Announced yesterday on their blog: https://aaenvironment.blogspot.com/

AAEA opposes mountaintop removal.

The Clean Water Protection Act, H.R. 1310 was introduced by Congressman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) on March 4, 2009 and amends the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (commonly known as the Clean Water Act) to define “fill material” to mean any pollutant that replaces portions of waters of the United States with dry land or that changes the bottom elevation of a water body for any purpose and to exclude any pollutant discharged into the water primarily to dispose of waste.

For years, the Clean Water Act allowed for the granting of permits to place ‘fill material’ into waters of the United States, provided that the primary purpose of the ‘filling’ was not for waste disposal. The intention was to prevent industries such as coal mining from using the nation’s waterways as waste disposal sites. That changed in 2002, when the Army Corps of Engineers, without Congressional approval, altered its longstanding definition of ‘fill material’ to include mining waste. This change accelerated the devastating practice of mountaintop removal coal mining and the destruction of more than 1,200 miles of Appalachian streams.

H.R. 1310 restores the original intent of the Clean Water Act to clarify that fill material cannot be comprised of mining waste. The legislation has 154 cosponsors and has bipartisan support.

Al Jazeera English, the world’s first global English language news channel to be headquartered in the Middle East, aired a ten-minute segment on the energy future war taking place in West Virginia coalfields, and focuses on the struggle over Coal River Mountain.

Unofficial transcript on mountaintop removal question:

I think everybody acknowledges it, the President has said it, everybody we talk to acknowledges that there are serious impacts associated with mountaintop mining and we have to address that. Going forward we have to look at what we can do under existing authority to strengthen the oversight of these projects and to see that we are using those authorities fully to try to address the environmental impacts of mountaintop mining. So, does it mean fewer projects? I don’t know the answer to that. But it will mean that we will deal with the environmental impacts of those projects.

If that is the question, then the answer is easy. Dealing with the environmental impacts of mountaintop removal means there will be fewer projects. In fact, it means there will be zero mountaintop removal projects. No amount of regulation can make it environmentally sound, economically practical, or ecologically beneficial to blast the tops of of our mountains and dump the waste into our streams. Dealing with the environmental impacts of mountaintop removal means that we stop the practice. Its that simple.

PayPal ordering for Still Moving Mountains: The Journey Home is now available.

Cost is $15 plus shippping. For bulk rates, please contact us.

Alternatively, you may contact us to request a CD and arrange payment.

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Jeff Biggers wrote a stunning review of a great new CD that aims to raise awareness about mountaintop removal coal mining.

Ever miss the wondrous liner notes from your old LP’s?

An extraordinary new album, “Still Moving Mountains: The Journey Home,” just released with one of the finest showcases of musical talents from the Appalachian coalfields, has gone one step further: Accompanied by a multimedia website the album includes a map and search engine that allows listeners to see the setting of a song or mining and environmental issue, scroll through photographs, videos, and interviews, and learn ways to become involved in local coalfield citizens groups.

For producer Jen Osha, founder and director of Aurora Lights, the West Virginia-based nonprofit cultural organization formed to raise awareness of the impacts of mountaintop removal coal mining, the album also takes the next step in the coalfield justice movement by focusing on renewable energy and the preservation of the beauty of the Appalachian mountains and heritage.

This just might be the most powerful soundtrack and organizing tool for the coalfield justice and climate change movements today.

The direct link is here: www.auroralights.org/journey

Read the rest of the article over at Grist.org.

Shortly after a Senate sub-committee hearing on the anti-mountaintop removal bill the Appalachia Restoration Act (co-sponsored by Senator Lamar Alexandar [R-TN] and Senator Ben Cardin [D-MD]), a letter was released to the public detailing how two subsidiary companies of Arch Coal were encouraging their employees and families to boycott Tennessee in response to Sen. Alexander’s support of the bill. The letter claimed that the two companies had canceled annual company outings to Dollywood in Gatlinburg, and encouraged their almost 1200 employees and their families to not visit the fair state of Tennessee for personal vacation.

Not to be deterred, Senator Alexander reportedly responded that “Every year, millions of tourists come to Tennessee and spend millions of dollars to see our scenic mountaintops, not to see mountains whose tops have been blown off and dumped into streams.”

Since the letter first came out, one of the companies, TECO Coal based in Kentucky, reportedly backed off from its original support of the boycott, stating “We regret our previous action, which was an emotional response that doesn’t benefit our 1,200 employees, the eastern Kentucky communities we support, the environment we work to protect or our neighbors in Tennessee.” Tennessee brings in a reported $14.2 billion in tourism revenue a year, compared to coal, which generates only $67 million for the state.

We would like to encourage our readers to visit Tennessee for vacation this year. We even held our summer staff retreat on the banks of Watauga Lake, near Butler. What a beautiful state.

Read the original story by WV Public Broadcasting, the original letter, and the recent article by the New York Times.

GetEnergySmartNow.com posted an article today examining the escalating violence in the West Virginia coalfields between proponents and opponents of mountaintop removal coal mining. Threats of violence, both in written form and verbally, are growing on a daily basis. Videos posted to YouTube from the June 23 Marsh Fork Elementary School anti-mountaintop removal rally and from the July 4 family festival at Kayford Mountain have garnered numerous comments that are increasingly hostile. How will all of this turn out?

Read the full article on GetEnergySmartNow.com

According to GreenBiz.com

The Sierra Club enjoyed a victory last week when a Utah-based utility announced it would walk away from plans to build a coal-fired generating unit in the state.

According to the environmental group’s tally, 100 coal plants have been foiled or abandoned since 2001, the beginning of an era it dubbed the “Coal Rush.”

The Intermountain Power Agency (IPA) announced Thursday it has given up plans to build an additional coal-fired unit. Its biggest customer — the city of Los Angeles — signaled its intent July 2 to phase out use of all coal-based electricity by 2020. IPA’s expansion project had effectively died in its original iteration when the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power pulled out of the deal in 2007, Reuters reported.

Visit GreenBiz.com to read the rest of the article.

Wonderful news: 2 new co-sponsors bring us up to a new record. See if your Representative is signed on — and ask them to join if they aren’t — and email them thanks if they are.

Our two new Reps:

Representative Marcia Fudge, 2nd term Democratic congresswoman from Ohio’s 11th district became the 154th (including Rep. Pallone) cosponsor of the Clean Water Protection Act. Ms. Fudge serves on the Education & Labor and Science & Technology committee’s. Rep. Fudge is the 30th member of the Congressional Black Caucus to become a cosponsor of the Clean Water Protection Act!

Rep. Lloyd Dogget (D-TX25) is serving his 8th term in the U.S. House of Representatives. Mr. Dogget serves on the Budget & Ways and Means committee’s. He is the 155th cosponsor of the Clean Water Protection Act, and was also a cosponsor in the 110th congress.

Hats off to all of the folks out there that made this happen.

Read all about the Clean Water Protection Act on the iLoveMountains.org website

Read the post at ScSaysNo.com HERE.

When Old Dominion Electric Cooperative (ODEC) decided that the small town of Dendron, Virginia, would be the future site of a 1500 megawatt, behemoth of a coal-fired power plant, they probably did not imagine that they would face a tremendous obstacle in the citizens of Dendron. A small town of 300 people surrounded by soybeans and corn with a threadbare annual budget, Dendron likely looked like low-hanging fruit to the cooperative executives.

Over three months ago, ODEC and the consistently pro-coal Surry County Board of Supervisors presented an ordinance that would replace the Dendron planning committee with Surry County’s planning commission to “help the town with various studies” and “assist in expertise” in making the decision. By providing their own evidence, experts, and studies, this move would help ensure approval of construction.

According to environmental justice author Dr. Robert Bullard (Dumping in Dixie), siting decisions based on social and economic statistics rather than actual proximity to the physical needs of a coal plant (water for steam and cooling, electric transmission lines, rail for transporting coal) are not uncommon. Think of it as a path of least resistance for polluting industries like coal.

However, the path they chose has proven to have some (perhaps unexpected) brambles: citizens like Carlos Verdauger, who has worked on trying to clean up old coal plants where the coal ash dumps have contaminated local drinking water, or Town Councilwoman Dot Hewitt, who at 78 took it upon herself to find out what a coal ash pile would look like bordering her property, which has been in her family for hundreds of years.

Community organizers with Appalachian Voices, and the Wise Energy Coalition worked hard alongside passionate Dendron residents like Carlos and Dot as well as several other committed citizens from greater Surry County and the Hampton Roads region. In the days before the town council meeting nearly every one of the 140 or so front doors in Dendron had been knocked. Some minds were changed, some heard about it for the first time, and many were mobilized to call the town council and come to the meeting on Monday in order to save their rural town from the large industrial project showing up just off the main drag.

All this work paid off this past Monday, July 13th, at the Dendron Town Council Meeting.

118 chairs were laid out in the Dendron Volunteer Fire Station, and even after all the seats were filled, a few dozen people stood around the room. Pro-plant people wore blue stickers that said Cypress Creek Power Station; opponents fanned themselves with black signs on Popsicle sticks that read “No Coal Plant” in white letters.

To ensure Dendron residents access to the packed meeting, we arrived early and “saved seats” in the front rows. As a Dendron resident arrived, a non-Dendron resident gave up their spot. It worked beautifully – the town was well represented.

With only 5 deciding votes on the council, the victories were narrow, but they were victories nonetheless. The town planning committee was made into an official planning commission that would have legal power to make a decision on the coal plant by a 3-2 vote. ODEC’s proposed ordinance was rejected by the same margin.

There is certainly more work to be done to ensure that the coal plant is not licensed, but the town has made the right choice by keeping the ultimate decision in Dendron.

View a video compiled by Chesapeake Climate Action Network about the evening

Visit the Wise Energy for Virginia website for complete details on the Coalition’s work on this and other issues

Read the new report here and see https://www.kftc.org/our-work/stop-smith for more information.

MORE THAN 8,000 NEW CLEAN ENERGY JOBS POSSIBLE
IN KENTUCKY, ACCORDING TO NEW REPORT

Investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy show higher job potential than in new coal facilities.

A projected 8,750 new jobs in the energy efficiency and renewable energy sectors, spread out over 87 Kentucky counties, could be created in the next three years according to a new report by the Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies. The job creation would be possible through investments by the East Kentucky Power Cooperative (EKPC) in such clean energy measures, rather than in its proposed Smith coal fired power plant.

“Economic modeling data show enormous potential for job creation in the areas of home weatherization, hydroelectric dams, solar hot water, heating, cooling and much more,” said David Eichenthal, President of the Ochs Center, a Chattanooga-based data analysis and policy research organization. “EKPC would be doing Kentuckians a great service by enabling such job growth while providing their members with clean, reliable electricity.”

Several Kentucky environmental and economic justice organizations and an increasing number of co-op utility members are encouraging EKPC to abandon its plans for the $766 million Smith plant and instead increase investments in energy efficiency programs and renewable energy such as from wind, solar and hydro sources. A study released in May by Synapse Energy Economy Inc. showed that diversification of EKPC’s energy sources will help protect co-op utility customers from higher costs of coal and coal burning facilities.

“We already know that energy efficiency and clean renewable energy are good for our health, good for the environment and make good economic sense,” said Elizabeth Crowe with the Kentucky Environmental Foundation. “When you add in data on new clean energy jobs and economic growth throughout the region and compare it all to the risks of a new coal burning power plant, the choice is clear: EKPC should abandon its plans for the Smith plant and instead invest in clean energy.”

Key findings in the Ochs Center report include:

• There is potential of 8,750 new jobs from clean energy and efficiency programs throughout the EKPC service area over a three year period;
• Investments in efficiency and renewable energy would have a total economic impact of more than $1.7 billion on the region’s economy; and
• Clean energy jobs could be realized much more quickly than jobs from the Smith plant, since plant construction may be years away.

Besides creating a greater number of sorely-needed jobs, the energy efficiency and renewable energy portfolio in the Ochs Center report has a projected cost of $62.10 per megawatt hour, compared to most recent cost estimate for the Smith plant of $74.73 per megawatt hour.

“Kentucky is fertile ground for new jobs in the area of renewable energy,” said Andy McDonald of the Kentucky Solar Partnership. “There are a lot of people already trained in solar hot water installation, and many more people all over the state who are interested in being trained and put to work. These are safe, solid, community-based jobs that can’t be shipped overseas, and that help people save money by conserving electricity.”

McDonald said that renewable energy and energy efficiency projects are not just concentrated in one place as with power plants. “EKPC could be a catalyst for creating green jobs all over the state, benefiting their members and the communities in which they serve,” he said.

“I have serious concerns about the proposed Smith 1 Power Plant and believe there’s an alternative that will be better for the environment, less costly to co-op members, and far more beneficial economically,” said Rachel Harrod, a long-time resident of Owen County and a member of the Owen Electric Co-op. “I can’t tell you how significant this would be to an area that has lost much of its agricultural base in recent years. The jobs generated by a clean energy portfolio would be a welcome boost to our local economy,” she said.

Harrod continued, “If EKPC indeed wishes to do what’s best for the region it serves, it will abandon plans for the new Smith Power Plant and proceed with the sustainable, clean energy approach.”

As reported by the The Associated Press in the Huntington Herald-Dispatch:

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Dismissing a recent state study as inadequate, activists who oppose the underground injection of coal slurry told lawmakers Wednesay the practice should be banned outright as a precaution.

They also want a state health department study on the health effects of the practice to start by gathering new data from residents who live near sites where coal waste is injected underground.

Members of the Sludge Safety Project told a water resources interim committee that until the health effects, if any, of coal slurry are known, the practice should be considered unsafe.

“We don’t know the full impact of slurry, but we ask our legislators to use the precautionary principle,” said Boone County resident Maria Lambert.

Last month, West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Randy Huffman told lawmakers that the agency will start requiring coal companies that use underground injection to dispose of coal waste at 13 sites around the state to start monitoring for potential pollution problems.

Following the completion earlier this year of a DEP report on coal slurry, the agency also instituted a moratorium on slurry injection at new mines.

Members of the group, which includes environmentalists, ex-miners and residents of areas near injection sites, said that report doesn’t answer essential questions about how coal waste effects ground water supplies.

“They did not complete the mandate given to them by the Legislature,” said Joe Stanley, a former miner who lives in Wayne County.

The agency said it wants to give time for all the report’s recommendations to be implemented before considering any changes of course.

“We appreciate the feedback from the citizens who spoke today, and as we implement recommendations that were made in the study in the coming months, we will certainly take into consideration the comments made by the group today,” DEP spokeswoman Kathy Cosco said.

The group also aired concerns about a second phase of the study given to the state Department of Health and Human Resources. The DHHR study is intended to find if coal slurry has any effects on human health.

For the study, the DHHR has contracted with West Virginia University to produce a report by the end of the year. The contract requires WVU to seek data from a diverse array of sources, and the activists want the Legislature to ensure those sources include studies of people who work with coal slurry and live near injection sites.

Ben Stout, a biologist at Wheeling Jesuit University who has been studying slurry injection for four years, told the lawmakers that health researchers should start with workers at coal preparation plants, who have years of exposure to slurry, and then move on to residents.

“We believe the DEP is putting us all at risk by pretending they’re regulating coal slurry,” Lambert said.

Coal slurry is a byproduct of cleaning coal after it is mined.

For decades, coal companies in Appalachia have injected slurry into mined out deep mines as a cheap alternative to building massive dams or to filtration and drying systems. In theory, solids settle to the bottom of pools inside sealed mine voids, and all the waste stays put, with little risk to groundwater below.

The industry defends the practice as safe. But critics say the earth continues to shift and crack long after mining has ended, whether through natural settling or human activity such as nearby blasting. They say that lets slurry migrate.