told the thousands of listeners across the nation about the Clean Water Protection Act, Appalachian Voices, and iLoveMountains.org! Dianne Rehm said she would post a link to iLoveMountains on the Dianne Rehm Show website, and it’s posted there now. Check it out!

We received lots of calls and emails to our office right after the show. Thank you, Larry! It is volunteers and supporters like you all over the country who will end mountaintop removal.

The patient that is our National Environmental Policy Act has been ill of late, and I am distressed to report that It has now been moved into Intensive Care. This is a call to the family to rush to the bedside. Please speak. It may look like the patient cannot hear or see, but it is possible that your energy will help rally the dying, and enable NEPA to live.

Jump the bump for an overview of NEPA’s life, the struggles, and the attempted murder for profit that put NEPA in it’s present condition…….

The infecting organism is the USDA, and the bug is named Categorical Exclusion.

“In recent years, the Forest Service has created and widely used a number of categorical exclusions that prevent NEPA review for individual timber sales. Excluding the forest plans themselves from NEPA review means that a great many of the agency’s actions will never receive a hard look at all, at any level of forest management, much less involve the public in a meaningful way.

Once again, under the guise of “streamlining”, and with the title FINALIZED FOREST SERVICE RULE IMPROVES THE FOREST PLANNING PROCESS AND INCREASES PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT

The environmental review has documented that writing management plans has no effect on the environment, which qualifies the individual plans of each National Forest for categorical exclusion from individual study under the National Environmental Policy Act.

They claim that

Further specific environmental study will be focused on each project that carries out the plan.

At this point, one can hardly trust a statement such as that.
Clear Skies, Healthy Forests, and omg, provisions for even more public opinion. Really? If you believe that, I got a bridge……

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires federal agencies to integrate environmental values into their decision making processes by considering the environmental impacts of their proposed actions and reasonable alternatives to those actions. To meet this requirement, federal agencies prepare a detailed statement known as an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). EPA reviews and comments on EISs prepared by other federal agencies, maintains a national filing system for all EISs, and assures that its own actions comply with NEPA.

The importance of NEPA, in a nutshell..full disclosure to We The People, about what is being done to our Commons, in our names. Is anybody unclear about why this Administration is out behind the locked FS gate, witnesses trussed and muzzled, killing it softly, without, they hope, any input from the pesky wildlife they call constituents?

The significance of NEPA is paramount in that it calls for the comprehensive disclosure and full accounting of environmental impacts associated with federally funded projects and other actions requiring a federal permit. NEPA establishes a process wherein the public has the right to offer comments prior to final decisions on environmentally significant actions. NEPA mandates consultation with relevant federal, state, and local agencies and provides a comprehensive forum in which to view environmentally significant actions in the light of all current environmental legislation. NEPA calls for the development of multiple alternatives, including the option of “No Action”. In some regards the passage of NEPA constitutes a “bill of rights” allowing for the American citizen to engage in the democratic processes of this country regarding actions that have significant environmental impacts. These impacts relate to the physical environment, public health, social, cultural, and personal values, impacts on biotic communities, and economic repercussions.

This witness testimony before the House Comittee on Resources (in 1998), by Lynton K. Caldwell Professor of Public and Environmental Affairs Indiana University, makes some important points, as timely now as they were then, indeed, more so.

Professor Caldwell says:

Through the judicially enforceable process of impact analysis, NEPA has significantly modified the environmental behavior of Federal agencies, and indirectly of State and local governments and private undertakings. Relative to many other statutory policies NEPA must be accounted an important success. But implementation of the substantive principles of national policy declared in NEPA requires a degree of political will, not yet evident in the Congress or the White House. That the American people clearly supports the purpose of NEPA is evident in repeated polls of public opinion. But implementation of NEPA has not been audibly demanded by a public at-large which has received little help in understanding what must be done to achieve objectives of which they approve.

We know full well how much Bu$hCo and the Robber Barons have hated this significant modification of Federal agencies. Those with fingers on the pulse of our bedrock environmental laws have felt the increasing weakness and irregularity of the beat for 6 years now.

Three decades since 1969 is a very short time for a new aspect of public policy–the environment–to attain the importance and priority accorded such century-old concerns as taxation, defense, education, civil liberties, and the economy. The goals declared in NEPA are as valid today as they were in 1969. Indeed perhaps more so as the Earth and its biosphere are stressed by human demands to a degree that has no precedent. (Note the 1993 World Scientists Warning to Humanity) But “environment” in its full dimensions is not easily comprehended. Human perceptions are culturally and physically limited, but science has been extending environmental horizons from the cosmic to the microcosmic. Even so, the word “environment” does not yet carry to most people the scope, complexity, or dynamic of its true dimensions.

We are just now shy of four decades. Now that the patient is dying, is it possible that the word “environment” is starting to carry to most people the scope, complexity and dynamic of it’s true dimensions? We can only hope, and make a comittment to action.

On the importance of NEPA, and it’s success, from Testimony
Before the Task Force on Improving NEPA.

To fully appreciate the logic and intent of NEPA one must first look at the history of America’s relationship with the abundant natural resources that constitute our environment. As a young nation our first century was marked by phenomenal expansion and an insatiable consumption of natural resources that at the time were thought to be inexhaustible. Our forefathers cleared the land for crops, often burning or otherwise destroying the virgin forests. In ignorance we depleted the soil through unsustainable farming practices, only to move on when the land would no longer produce. When forests were harvested, it was for quick profit without regard for sustainability, regeneration or maintenance of native wildlife habitat. Wildlife was slaughtered, often to the edge of extinction. The common result of this thoughtless exploitation of resources was a “boom and bust” cycle that frequently left in its wake a trail of economic depression and hardship, community deterioration, impairment of natural resources, and environmental degradation.

snip..

At its heart, the NEPA process is grounded on certain basic beliefs about the relationship between citizens and their government. Those core beliefs include an assumption that citizens should actively participate in their government, that information matters, that the environmental impact assessment process should be implemented with both common sense and imagination, and that there is much about the world that we do not yet understand. NEPA also rests on a belief that the social and economic welfare of human beings is intimately interconnected with the environment. [Dinah Bear, 43 Nat. Resources J. 931, 932 (2003)

I recieved my notice of NEPA’s impending death via e-mail this morning, from the magnificient Heartwood.org.

One action that could be taken is to donate $XX.01 to help the environmentally educated and passionate lawyers fight this demise. You can google your state or county+ environmental group, and join up with other concerned citizens in your area to join in the fight.

Wildlaw could use some help, in the form of donation, letters and calls to Congress Critters, or an outraged lte to your local or a national paper.

Wildlaw and others have filed suit against the new planning regulations and it is currently being heard and will be ruled upon soon. Success there will likely lead to a similar strategy against this. Until the courts decide to overturn this, the FS will pretend what they are doing is legal.

Public outcry, letters to the editor, op-ed pieces, letters and phone calls to senators and representatives and local legislators will all support this effort…in fact, litigation is unlikely to succeed without this.
In Virginia, Virginia Forest Watch and Wild Virginia will surely be leading the charge!

I’ll leave what is becoming an over long diary with this, part of the closing statement of Larry D. Shelton, Texas Comittee on Natural Resources from his testimony linked above.

NEPA has not only served as a stellar domestic policy but has earned for America prestige and respect at the global level. As legislation goes, the text of NEPA is not long, but each of its provisions is important and essential to the integrity of the act as a whole.

Cross posted at the Daily Kos.

Appalachian Voices’ volunteers and interns gave thousands of hours this year to protect the mountains. We would like to thank them for their work and let everyone know what they accomplished!

We had 117 volunteers and interns this semester working over 4000 hours on our Clean Air Campaign, Mountaintop Removal Campaign, the Appalachian Voice, our annual events: Dine Out for the Mountains, Pickin’ for the Mountains, and our Sustainable Forestry Program. In addition we held 22 volunteer nights at our Boone office.

Clean Air Campaign volunteers organized a bake sale in Virginia to buy AEP a scrubber for their plant in southwest Virginia. We were a few dollars short, but attracted considerable media attention and also educated hundreds of Virginia voters about clean air.

Our Clean Air volunteers also continued working to pass clean air resolutions across North Carolina. Over the last year, our volunteers have passed 44 resolutions supporting our clean air protections in 38 cities and towns and 6 counties in western North Carolina.

Our Mountaintop Removal (MTR) Campaign volunteers have also accomplished some amazing things. During our volunteer nights, volunteers called members and activists across the country urging them to write their representatives and talk to their friends and families about the devastating effects of mountaintop removal coal mining. Our volunteers made hundreds of calls talking to over 200 people in 22 states, generated 28 letters to representatives and 10 letters to the editors in papers across the country.

Our MTR interns also organized our congressional Briefing in Washington, DC at the end of February and our first ever Week in Washington in September. Another intern researched the social implications of MTR and worked with Rawl, WV residents to tackle water quality issues related to mining operations. In addition, interns worked with Google Earth to make a comprehensive map of the extent of mountaintop removal in the Appalachian region.

Sustainable Forestry volunteers and interns dedicated many hours assisting our AmeriCorps member conduct research, write articles, and finalize sections of the second edition of our “Managing Your Woodlands Guide,” which will be available this month. Also, these volunteers continue to post sustainable forestry news items on our Front Porch Blog.

Our Appalachian Voice volunteers spent over 1000 hours delivering the newspaper to over 300 locations in 8 states.

Last, but certainly not least, volunteers and interns worked to make our two annual events a smashing success. Dine Out for the Mountains, which happens every Earth Day raised over $2,500 and our 2006 Pickin’ for the Mountains raised almost $6,000!

We can always use more help. If you are interested in becoming an intern or volunteer, visit our volunteer section or email us at {encode=”outreach@appvoices.org” title=”outreach@appvoices.org”}.

Many thanks to the following for the dedicated work this year; we could not have accomplished so many great things without their help! Mareshah Abers, Chelsie Alfaro, Thomas Allen, Blake Atchison, Harvard Ayers, Sarah Balmer, Rebecca Barger, Lauren Benningfield, Nancy Benson, Jere Bidwell, Derrick Blaylock, Tamara Boozell, Charlie Bowles, Jane Branham, Steve Brooks, Daniel Brookshire, Lucas Brown, Sarah Burkhart, Samantha Caldwell, Stephen Callihan, tom Cannon, Patrick Casebere, Casey Chambers, Kimbrough Charbonneau, Ed Clark, Helen Clark, Chris Cloud, Kathleen Colburn, Nicole Colston, Tom cook, Andrew Cornelius, James Crew, Danielle Crouse, April Crowe, Joslynn Crutchfield, Barbara Dangler, Jeff Deal, Sandra Diaz, Riley Dickey, Lowell Dodge, Jade Doolan, Revonda Crow, Dave Gilliam, Barbara Gravely, Audrey Green, Kim Green McClure, Ruth Gutierrez, Leslie Harbourt, Rachel Harrington, Susan Hazlewood, Anna Heiniermann, Anita Henson, Holly Hernandez, Jennifer Honeycutt, Annie Hostetter, Brenda Huggins, Larry Huggins, Halley Jobsis, Adam Johnson, Allen Johnson, Andrea Juliani, Todd King, Wilson Klein, Amanda Koontz, Kirk Kornegay, Adam Kota, Ashlee Lafferty, Frances Lambert, Ryan Little, Matt Long, Jessica Luthringshauser, Ali Mandsager, Gail Marney, Matthew McConnell, Mike McCoy, Mike McKinney, Jenni Meyer, Sonny Miksa, Sara Mills, Taylor Minton, Kate Mitchell, Kalin Moore, Mac Morris, Georganna Morton, Will Moyer, Dennis Murphy, Catherine Murray, Dave payne, Abby Pifer, James Randolph, Christin Ripley, Mary Rogers, Richard Roth, Jason Sain, Anna Santo, Theo Saslow, Gerry Scardo, Charlotte Schlesinger, Irene Seiler, Bryan Shea, Jim Shumate, Olivia Simeone, Anna Sittig, Lauren Smith, Jessica Spears, Jennifer Stertzer, Dylan Tano, Bevin Tighe, Lurissa Tucker, William Wasserman, Annette Watson, Adam Wells, John wilden, Dean Whitworth, Casey Woodruff, Steve Wussow

Exciting news – a blogger on the NetSquared site has chosen iLoveMountains for his list of Best Internet Marketing for a Cause 2006. We’re in very good company on his list.

More about NetSquared:

Our mission is to help non-profit organizations understand, use and expand the social web. There’s a whole new generation of online tools available – tools that make it easier than ever before to collaborate, share information and mobilize support. These tools include blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, podcasting, and more. Some people describe them as “Web 2.0”; we call them the social web, because their power comes from the relationships they enable.

Also, there is an article about iLoveMountains and mountaintop removal on the Worldwatch Institute’s website. Worldwatch is a leading source of information about environmental trends around the world, and is known for their annual State of the World report. Check it out!

Over the past year and a half, I’ve interned and volunteered at AV and it has been an awesome experience. I think the most meaningful thing I’ve done was last spring, when I did a research project for a class through AV. I made four trips up to West Virginia to see and feel first hand the burdens that MTR puts on communities and the people living in them. The most powerful experience there was in Rawl, where the water supply has been poisoned by coal sludge. People had to rely on state supplied water, which wasn’t plentiful, just so they could drink water without heavy metals. Worse, this problem had been going on for over 10 years, so lots of people were having serious health problems like liver cancer and brain tumors as a result. Before seeing what was going on at Rawl, I had always thought MTR was bad because it destroys mountains, but seeing the human side gave everything a deeper, more powerful meaning. You can read about this kind of thing in a book or online, but until you see it, it is really difficult to understand the breadth of the issue.

Little did I know that a class would change my life. This semester I enrolled in human ecology of the southern apps and was told about Appalachian Voices. It’s too bad I waited until my last semester to get involved, but better late than never, right? I was startled by all the information on air pollution, coal mining, and the new website: ilovemoutains.org. I’m a Louisiana girl that moved up here for the beautiful mountains.. so to find out that they’re blowing them up was unacceptable. My class took a field trip up to Coal River Valley and Kayford Mountain in West Virginia. Going from sitting on the blue ridge parkway and then to the mountaintop removal site was truly heartbreaking. I got to speak with the locals and even some of the coal miners. It’s hard to put down in words what I experienced that weekend. Not even my camera could capture it. I never thought I’d be this passionate about a place that’s not my home. I can’t even imagine what it feels like for those who live in it. So here I am volunteering my time at Appalachian Voices. It’s something I started doing for class, but I don’t see how I couldn’t after what I’ve learned. My time at Appalachian State is coming to an end, but what a way to go. I’ve learned so much and met so many incredible people here. Please continue your support to end mountaintop removal. I really believe that we can make a difference.
Thanks,
Leslie.

For the past semester Appalachian Voices has provided me with the opportunity to work in Washington to combat mountaintop removal legislatively. It has truly been an amazing experience!

During my time in Washington I have been meeting with different offices in the U.S. House of Representatives asking House members to please co-sponsor the Clean Water Protection Act. I’ve met with Representatives’ offices from all over the country to spread the word about the national tragedy that is occurring in central Appalachia.

It was great to be a part of the Lobby Week that Appalachian Voices organized in early September. The experience of working with so many dedicated, passionate individuals was incredibly energizing. During Lobby Week a myriad mix of individuals met with staff and Representatives in over 50 different Congressional offices. In the past three months, Representatives from three MTR states — Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia – have spoken out against MTR by co-sponsoring the CWPA! The Act currently has 75 co-sponsors and more have promised to sign in the next weeks. A change is coming!

From the grassroots organizers in the coal fields, to lawyers in court rooms, to the citizen lobbyists in Washington, we are all making our presence known in the battle to stop mountaintop removal. Together, we will succeed!

Thanks, Appalachian Voices, for helping me be part of this powerful movement.

The 2006 Pickin’ for the Mountains was a huge success for Appalachian Voices. More people came out this year than ever before! With all the great live music and fresh food, we raised a lot of money and had a great time too! Thank you to everyone who showed support by donating prizes, buying tickets, and also for just being there.

We appreciate the support of everyone who helped make this night a special one. We want to thank the following musicians and silent auction and raffle donors:

Liquidlogic, Brenda and Larry Huggins, Oh Sheets, Old North State Clothing Co., Carol and Derek Green, Outdoor Supply Company, Garrou Pottery, Iago Gallery, Farmer’s Ski Shop, Footsloggers, Espresso News, Dancing Moon Bookstore, The Bead Box, Boone Drug, Timeless Treasures Antiques, The Olde World Christmas Shoppe, Fat Cat’s, Farmer’s Backside, Gladiola Girls, Essential Touch Bodyways, Looney Cabins, Luray Caverns, Ginkgo Tree Gallery, Gene and Melissa Gee, Crucible Art Glass, Shelly Connor, Patagonia, Diamond Brand Outfitters, Tickle Family Health Center and Spa, Grapevine, Macado’s, Highway Robbery, Bejeweled, Hilton Wilmington, North Carolina Aquarium, North Carolina Battleship, Looking Glass, Magic Cycles, Harvard Ayers, Transformations, Mast General Store, Biltmore Estate, Shady Grove Gardens, Harris Teeter, Lowes Food, Our Daily Bread, Wildwater Limited, Lenny Kohm, Boone Saloon, Swing Guitars, Blue Trillium, Crookneck Squashers, The Cane Raisers, Raising Cane, Joe Shannon of Mountain Home Music, and Aubrey Spurlock.

Mine safety expert Jack Spadaro addresses WV lawmakers
by Stephen Wussow
West Virginia lawmakers were confronted Monday with hard evidence of harm inflicted upon rural West Virginians by coal sludge. A new scientific study documents dangerously polluted water around coal slurry injection sites in the Rawl area near Williamson. Residents have been saying for years that the coal industry practice of pumping toxic coal sludge into abandoned underground mines as a cheap disposal method has had devastating consequences for the health their community. In light of the new findings, concerned scientists, mining experts, and victims of poisoned water pleaded with the state joint judiciary subcommittee to support a moratorium and comprehensive study on the extent and the health consequences of coal slurry injection in the state.
A subsidiary Massey prep plant had been injecting coal sludge since 1977 into the abandoned underground mines under the Rawl, Sprigg, Merrimac, and Lick Creek communities, according to former Mine Safety and Health Academy superintendent Jack Spadaro. About 1.4 billion gallons of coal sludge have been pumped under the Rawl area, said Spadaro. Residents say the water noticeably worsened when Massey began blasting at a mountaintop removal site nearby around 1990. They’ve been trying to get clean water since.
Dr. Benjamin Stout, the Wheeling Jesuit University biology professor who conducted the new water quality study, found several dangerous metals and chemicals in Rawl’s well water, pollutants also found in coal sludge. Lead, manganese, arsenic, barium, selenium, iron, and beryllium lurked in much of the water area residents have been using to drink and cook. Although most residents now try to avoid the water, even residents who don’t drink the water are exposed when bathing or wearing clothes washed in the water.
Stout fears that hot water heaters may be concentrating heavy metals, exposing residents to “phenomenal” levels of dangerous pollutants. The water in one heater had a high concentration of arsenic and was almost one-half percent iron. “It was a very thick sludge at the bottom of the hot water heater,” he said. “When I talked to residents, they said their hot water heaters only last a few years.” “They have to have plastic water fixtures because the metal fixtures corrode too fast.”
‘‘I think without a doubt there is a connection” between the tainted water and the sludge injections in the area, said Marshall University environmental science professor and engineer Scott Simonton. Mines are not perfectly sealed tubes, they are connected to the water supply and to surface water.
Simonton held up a jar of the blackish water that came out of a faucet in Rawl, putrid globs swirling. “It’s awful,” he exhorted. “It’s the worst I’ve ever seen. I don’t think that anybody should drink it.” Visibly shaken, the lawmakers passed around the jar of acerbic liquid like a hot potato.
Donetta Blakenship (no relation to Don) moved to Rawl five years ago. Her family has been sick ever since. Liver failure has twice brought her to the brink of death. Doctors blame an excess of copper in her body from drinking the water, Donetta told the panel. “I don’t go around eating pennies,” she said, trying to smile. “I never drank. Thank God, I can say that. I never did anything to cause this.”
Someone else who understands is Debbie Sammons of Lick Creek. She described a terrible night when her son began vomiting uncontrollably. He later passed a kidney stone. He was six years old. She also blames the water for her miscarriage. Told to drink plenty of water during her pregnancy, Debbie followed the doctor’s orders. “I thought I was using water that God provided,” she grieved. ‘‘I probably killed my baby.”
Toxicologist Dawn Seeburger, who has been interviewing Rawl residents, laid out a long list of other health problems associated with the pollutants, including chronic diarrhea, thyroid failure, rotting teeth, neurological disorders, miscarriages, and lesions.
The health threat of coal slurry injections is not limited to the Rawl area, argued Jack Spadaro. “There are other Rawls,” an inevitabilty with 400 injection wells all over the state pumping millions of gallons of sludge a day. “The sad part about all of this is … we have an alternate system than pumping slurry blindly into the ground and into drinking water,” said Spadaro. “A dry filter process is economical and can be used in any coal preparation facility.”
Rural communities without access to municipal water supplies remain vulnerable, as sludge has been injected throughout rural southern West Virginia. According to Seeburger, sources of municipal water are also threatened by sludge pollution. Unsettled, the legislators displayed concern about the quality of water in their own districts.
If the West Virginia legislature is truly concerned with the quality of its drinking water and the health of its citizens, it will pass the moratorium on slurry injections and fund a full study of the impact this mordant practice has already had. The subcommittee will be hearing from industry and the WV Dept of Environmental Protection next month, but with word getting out about the tragedies perpetrated upon Rawl and other communities, Big Coal is feeling the heat.