UNC Chapel Hill is under a lens of scrutiny for their use of mountaintop removal coal. While UNC may be claiming they are avoiding purchasing mountaintop removal coal, public records indicate that their purchasing practices suggest otherwise.

According to “Fact-checking UNC’s Coal Claims,” by Joe Schwartz of The Independent Weekly, “The Red River Mine sold UNC more than 106,000 tons of coal at a cost of $8.4 million from 2007 to 2009, according to university documents. Last year, Red River Mine was the largest supplier to UNC. It is owned by the Red River Coal Company, which has several mines and uses mountaintop removal at some of them…”

Some students are calling for UNC to be clean up their act. In article for The Herald Sun, Stewart Boss, student coordinator for the Coal-Free UNC Campaign said, “UNC is a leading public university that has set a higher standard for environmental stewardship and concern for public welfare than this. Now that the light has been shed on UNC’s link to destructive mining practices, Carolina has a responsibility to disassociate itself from these dirty coal companies.”

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

By all accounts, the 5th annual Week in Washington last week was highly successful. Dozens of conversations with legislators and federal agencies showed that the two most critical pieces of legislation, the Clean Water Protection Act (H.R.1310) and the Appalachia Restoration Act (S. 696), are moving.

But the strength of the legislation that emerges will depend on constituent pressure, notes Matt Wasson, Appalachian Voices’ director of programs.

Three new U.S. Congressional representatives signed on as cosponsors to the Clean Water Protection Act—Rep. Stephen F. Lynch (D-MA), Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL) and Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL).

Illinois
Parson Brown and Kat Wallace, of The Topless America Project, Lan and Pam Richart of the Eco-Justice Collaborative, and Kentuckians for the Commonwealth Fellow Teri Blanton, had an appointment with Rep. Quigley’s aide, but ran into the congressman at the door.

“There was nothing in his record to indicate that he would not support us, so we thought maybe we just hadn’t gotten to him,” said Brown. Sure enough, when he learned of their mission, Quigley said, “We’ve talked about how there is no such thing as clean coal and about mountaintop removal on the floor of the House. If there is anything I can do to help you people, just say the word.”

So Blanton said, “Just cosponsor 1310.”

Quigley excused himself for a minute and came back to say he was on board. The group spent the next 25 minutes talking to his aide, who said, “You have an ally in this office. He is against carbon sequestration and mountaintop removal. We just need you to give us ammunition.” They invited Rep. Quigley to the reception, but he demurred, saying he had to “battle lobbyists in a hockey game,” but he was so thrilled with his “I Love Mountains” button, he wore it to the game.

California
The California participants, including Maureen Robinson, a laid-off teacher who reached into her savings to travel to Washington D.C., Dennis McHale, a long-time eco-activist in Orange County, and I, got great response from Rep. Loretta Sanchez when they ran into at her office. Legislative assistant Jessica Fernandez suggested that Sanchez, who has cosponsored the Clean Water Protection Act, could write a letter to the entire California delegation of 54 representatives, urging them to cosponsor the bill, which already boasts half of the delegation. For her part, Rep. Sanchez put on an “I Love Mountains” button as she set off to a meeting at the White House. All of the California participants repeatedly exhorted the California lawmakers to take a lead on mountaintop removal, given the state’s frequent lead on environmental issues and their fewer obligations to the coal industry.

Montana

Week in Washington citizen lobbyists got some promising feedback from a number of senators, even if their legislators did not sign on to cosponsor.

After last year’s Appalachian Treasures Tour of Montana and other states, dogged persistence by Sarah Perry, a stay-at-home Montana mother, got Week in Washington a meeting with Senator Max Baucus. And this was not just a little meeting. For an hour-and-a-quarter, Sen. Baucus and his senior staff listened to a Week in Washington group plead with him to do something to ensure that children in Appalachia have clean drinking water. Perry had also brought Sen. Baucus and his counterpart Sen. Jon Tester custom t-shirts that declared Montanans’ support for clean water and intact mountains.

At the Montana constituent breakfast the next day with Senator Jon Tester, Sen. Baucus made a point of wading through the crowd to take the Alliance for Appalachia group aside and say, “Something has to be done.”

New York

Outside U.S. Senate Hart Building hearing room 216, Keesee, from Moorehead, Ky., recognized that Senator Joe Lieberman (D-NY) was important but couldn’t place his name. Nonetheless, Keesee asked if he could walk with him, and if Sen. Lieberman had heard of mountaintop removal mining.

“He told me he had heard only a minute amount about it and, as I was telling him about Senate Bill 696, he was very receptive, the most courteous person I’ve talked to here. He said he will definitely look into it, and mentioned that he was very environmental. He introduced himself as he left,” Keesee said.

On his first trip to Washington, Keesee had a lot to tell the senator. When he was growing up in the Kentucky coalfields, they could never use the water without boiling it, which was always rust-colored. “On good days, it was somewhat transparent, but mostly opaque and smelled bad, kinda like rotten eggs,” he said, adding that he didn’t make the connection between his family’s bad water and mountaintop removal mining until he moved further away from the coalfields.

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee

Tom Fox, senior counsel for the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, where the Appalachia Restoration Act resides, reported that the EPW committee is “trying to find the sweet spot” of new language that would target only mountaintop removal and not all surface mining without resorting to the narrow mountaintop removal definition used in the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act.

Fox said the committee called in all of the scientists who authored Science magazine’s blistering condemnation of mountaintop removal to brief committee members, and that one of them, Dr. Hendryx, is compiling more detail on mortality in mountaintop removal counties. As for potential Senate supporters, Fox noted that Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) intentionally read his recent statement exhorting the coal industry to “embrace change” on the radio so that “the people at home would know it wasn’t just for his staff.” He expressed little hope, however, that Sen. Byrd’s counterpart, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, would abandon his opposition, given his recent remarks about West Virginia having “only 4 percent flatland”, an apparent reference to the idea that leveling mountaintops is beneficial to the state.

Diana Withen, from Wise County, Va., reminded Fox that the coal companies are not just destroying mountains, “they are blowing up whole communities.” A fellow Virginian, Dorothy Taulbee, she said, had seen her 100-year-old oak home, which she purchased for approximately $100,000, literally shook apart by three surrounding mountaintop removal sites until it was worth no more than $12,000, which is what the coal companies paid her for it. Although she doesn’t personally live in the coalfields, she said that, standing in town, she can feel the vibrations of the explosions several times a day.

Changing the language in the Appalachia Restoration Act to exclude surface mining piqued the interest of Jonathan McCracken, legislative assistant to Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH). Although Sen. Brown was involved in the original drafting of the House bill when he was a congressman, he has yet to endorse Appalachia Restoration Act. At his weekly “constituent coffee”, Bill Price, Ohio resident and Sierra Club environmental justice organizer, Mandeep Gil, a recent Ohio resident, and I, informed McCracken about the changes being worked on to address Sen. Brown’s concerns about its potential impact on surface mining in Ohio. He said he had a good working relationship with bill co-author Sen. Benjamin Cardin’s (D-MD) legislative aide, and that he would work with her. Price gave him the name of Alexander’s aide as well. The group then gave the same information to Senator Brown, who took the pamphlet and said he would look into it.

After a green energy panel at the Senate Democrats’ Progressive Media Summit on Wednesday. Bob Kincaid, host of The Horn, America’s Liberal Voice, asked Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Benjamin Cardin (D-MD), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) why they had not ALL signed onto Sen. Cardin’s Appalachia Restoration Act. The West Virginia native told them that mountaintop removal is intolerable to people all across this country. He corrected Sen. Shaheen’s mistaken impression that the bill would end all coal mining. In response, they said they expect to report the bill out of committee this year.

Record participation moves legislation closer to passage

Last week, the Alliance for Appalachia (including App Voices) put on our largest lobby week ever to end mountaintop removal. More than 200 participants from 27 states came to tell Congress to end mountaintop removal and pass the Clean Water Protection Act (HR 1310) and the Appalachia Restoration Act (S 696). Citizens directly impacted by mountaintop removal were joined by concerned Americans from as far away as Oregon, Maine, California, Minnesota, Michigan, and Colorado in an incredibly powerful act of solidarity. You can read more about their adventures in Marsha Johnston’s blog post, who was a participant at the event.

Participants set up and executed over 150 meetings with Congressional offices, sharing their stories and concerns about the horrific practice of mountaintop removal. We also dropped in on over 200 additional offices with whom meetings were not scheduled, and worked hard to get face-to-face time with key Congressional targets.

Thus far, the Clean Water Protection Act (HR 1310) has picked up 166 bipartisan cosponsors, including two additional signers this week; Congressman Mike Quigley (D-IL-05) and Bill Foster (D-IL-14). The Appalachia Restoration Act (S 696) has 10 bipartisan cosponsors, with many more in the works.

Thanks to the planning team, the participants from around the country, and the people of Appalachia who spent many long hours and sleepless nights to make this the biggest and best lobby week we have ever had.

…

Just four of the forty-seven finalists in the 7th Annual Appalachian Mountains Photo Competition

The competition judges have made their decisions, now it’s time to cast YOUR vote in the 7th Annual Appalachian Mountain Photography Competition.

Everyone is encouraged to participate in the Footsloggers People’s Choice Award. Cast your vote by visiting the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts in Boone, N.C., and viewing the entries in person or by clicking to appmtnphotocomp.org to view the exhibited images and vote for your favorite online.

Voting ends at 5:00 p.m. Friday, March 26.

The preliminary judging round for the competition selected 47 images from a total of 1,116 submissions. Categories included Landscape, Flora and Fauna, Culture, Adventure, Our Ecological Footprint, Blue Ridge Parkway Vistas and Blue Ridge Parkway Share the Journey.

Appalachian Voices’ Communication Coordinator, Jamie Goodman, served as one of the judges in this year’s competition.

“The entries this year were phenomenal, it was difficult to wean 47 from the over 1000 images,” Goodman said. “Choosing a winner from the finalists will be extremely challenging, but the three judges also have very individualized tastes. I highly recommend that everyone participate in the People’s Choice voting to select the image they think should be the winner.”

The exhibition, which debuted at the Downtown Boone Art Crawl on March 5, will remain on display at the Turchin Center until June 5.

The final round of judging will be completed in conjunction with the Banff Mountain Film Festival on Saturday, March 27. First place photos will be named for each of the seven categories, and Best in Show will be awarded.

Appalachian Voices served as 2010 sponsor for the newly renamed environmental category, Our Ecological Footprint.

A coalition comprised of 28 Christian groups sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency demanding that the organization take action to end mountaintop removal through the restoration of the Clean Water Act’s protections.

“As part of our call to be stewards of creation, we have a duty to use the land responsibly, to manage it so that it serves the good of all, and to protect it for future generations and for all life. Establishing the Clean Water Act rule is one step in doing that.”

-Jordan Blevins, Land and Water Program Manager for the National Council of Churches

Click here for the full story.

I’m here at the 5th Annual End Mountaintop Removal Week in Washington, joining residents from the coalfields of Appalachia in meetings with our Congressmen, gathering support for the Clean Water Protection Act (HR 1310) and the Appalachia Restoration Act (S 696). This may be the 5th year, but the momentum is tangible. We have 166 co-sponsors for the CWPA, bi-partisan support in both Houses and committee chairmen who are receptive to moving this forward. To build even more momentum, today is a National Call-In Day to urge your Congresspeople to support these bills. Their offices are hearing from us in person and need to hear from even more constituents.

I’ve been familiar with mountaintop removal (the practice of blasting the tops off mountains and dumping them in streams to get at coal seams maybe a foot thick) for years now. But this week it became personal.

Please, take the two minutes to call your Rep. Below are some of the most powerful points I’ve heard from local residents to communicate with members of Congress.

• Coal jobs are declining. Mountaintop removal displaces deep mining jobs by replacing people with giant machines.
• Mountaintop Removal drives away jobs. What business wants to start up in a place with undrinkable water, coal dust and blasting debris falling from the air and buildings that develop cracks in their foundations from the blasting? As you can see above, mountaintop removal and poverty are highly correlated. Coal is not the answer for economic revitalization.

• People cannot live without clean water. When your water is brown, or black or red, don’t drink it. Don’t shower in it (the mist gets into your lungs). Appalachia once has some of the cleanest, sweetest water in the country, because the mountains and their forests act as giant water filters. When coal companies shove mountaintops into streams, not only does this pollute the streams, but it destroys the natural filtration.
• Support is needed from outside the region. The almost non-existent enforcement of environmental protections, intimidation from coal companies and elected officials who were bought and paid for by coal money have worked to silence this issue. Appalachia deserves to enjoy its rich natural resources, not destroy them forever. Mountaintop removal has already destroyed an area the size of Delaware. How many more states are we willing to sacrifice?

Please call your Rep. We can change this.

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

This posted courtesy of our friends at the Southern Appalachian mountain Stewards

Hello friends,
I’m writing to ask you to take a step today that can help break King Coal’s economic stranglehold on coalfield communities in Southwest Virginia. By a few simple, digital steps, and three votes, you can help jump start grass roots efforts at sustainable economic development in the mountains of Southwest Virginia. Heard enough? Great. Go here and vote for the Wise Energy and Sustainable Economic Development and Diversification Project. Need to know more? Read on.

For years, communities in Central Appalachia, in parts of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, have been standing up to defend their quality of life, the quality of their environment and the prospects for a brighter and better tomorrow for their children and grandchildren. For over a century, the coal industry has maintained a mono-economic stranglehold on many places in Appalachia, a stranglehold that has held the coalfields captive to the destructive whims of King Coal.

Today, coalfield communities are fighting harder than ever to stop the destruction of their mountains. They are also opening a new front in the struggle against King Coal’s destruction. From West Virginia to Tennessee, grassroots groups are coming together to promote a new kind of sustainable, and diverse economic development that keeps wealth at home, rebuilds our environment and supports our communities for the long haul. WE SEDD is one of these efforts, and it sure could use your votes

You can read more about some of these coalfield visions of sustainable development, among many other places, at Appalachian Transition Initiative, Appalachian Community Economics, Central Appalachian Prosperity Project. Below is a little bit more about the effort in Wise County. Haven’t voted yet? What are you waiting for?

The Wise Energy and Sustainable Economic Diversification and Development Project (WE SEDD) is a citizen led effort to diversify the coal dependent mono-economy of Wise County, Va by promoting economic and environmental sustainability, local and worker ownership, community-owned renewable energy systems and local economic skills. Together, in community, we seek to rebuild sustainable Appalachian communities.

Wise County, in Southwest Virginia, is one of a handful of coal-producing counties in Virginia. Already, over 25% of the County’s landmass has been destroyed by strip mining and mountaintop removal, and the coal industry’s hunger for ever higher profits promises the destruction of more of our community’s mountain heritage.

In the face of this destruction, Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards (SAMS) and other groups, have dedicated themselves “to stopping the destruction of our communities by surface coal mining, to improving the quality of life in our area, and to helping rebuild sustainable communities.” The Wise Energy and Sustainable Economic Development and Diversification project is an effort to achieve the final part of SAMS’ mission statement: to rebuild sustainable Communities in Wise County and Southwest Virginia.

Inspired by our friends and allies across Appalachia, like Coal River Mountain Watch, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, Appalachian Community Economics and others, we are undertaking a collaborative effort to identify the skills and potentials inherent in the Appalachian spirit of self-sufficiency and self-determination.

WE SEDD will promote these natural Appalachian talents in order to foster a new model of economic development in Southwest Virginia that can break the mono-economic stranglehold of outlaw mining and fossil fuel dependency that today whittles away at the hope we hold for a brighter future.

Already we have held three “Wise Energy Forums” to discuss the challenges facing our regional economy, and to identify the possibilities for sustainable development. From these forums, we have taken the step of creating a directory of locally owned businesses, and identified an initial group of Wise County citizens dedicated to continuing the work of diversifying our local economy. From here we hope to identify skills already existing in our communities, connect the individuals with those skills to others across our communities, and connect them to trainings, funding and support to develop their own entrepreneurial passions.

By creating and promoting economic alternatives in the coalfields of Wise County, we will rise to the challenge so often heard in our community organizing efforts here: “I work on the strip mines because there isn’t anything else here. Show me something that can provide for my family, and I will stand with you for our mountains.” By encouraging the growth of sustainable, economic systems, we will ensure the long-term viability of our communities, and play our rightful part in the global struggle for Climate Justice and a brighter planet for our children.We are asking for $5000 to jump start the Wise Energy and Sustainable Economic Development and Diversification Project, Will you Help us Get there?

Please Vote.

Appalachian Voices helped release a new report by the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice that identified 31 additional coal-ash contamination sites in 14 states with proven damage and pollution of groundwater, rivers, streams and/or wetlands. North Carolina leads the pack at six coal ash ponds that are leaking toxics into nearby waters. The report caused the Charlotte Observer to come out in favor of stronger state and federal standards for coal ash ponds.

The snippit below is from the Appalachian Voices’ Watauga Riverkeeper blog:

In hopes of encouraging the EPA to come out with overdue regulations on the handling of coal ash, EIP and Earth Justice with help from the Appalachian Voices Watauga Riverkeeper team released a report today illustrating the damages caused by 31 coal ash disposal sites across the country.

The report details 31 sites where major damage to surface water or groundwater has been documented. The pollution present in this waste is among the earth’s most harmful to aquatic life and humans – arsenic, lead, selenium, cadmium and other heavy metals, which cause cancer and crippling neurological damage. If these poisons can be kept out of the fish we eat, the water we drink, bathe in, and need to survive, simply through regulation, than we must take that long overdue step, not only for the sake of our public waters but for humanity’s sake as well.

Asheville Ash Pond and Nearby Homes

Coal Ash Moonscape at Belews Creek Steam Station

Read the rest of the blog post here.

This just in from the Waterkeeper Alliance:

In celebration of The Dirty Lie’s first birthday, Waterkeeper Alliance is hosting a contest to find the best short video telling the world that clean coal is nothing but a dirty lie. Be creative, we are looking for out-of-the-box submissions that showcase coal’s dirty lies and your talents! Potential topics include mountaintop removal coal mining, coal ash, or climate change.

Finalists will be featured at thedirtylie.com, gaining exposure to a global audience. The winner will be chosen by a panel of five celebrity judges, and will walk away with a cool $5,000.00.

How to Enter:

1. Post your video to your YouTube channel no later than 12 pm EST on April 30, 2010
2. Email the link to your submission and the following information to thedirtyliecontest@gmail.com by 12 pm EST on April 30, 2010.
   • Name
   • Phone number
   • Address
   • YouTube link
   • Release form
   • How you found out about The Dirty Lie Video Contest

** The contest is open to individuals only. Staff of Waterkeeper Alliance or any of their member programs are welcome to apply, but not eligible for the $5,000 grand prize.

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”.