This just in from the the great clean water advocates:

We are excited to announce that the Forum on the Future of Energy, where Waterkeeper Alliance President Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will debate Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship, will be an online, interactive event.

Find out the latest news about the January 21, 2010 event and how you can participate by following us on Twitter and The Dirty Lie fan page on Facebook.

The University of Charleston will also be taking questions for the debaters in advance of the event – you can submit your questions to the University.

Thank you for your continued support of Waterkeeper Alliance and The Dirty Lie.

Sincerely,

Scott Edwards
Director of Advocacy
Waterkeeper Alliance

This just in from the Alliance for Appalachia Blog:

The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) is charged with enforcing the law on mountaintop removal. Unfortunately, decades of rollbacks and giving in to coal industry corruption have left coalfield communities virtually undefended. Exceptions to the surface mine law have become the rule, and problems with dust, blasting, toxic water and giant wastelands remaining unreclaimed are impacting the lives of thousands across the coalfields.

The OSMRE is asking for advice on how to enforce the law – and we need you to offer it. (link to website) Comments are due by January 19th – please click here to send in sample comments or offer your own. Many of you have had personal experiences with the OSMRE – and we encourage you to write about them.

When the OSMRE doesn’t hear from citizens, they assume you have nothing to say – please let them know we are paying attention and we expect the laws to be enforced.

Thanks for your help!

The following email was sent to the 39,000+ supporters of iLoveMountains.org. To sign up to receive free email alerts, click here.

You can see more photos from 2009
in our Flickr album.

Can you come to Washington, D.C., March 6-10 for our 5th Annual End Mountaintop Removal Week — and help make 2010 the year that we put an end to mountaintop removal coal mining?

Click here for more information and to sign up.

In 2010, we have a real opportunity to pass the Clean Water Protection Act (H.R. 1310) and the Appalachia Restoration Act (S. 696) — bills that would significantly advance our goal of ending mountaintop removal coal mining.

But for these bills to pass, Congress needs to hear from ordinary citizens like you — and that’s what the Week in Washington is all about.

Last year’s Week in Washington was a tremendous success. More than 150 people from over 20 states came to Washington, holding more than 150 meetings with Congressional offices.

The result? We now have a record 160 co-sponsors in the House and 10 co-sponsors in the Senate.

Can you join us this year in Washington? You’ll get to meet and work with other passionate Appalachian activists from around the country; learn to engage decision-makers and others in your community about the issue; and meet face to face with legislators to help inspire and educate them to end mountaintop removal coal mining in 2010.

Full and partial scholarships are available on a needs-basis. To learn more and register for the Week in Washington, click here:

https://www.ilovemountains.org/wiw

If you can’t make it to Washington, please mark your calendars for Tuesday, March 9 — that’s the day we’ll be holding a national call-in day that you can participate in from anywhere.

Please also consider sponsoring a participant by donating here.

We hope to see you in Washington!

Matt Wasson
iLoveMountains.org

The characters are different but the plot is all too familiar:

In the movie Avatar, Parker Selfridge of the RDA mining corporation, has the bulldozers take down the Na’vi history tree. It’s standing between them and a valuable black energy rock called “unobtainium.”

In Appalachia, Randall Reid Smith, WV Commissioner of Culture and History, asks the National Park Service to remove National Historic Register designation from Blair Mountain, site of a major 1921 confrontation between the coal miners unions and the coal industry. On Jan. 8, 2010, Carol Schull, Chief of the National Register for the Park Service, announces an unprecedented de-listing of a national historical site, effective immediately.

Appalachia’s history is standing in the way of another valuable black rock.
 
“If they can Stalinize our history like this, it shows that big coal still owns our state government,” said Wess Harris, editor of “When Miners March,” a book documenting the union’s side of the battle of Blair Mountain. “This action does not stand alone but is part of a deliberate effort to erase Appalachian history.”
 
The site of the 1921 armed conflict between over ten thousand coal miners and company guards involved at least 80 deaths. The site has enormous significance for historians and for the American labor movement.
 
Letters of support for the original historic places listing—approved just last March of 2009—came from the Presidents of the United Mine Workers of America, the Society for Historical Archeology, the Society of American Archeology, and many other historians and scholars.
 
“The Blair Mountain Battlefield is a unique historic and cultural treasure that deserves all the recognition and protection we can muster,” said archeology professor Harvard Ayers of Appalachian State University. “The coal industry…conducted a scare campaign to con property owners within the nomination boundary into signing formal objections to the listing. “

The decision to de-list Blair Mountain (first reported in a blog post by Jeff Biggers) is questionable on a number of levels, not the least of which is that two of the property owners who supposedly object to the Historical listing are deceased.

In the movie Avatar, the Na’vi of Pandora have intricate language, customs and connections to the natural world that supports them. They are under assault from corporate greed, and one of the first places attacked is their historical memory contained in the Tree of Voices.
 
Appalachian people have similarly intricate connections to the natural world of Appalachia—connections that they are losing as explosives and giant bulldozers destroy the mountains for coal.
 
Their history is also under assault.
 
Its one thing to watch a movie, but it’s another to understand the point that a movie like Avatar is trying to make.
 
Outside the popcorn palaces, the harsh reality of the struggle over valuable black rock is evident not in distant lands or remote worlds, but very close to home.

The EPA signed off on a Clean Water Act permit releasing Patriot
Coal’s Hobet 45 mountaintop removal mine operation permit, one of 79 withheld for further review due to environmental concerns, to the Army Corps of Engineers for approval.

The addition to the Hobet complex, which already spans tens of
thousands of acres of contiguous mining will obliterate three more
miles of already impaired streams by simply “mining through” them.
These headwaters are within the watershed of the Mud River system,
which is already on the brink of a major toxic event due to Selenium
discharges at other parts of the Hobet complex. The original plans would have buried six miles of streams.

According to the EPA, Patriot Coal will still be able to mine 91 percent of the coal they were originally planning to produce, even
without any new valley fills.

Mountaintop removal has shown to be a disaster for the communities, economy, and ecology of Appalachia. Mountaintop removal has buried and
polluted nearly 2,000 miles of headwaters streams in Appalachia and contaminated them with toxic heavy metals and chemicals.

“We, the affected citizens that are living with the impacts of this destructive mining practice, pray that this decision is not a preview of other destructive mining permits being approved,” said Judy Bonds with Coal River Mountain Watch. “We certainly hope this is the last destructive permit approved that will allow the coal industry to continue to blast our homes and pollute our streams.”

To find out more read “Hobet deal cuts stream impacts, preserves jobs” by Ken Ward Jr or listen to The Diane Rehm Show’s discussion on the topic.

Obama Administration Asked to Halt All New Mountaintop Removal Permits

– – – – – – – – – – –
CONTACTS:
Sandra Diaz, Director of Development and Communications, Appalachian Voices….828-262-1500
Dr. Matthew Wasson, Director of Programs, Appalachian Voices….828-262-1500
– – – – – – – – – – –

Just days after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved the expansion of the largest mountaintop removal coal mine in West Virginia, prominent national scientists published a blockbuster study which concludes that mountaintop removal’s impacts are “pervasive and irreversible.”

Conducted by members of the National Academy of Sciences and published in the journal Science, the far-reaching study summarized dozens of pre-existing scientific papers analyzing the impacts of mountaintop removal mining, a type of surface coal mining that uses explosives to remove the tops of mountains to expose coal seams.

The study strongly criticized inadequate federal and state regulations on the practice, stating that “Current attempts to regulate [mountaintop mining/valley fill] practices are inadequate,” and that “Regulators should no longer ignore rigorous science.”

Environmental and Appalachian community advocates hailed the study as a powerful indictment against mountaintop removal mining. Opponents to the practice also expressed disappointment over the Obama Administration’s fluctuating stance on mountaintop removal, citing inconsistencies with statements made by President Obama about restoring science to a more prominent position in agency decision-making.

In a recent interview the President told the political news organization, Politico, “It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient-especially when it’s inconvenient.”

Appalachian coalfield residents, who have long been aware of the major environmental impacts from mountaintop removal mining, are hopeful that the study will embolden the Obama Administration to take more decisive action to ultimately end the practice.

“The scientific study released today comes as little surprise to us living in the Central Appalachian coal mining region,” says Nina McCoy from Martin County, Ky., site of a large coal sludge dam break that overtook the county in 2000. “This should be the evidence the Obama Administration needs to close the floodgates on new mountaintop removal permits and stop the poisoning of our people.”

Last year, the Obama Administration released a multi-agency plan to more strictly enforce laws regulating mountaintop removal, but the President stopped short of prohibiting the practice.

On Thursday, the EPA told National Public Radio’s Diane Rehm Show that the agency does not have the authority to stop permitting mountaintop removal, however, critics believe there are other avenues through which the Administration could end the practice.

“The EPA has made commendable efforts to reduce the impacts of mountaintop removal on downstream water quality, but this study shows that mitigating and regulating the wholesale destruction of Appalachian Mountains is just not effective,” said Dr. Matthew Wasson, ecologist for the environmental non-profit group Appalachian Voices and director of the campaign to end mountaintop removal on iLoveMountains.org.

“The President has the power to end mountaintop removal through any number of agency actions,” Wasson added, “and he should call on Congress to pass the Clean Water Protection Act, a bill designed to end mountaintop removal-but the message from this study is that he’s out of excuses for allowing mountaintop removal to continue.”

###

Images and b-roll video available upon request. Please contact Jamie Goodman at jamie@appvoices.org or 828-262-1500

Update: See other reactions at NRDC, Grist, NY Times, Coal Tattoo, Washington Post, and McClatchy.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency stated that this year it will provide $2 million to the Community Action for a Renewed Environment (CARE) program to fund localized solutions to pollution reduction.

CARE projects will focus on two types of communities: ones striving to develop local environmental solutions and ones taking the next steps to implement toxin reduction stages in an effort to become a healthy, sustainable community.

With last year’s EPA funding, CARE helped nine communities across the nation achieve their goals. From water pollution to indoor pollutants and hazardous waste, CARE enabled communities to address pollution issues in order to establish a safer environment.

If you would like your community to apply for a CARE grant, click here to find out more information.

Appalachian Voices joined with more than 100 environmental organizations including the Sierra Club, Earth Justice, Union of Concerned Scientists and the National Resource Defense Council to post a full-page ad in the New York Times on Tuesday, December 22 calling for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to enact regulations for coal ash waste disposal. The ad ran on the one-year anniversary of the Kinston, TN coal ash disaster, in which 1 billion gallons of toxic coal ash tragically spilled into the Clinch and Emory rivers at a Tennessee Valley Authority coal-fired power plant.

View the ad

Send a letter to the EPA asking for coal ash regulations

The following email was sent to the 39,000+ supporters of iLoveMountains.org. To sign up to receive free email alerts, click here.

Dear Friend of the Mountains,

Dumping mine waste into a valley fill on Kayford Mountain, WV

When the Bush Administration proposed gutting the “Stream Buffer Zone Rule” — a regulation that has prevented surface mining within 100 feet of our nation’s streams for decades — people like you responded in force. More than 75,000 comments were submitted to the Bush Administration, asking that the regulation be left intact.

The Bush administration overrode public opinion, however, and gutted the rule anyway — handing a parting gift to Big Coal before it left office.

Now, we urgently need the Obama administration to reverse this rule and protect our nation’s streams from being buried by mining waste from mountaintop removal coal mining.

Unfortunately, the Office of Surface Mining, Reclaimation, and Enforcement has proposed waiting until 2011 to begin making changes to the Stream Buffer Zone Rule.

Waiting an entire year is unacceptable — we are losing streams in Appalachia every day. Waiting another year means that many more miles of Appalachian streams — the headwaters of streams that provide the drinking water supplies of many eastern cities — will be forever buried.

The Office of Surface Mining, Reclaimation, and Enforcement is accepting comments until December 30th on its proposal to delay addressing Stream Buffer Zone Rule changes for another year. Can you take just a moment today, and tell them that waiting a year is unacceptable?

Click here to submit your comments today.

Please let the OSMRE know that we need to end the dumping of mountaintop removal waste into Appalachian streams immediately.

Thank you for taking action.

Matt Wasson
iLoveMountains.org

PS Please help gather the resources we need for the battles ahead by making a special year end contribution today: https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1741/t/6886/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=1807

The following email was sent to the 39,000+ supporters of iLoveMountains.org. To sign up to receive free email alerts, click here.

Dear Friend of the Mountains,

As the Associated Press recently observed, “environmental activists gained more momentum this year than in the past decade against the destructive, uniquely Appalachian form of strip mining known as mountaintop removal.”

That momentum has been the result of your efforts.

Every time we’ve asked, you and nearly 40,000 people like you who love mountains have taken action — spreading the word among friends, speaking up to Congress, sending in comments to regulatory agencies, and making sure the world knows that the days of destroying mountains for cheap coal are numbered.

Yet the push back from Big Coal is gaining strength — and the final showdown to end mountaintop removal coal mining may arrive in 2010.

Can you help us prepare for what will surely be a critical year by making a contribution to iLoveMountains today?

Click here to make a contribution.

In the past year, your support has made a tremendous difference:

1. In Congress, we’ve gained a record 161 Co-Sponsors for the Clean Water Protection Act — and a companion bill, the Appalachian Restoration Act, was introduced for the first time ever in the United States Senate, which currently has 10 co-sponsors.
2. In an historic turnaround, Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) “spoke the truth” and warned the coal industry that “the practice of mountaintop removal mining has a diminishing constituency in Washington.”
3. The EPA recommended that 79 proposed valley fill permits not be issued as written, while the Office of Surface Mining proposed overturning the Bush-era stream buffer zone rule, which made it easier for big coal to dump mining waste into thousands of miles of streams.
4. The importance of fight to save Coal River Mountain spread from living rooms across America to the Climate Summit in Copenhagan, becoming a symbol of the choice America faces between a clean energy future and the pollution of past sources of power.

All of this happened because people like you have sent more than 100,000 letters to Congress, the Senate, and Executive agencies… because hundreds of ordinary citizens have traveled to Washington or visited with their representatives during in-district visits… because more than 2,000 bloggers have joined our “Blogger’s Challenge” and spread the word about mountaintop removal…. and because you’e helped spread the word to family and friends, growing our movement to nearly 40,000 people who are committed to taking action online.

Can you help us increase that momentum by making a contribution today? Any amount you can afford to give — whether $25, $100, or $500 — goes directly to supporting our campaign to end mountaintop removal, and gives us the critical resources we’ll need in 2010:

Click here to contribute today.

Thank you for doing everything you can to help end mountaintop removal coal mining.

Matt Wasson
iLoveMountains.org

PS. Want to be among the activists who join us for the 5th Annual End Mountaintop Removal Week in Washington, coming up March 6-10th, 2010? Save the date and learn more by clicking here.

On Dec. 9, a petition with over 1,000 signatures was presented to West Virginia University’s President Jim Clements by the university’s Sierra Student Coalition.

The petition is a formal request that in the future the university reject donations from coal corporation CEOs Bob Murray and Don Blakenship.

“West Virginia University has received $1.5 million from two corrupt coal company leaders, Don Blankenship and Bob Murray. Both of these men have threatened the lives and health of innocent people through their companies’ practices. WVU has even honored Murray by creating a chairmanship in his name,” stated the West Virginia University Sierra Student Coalition.

The petition they issued requested that the chair name be changed to honor miners who have died in the course of duty.

According to a press release by Joe Gorman, “1,000 WVU Students Petition Against Dirty Coal Money,” as a result of their meeting with the Clements, the university president has agreed to put future donations under a stricter lens of ethical scrutiny.

For more information contact:
{encode=”joe.madpj7@gmail.com” title=”Joe Gorman”}

{encode=”the_annoyance2002@yahoo.com” title=”Calvin Smith”}

Recent reports reveal that 2.66 million pounds of 10 toxic pollutants contaminated the Emory River when TVA’s Kingston plant spilled 1 billion gallons of coal ash in 2008.

The Toxics Release Inventory, filed by TVA with the Environmental Protection Agency, reports high levels of toxic pollutants arsenic, barium, chromium, copper, lead, manganese, mercury, nickel, vanadium and zinc in Tennessee’s Emory River.

These toxins pose a serious threat to human health. For instance, arsenic and chromium are carcinogenic substances. Mercury can cause severe damage to the brain and other organs as well as serious fetus complications. Barium can cause gastrointestinal issues or when dissolved in water and ingested it can change heart rhythms and may even lead to paralysis or death.

“The enormous increase in heavy metals discharged by TVA is very troubling. First, many of these metals bio-accumulate and pose significant risks to human and environmental health. Second, TVA has repeatedly attempted to hide the potential toxicity of the coal ash. For example, TVA’s Anda Ray said to 60 Minutes host Leslie Stahl, ‘I’d say that the constituents, the things that are in the coal ash, are the same things that are naturally occurring in soil and rock.’ But if you compare Kingston discharges from 2007 to 2008 you see an astronomical increase in at least 10 very dangerous metals. If it wasn’t for EIP bringing the data and facts forward, the public would never learn the truth from TVA.”
-Donna Lisenby, Upper Watagua Riverkeeper

The 2.66 million pounds of pollutants contaminating the Emory River is over a half a million pounds more than the total amount of discharges from all U.S. power plants combined into surface water in 2007.

There are no federal regulations regarding coal ash disposal or the discharge of toxic leachate into our waterways. The EPA has recently announced that it will propose regulations for coal ash disposal in December.

Click here to read the Environmental Integrity Project’s Press Release.

For More information click the following links:

CNBC

Forbes

Washington Business Journal

Knoxville News Sentinel

Chattanooga Free Times Press

Yahoo News

US Politics Today

Nashville Business Journal