Desks and playground equipment, covered with a thin film of chemical-laden coal dust, sit just 225 feet from a coal silo. Overhead looms the Massey Energy Shumate impoundment, an embankment holding back 2.8 billion gallons of toxic liquid coal waste. Welcome to Marsh Fork Elementary School.

Ed Wiley’s granddaughter, Kayla, attended this school nestled in the Coal River Valley near Sundial, W.Va. Kayla inspired Wiley’s campaign, Pennies of Promise, to raise the $8.6 million needed to build the children a new school in a safe location.

Today, that mission is a success. Gov. Joe Manchin held a press conference on Friday to announce that Massey Energy and the Raleigh County School Board would supply the final $1.5 million needed to complete the necessary funding for a new school, matching a $2.5 million grant by the Annenberg Foundation announced on Thursday. Add this to the $10,400 raised by Pennies of Promise, $1 million from the Raleigh School Board, the $1 million promised by Massey energy, and the $2.6 million granted by the School Building Authority.

“The whole movement made this happen, the communities, all the kids collecting pennies across the country,” said local resident Judy Bonds. “This is a victory for everyone.”

Nearly five years ago, Kayla’s school called Wiley to come pick her up because she was ill. The trend continued for three successive days. On the third day, Wiley flipped through the school’s sign-out registry and noticed that several children were sent home each day. As they drove home that day, Kayla turned to Ed, tears in her eyes, and said, “Gramps, these coal mines are making us kids sick.” That moment changed everything for Wiley.

In 2006, Dr. Scott Simonton, the vice chair of West Virginia’s Environmental Quality Board, conducted an independent study at the school, sampling dust and particulate matter from various classrooms. Analysis of the data confirmed that the school’s environment was potentially unhealthy.

“My concern about the school is that dust levels not only appear to exceed human health reference levels, but that the dust is largely made up of coal,” said Dr. Simonton. “Coal dust contains silica, trace metals, and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), many of which are known human carcinogens. Inhalation of coal dust is known to cause adverse health effects in humans, however, studies of coal dust toxicity are understandably mostly of adult populations. Children are particularly at risk from dust exposure in general, so it is reasonable to assume that coal dust creates an even greater risk for children than it does adult.”

The 380-foot-high dam that looms over the school, holding back an 8-acre lake of coal slurry, has been another long-standing concern. According to a report by the Office of Surface Mining and Reclamation, if the Shumate impoundment were to fail, a wall of sludge more than 20 feet high would tear down the valley below. The sludge would reach the community of Edwight a half-mile downstream within five minutes. Marsh Fork Elementary—located several hundred feet away from the base of the dam—would have far less.

The Shumate impoundment is listed by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) as a Class C dam. According to the agency, these classes of impoundments “are those dams located where failure may cause a loss of human life or serious damage to homes, industrial and commercial buildings, important public utilities, primary highways or main haul roads.” Mine Safety and Health Administration officials have cited the dam for safety violations on multiple occasions.

For years, Wiley and other community members pleaded with local and state officials to build the Marsh Fork children a new, and safer, school. He founded the Pennies of Promise organization. According to Pennies of Promise, “In the absence of help from our elected officials, we have looked to each other for support as we are raising the funds necessary to build a new school in the community ourselves.”

Frustrated with the lack of support, in 2006, Wiley hoisted the Pennies of Promise flag and walked the 455 miles from Charleston, W.Va., to Washington D.C., to urge Sen. Robert C. Byrd to help. Senator Byrd met with Wiley and even issued a press statement, commending Wiley saying, “I admire the determination and dedication that Ed and Debbie Wiley have shown, the Bible teaches that if we have faith of a mustard seed, we can move mountains. I believe that the Wileys have that faith.” But ulitmately, Sen Byrd did not take action.

Wiley and and the community pressed on in their efforts to raise funding for the new school, reaching out to other schools and continuing to push the issue with their local, state and federal government officials. Wiley even reached out to other schools, such as the Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School (WHEELS) in New York, who joined the fight and started their own penny jar for Marsh Fork Elementary.

And in 2010, their determination has finally made all the difference.

“There are a lot of people to thank,” Wiley said. “Nobody gave up. But the battle is not over, there a still a few schools just down the road here that are in jeopardy. We need to get a bill passed so you cannot have this kind of activity.”

Please keep western Kentucky in your thoughts and prayers today.

One miner has been found dead, while another is missing after a mine roof collapsed Wednesday night at 10pm. The accident occurred at Alliance Resource Partners’ Dotiki Mine in Webster County, and rescue efforts are underway.

The Dotiki mine has received 2,973 citations over the past five years and was cited 649 times in 2009. Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine, which took the lives of 29 miners on April 5, received 458 citations in 2009.

Congressman Nick Rahall, Chairman of the Natural Resources Committee and long time leader in protecting miner safety, represents the district where the Upper Big Branch accident occurred. He recently said, “there is still much more that must be done to protect those who enter the mines each day working to support their families.”

You have been instrumental in the recent victories to protect Appalachian communities from the permitting of new mountaintop removal mines. While there’s much that still needs to be done to end mountaintop removal permanently, today we ask you to help protect those communities in a different way.

Will you please take a moment to sign this letter supporting Congressman Rahall’s efforts to strengthen protections for our nation’s coal miners?

Learn more about the Dotiki Mine accident from Jeff Biggers and/or the Herald-Leader.
Learn more about Alliance’s dismal safety record from Coal Tattoo.

The following email was sent to the 41,800 supporters of iLoveMountains.org. To sign up to receive free email alerts, click here.

On Sunday, a memorial service was held for the 29 miners who were killed earlier this month in the explosion at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine in Raleigh County, West Virginia.

The loss of these courageous men is a terrible tragedy, and as President Obama said in his eulogy, “Our task, here on Earth, is to save lives from being lost in another such tragedy.”

We agree. Mining — whether surface or underground — is an extremely dangerous occupation. More than 300 people have died mining coal in the United States in the past 10 years. Every day, three people die from black lung disease as a result of having worked in coal mines.

Yet the inherent dangers of coal mining are exacerbated by companies like Massey Energy, whose corner-cutting mentality has led to unsafe working conditions at the Upper Big Branch Mine and other facilities. Massey is also the number one producer of mountaintop removal coal in the country and, in 2008, was assessed the largest penalty in the history of the Clean Water Act.

Congressman Nick Rahall, Chairman of the Natural Resources Committee and long time leader in protecting miner safety, represents the district where the accident occurred. He recently said, “this mining catastrophe shows us that there is still much more that must be done to protect those who enter the mines each day working to support their families.”

You have been instrumental in the recent victories to protect Appalachian communities from the permitting of new mountaintop removal mines. While there’s much that still needs to be done to end mountaintop removal permanently, today we ask you to help protect those communities in a different way.

Will you please take a moment to sign this letter supporting Congressman Rahall’s efforts to strengthen protections for our nation’s coal miners?

Lorelei Scarbro, a community organizer with Coal River Mountain Watch, whose husband died of black lung and whose has family that works at the Upper Big Branch Mine, will hand deliver the letter of support to his office.

Please join Lorelei in supporting Congressman Rahall’s stance on miner safety. Safe working conditions are just another aspect of protecting the people of Appalachia from the impacts of irresponsible coal mining.

Please add your name to the letter today.

Sincerely,

Matt Wasson
iLoveMountains.org

With this mornings Notice of Intent for an Environmental Impact Statement (.pdf), the Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation, and Enforcement give a few new details on their intended change to stream protections in regards to surface mining.

In their words, the principle elements of the proposed action include –
• Adding more extensive and more specific permit application requirements concerning baseline data on hydrology, geology, and aquatic biology; the determination of the probable hydrologic consequences of mining; and the hydrologic reclamation plan; as well as more specific requirements for the cumulative hydrologic impact assessment.

• Defining the term “material damage to the hydrologic balance outside the permit area.” This term is critically important because, under section 510(b)(3) of SMCRA, the regulatory authority may not approve a permit application unless the proposed operation has been designed to prevent material damage to the hydrologic balance outside the permit area. This term includes streams downstream of the mining operation.

• Revising the regulations governing mining activities in or near streams, including mining through streams.

• Adding more extensive and more specific monitoring requirements for surface water, groundwater, and aquatic biota during mining and reclamation.

• Establishing corrective action thresholds based on monitoring results.

• Revising the backfilling and grading rules, excess spoil rules, and approximate original contour restoration requirements to incorporate landform restoration principles and reduce discharges of total dissolved solids.

• Limiting variances and exceptions from approximate original contour restoration requirements.

• Requiring reforestation of previously wooded areas.

• Requiring that the regulatory authority coordinate the SMCRA permitting process with Clean Water Act permitting activities to the extent practicable.

• Codifying the financial assurance provisions of OSM’s March 31, 1997, policy statement2 on correcting, preventing, and controlling acid/toxic mine drainage and clarifying that those provisions apply to all long-term discharges of pollutants, not just pollutants for which effluent limitations exist.

• Updating the definitions of perennial, intermittent, and ephemeral streams.

According to a recent survey of Western North Carolina Counties, 84% of citizens want to receive more electricity from wind power. This research follows almost a year of regulatory indecision regarding wind energy in Western North Carolina (WNC). The indecision stems from a legislative attempt to create a statewide permitting process for the development of wind farms in NC. Senate Bill 1068 was introduced into the 2009 Session the of the North Carolina General Assembly. In it ‘s original form Senate Bill 1068 would have created a statewide permitting process for the construction of wind farms in North Carolina.

Largely accepted as a comprehensive and robust piece of legislation, this bill underwent significant changes in committee on its way to the Senate floor. After much debate, and intense political pressure from WNC Democratic LINK Senators Martin Nesbit, John Snow and Joe Sam Queen the augmented bill passed through the Senate in the final days of the 2009 session. As currently written the bill functions as a de facto ban on commercial and community scale wind turbines on windy North Carolina ridges. The bill accomplishes this by clarifying the Mountain Ridge Protection Act placing a restrictive height requirement on turbines that can be placed on North Carolina mountain ridges.

Recent results of a public opinion research that show that such restrictions in the wind-permitting bill do not represent the voting base. In a telephone survey conducted by Public Policy Polling, 85% of respondents from a random sample of the 24 counties of western North Carolina expressed a desire to see more wind energy in NC. This response was even higher than solar and hydro-power, and is higher than the responses for coal, natural gas, and nuclear combined.

When asked specifically about constructing large wind turbines on mountain ridge land, 70% of respondents felt that the practice should either be encouraged or allowed in appropriate circumstances. The original framework of Senate Bill 1068 necessitates a multitude of studies to allow a proposed wind turbine or turbines to receive a permit for construction, meaning that only appropriate sites would be selected. When told about the fact that the bill would limit the development of large wind turbines, 61% of respondents felt that the legislation was either too restrictive or outright inappropriate.

In a second survey for Watauga County, the location of the only large wind turbine and the location of the first megawatt-scale wind turbine in NC, responses were equally positive. 87% of residents have either a strongly positive or positive view of wind turbines, and 87% of respondents support the current large wind turbine in Boone. Only 3% of respondents did not support the construction of the Northwind 100 (a 135 ft. tall community scale turbine). The residents of Watauga County, 99% of which responded that they live within 15 miles of Boone, were given the chance to respond to an open-ended question on wind energy. When asked the most important issues they see regarding the technology, the majority of respondents answered that they wanted to see more wind turbines constructed like the Northwind 100 in Boone, citing reasons such as green job creation, improving the local tax base, decreasing air pollution, and utilizing local resources for power production.

Overall, the people of WNC support wind energy and want to see more development of the wind industry in their mountains, so long as the turbines are appropriately sited. The House of Representatives, which will begin work on the wind permitting bill as early as mid-May, should pay close attention to the voices of the people of western North Carolina. These polls show that citizens are in support of wind power and realize that the great potential contained on the windy ridge land of the southern Appalachians cannot be lost to a bad permitting bill.

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 President has parked his tanks on our front lawn”- Luke Popovich of National Mining Association
…

The Washington Post gave us a big sloppy pile of news-ish Sunday morning about how Appalachian citizens are wary of President Obama’s environmental policies. The authors choose to regurgitate the uber-Appalachian authenticity of Washington DC’s own Luke Popovich (a chief spokesperson for the DC coal lobby) while ignoring the 1000s of Appalachian citizens who have shown their appreciation to President Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency for “doing their jobs.”

These four paragraphs sum up the rudderlessness incomprehensibility of the article’s narrative, but check out what shock-jock Popovich has to say about protecting Appalachian communities from the inevitable impacts mining coal:

Obama argues that mine owners could afford operations — if they wanted to — that protect the waterways while preserving valuable mining jobs.

Many coal companies didn’t seem to suffer financially in Obama’s first year: Massey Energy, for instance, recorded a $104 million profit despite the recession. But companies say the new guidelines threaten both companies and mining towns.

“You’d be hard pressed to find a president whose actions have been more warlike on coal. There are those who say the president has parked his tanks on our front lawn, and it’s hard to dispute that,” said Luke Popovich of the National Mining Association.

On Sunday, however, Obama will be talking about miners, a subject that unites all parties. Local political experts say he could win favor by promising more federal safety oversight and punishment of coal companies’ offenses.

Mr. Popovich’s rhetoric is astoundingly irresponsible. The NMA’s beltway spokesperson, responsible to ZERO citizens, who lives in Washington DC, indulges in right-wing militaristic fantasy talk about Obama’s personal aggressiveness towards him in vivid 3D detail. In that culture of unaccountability, no wonder then that the NMA encourages mountaintop removal and also fights worker safety regulations at every turn.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

See pictures and a full transcript at the White House blog

President Obama will deliver a eulogy at a memorial service in Beckley, West Virginia today for the miners lost at Upper Big Branch. The event begins at 3:30pm and will be available live on C-SPAN and online via local WV stations.

The White House has released several excerpts of the President’s planned eulogy.

We cannot bring back the 29 men we lost. They are with the Lord now. Our task, here on Earth, is to save lives from being lost in another such tragedy. To do what must be done, individually and collectively, to assure safe conditions underground. To treat our miners the way they treat each other – like family. For we are all family. We are Americans.

Check out Coal Tattoo for additional excerpts and more info on WV coverage.

Fresh on the heels of a successful fundraiser for Mountain keeper Larry Gibson, an Appalachian hero and leader in the movement to end mountaintop removal coal mining, I feel compelled to address a recent “protest” against Appalachian Voices and our position supporting responsibly sited wind energy development in Western North Carolina and across Appalachia.

I was blessed to grow up on 2000 acres of beautiful mountain land in Western North Carolina. I had unrestricted access to a Southern Appalachian paradise, a place filled with hardwoods, headwater streams, bears, ginseng, turkeys and warblers. My childhood ramblings in those hills set the stage for a life dedicated to protecting these mountains. I cannot and will never be able to describe my love for this ancient mountain chain.

Those lucky enough to call western North Carolina home, generally cannot imagine that just a short distance from our state line, entire mountains are blasted apart for thin seams of coal. I vividly remember the first time I traveled Larry Gibson’s home on Kayford Mountain in southern West Virginia. Larry and his humble cabin are surrounded by 10,000 acres of mountaintop removal mines. Larry was catapulted into activism 25 years ago when the destruction of his ancestral homeland began. Since that time he has invited thousands of visitors, members of the media and filmmakers to witness firsthand the destruction of his mountain for “cheap” coal. As I stared out upon thousands of acres of desecrated mountains, I became entirely committed to ending mountaintop removal.

My home state of North Carolina is the number one consumer of mountaintop removal mined coal. Our “cheap” electricity comes at the enormous cost of destroyed mountains, poisoned water and permanently impoverished Appalachian communities. As a North Carolina based organization we feel we have a moral imperative and duty to rapidly transition away from mountaintop removal coal mining and responsibly develop our own clean and sustainable energy sources. But before we take a position on any sort of energy development, we embark on a painstaking process of vetting scientific information and examining potential community and ecological impacts.

Appalachian Voices got involved in wind policy in North Carolina because we are facing the most extreme anti- wind energy legislation in the country. If passed by the General Assembly, this bill will serve as a ban on commercial and community scale wind energy development in the mountainous region of the state. I, for one, am not prepared to turn a blind eye to our neighboring states that are losing mountains, clean water and healthy communities for my electricity. Appalachian Voices is proud of our position supporting responsibly developed wind energy and is committed to working with a diverse group of interests to ensure a ban does not pass.

The claims made by the protesters – that Appalachian Voices supports blowing up mountains for wind turbines – is ridiculous and offensive. To imply that wind farms cause the same environmental toll as mountaintop removal is illogical. Wind energy is a proven technology that works, and has a relatively light environmental impact. A study conducted by Appalachian State University HERE showed that wind energy development on a small percentage of North Carolina ridges could produce enough clean energy for 195,000 homes, create 350 green jobs, and have a net economic impact of over one billion dollars.

It is unfortunate that individuals would protest our position with such a misguided and untruthful message. Appalachian Voices will choose to stand with Larry Gibson and continue to work towards a just and sustainable energy future. I would urge the members of the recent protest to heed their own advice – GET THE FACTS…

Another study – this one from Than Hitt and Dr. Michael Hendryx – shows a high correlation between coal mining and certain types of cancers. It also outlines what a loss of ecologic integrity can mean for human health. You can purchase the study here, as well as see the abstract and preview. The image below shows a respiratory cancer cluster, focused on southwestern West Virginia.

Conclusions
It is intuitive that ecological integrity and human health are intrinsically linked (e.g., Rapport, 1999; Di Giulio and Benson, 2002; Tabor, 2002). However, global analyses have shown weak or statistically insignificant relations between ecological integrity and human health (Sieswerda et al., 2001; Huynen et al., 2004). In contrast, our analysis demonstrated a significant association between ecological disintegrity and human cancer mortality in West Virginia, USA. We detected significant influences of known socioeconomic risk factors (smoking, poverty, and urbanization) on cancer mortality, but these factors did not account for the observed integrity–cancer relationship. Nor could we explain our observations as a statistical effect of spatial autocorrelation within the study area. Instead, our study demonstrated that the ecological integrity of streams was significantly related to public health in nearby areas. Although the macroinvertebrate data evaluated in this study were collected to assess the quality of aquatic life, our study revealed that these assessments may also contribute an improved understanding of human health and safety.

Photo by the Center for Biological Diversity

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) filed an Endangered Species Act listing petition today for a staggeringly tragic 404 southeastern aquatic, riparian, and wetland species. Of the 404, mountaintop removal coal mining is specifically responsible for threatening 30.

According to the CBD, over 28 percent of southeastern fishes, more than 48 percent of our crayfishes, and beyond 70 percent of our mussels are in danger of extinction. It will take at least two and a half years for a species to be listed, so, thankfully, this petition is getting the ball rolling on the process.

Check out this CBD webpage for access to their 1,000 page petition, an interactive map containing state by state listings of threatened species, and a threatened species slide show.