Mountaintop removal, the hyper-destructive practice of blowing up entire mountains to get at coal near the surface, is in for a rough ride. Though in technological terms mountaintop removal is downright third-world compared to the high tech sustainable energy industry, it’s still been going nonstop right here in the Appalachian mountains of our own northeastern U.S.. The result has been hundreds of mountains destroyed in one of North America’s richest ecosystems, hundreds of miles of streams buried, and an economic and public health climate that is among the worst in the nation. Now all that is poised to end. Earlier this year the U.S. EPA suspended the mountaintop removal permitting process and Raw Story is now reporting that the first permit veto is immanent.
According to Raw reporter Joe Byrne, the Mingo Logan Coal Company was notified this past Friday by the EPA that the mountaintop removal permit in the pipeline for its Spruce No. 1 mine in West Virginia faces a veto due to “a high potential for downstream water quality excursions under current mining and valley fill practices.” With financial backers like Bank of America cutting their ties with companies that practice mountaintop mining, the impending veto could be a harbinger of more to come.
A new study from West Virginia University exposes one more dirty little secret about America’s favorite fossil fuel, coal. Though coal mining is touted as an economic boon to local communities, the study reviews mortality statistics to conclude that coal mining communities in Appalachia are among the weakest economies in their home states, and in the country. The study, “Mortality in Appalachian Coal Mining Regions,” appears in the July-August issue of Public Health Reports, the official journal of the U.S. Public Health Services.
NASA’s Dr. James Hansen joined in an act of civil disobedience against mountaintop removal mining by attempting to trespass on the property of Massey Energy near Coal River Mountain in West Virginia, and was arrested along with other protesters including Darryl Hannah and former US Representative Ken Hechler (D-WV).
With the help of conservation groups, the U.S. Office of Surface Mining launched the Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative to attempt to rescue the thousands forest acres left barren by mountaintop coal mining.
The volunteer-based initiative, which hopes to eventually plant 38 million trees in Appalachia, received the endorsement of the United Nations Environment Program yesterday. The UN aims to plant 7 billion trees in the next three years across the globe, so every small project across the globe contributes.
Mountaintop removal is a controversial method of extracting coal that literally blows the tops off mountains to access the coal underneath. The waste is then dumped in streams and wetlands, which has alarmed environmentalists and community activists.
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In coal mining country, companies are encroaching more and more into old graveyards for the coal underneath. Unfortunately, they’re not the best at keeping track of the bodies they remove from the ground.
Walter Young, a 63-year-old man from Pigeon Creek, West Virginia, told the Associated Press that he went to check on the site of his great-grandmother’s grave one day only to find that the entire cemetery was gone. And upon questioning the coal mining company, no one had any clue where his relative’s grave had been moved.
Two groups that oppose mountaintop removal coal mining have been told they are not welcome to hold their upcoming meetings at a former Boy Scout camp deep in the coal fields of eastern Kentucky — despite both having held events there without incident in the past.
Jim Scheff of Kentucky Heartwood said his group called last May to reserve Camp Blanton for a gathering called the Heartwood Forest Council, to be held Memorial Day weekend. Another group, Mountain Justice, booked the camp for the days leading up to the holiday weekend.
Both groups found out just two weeks ago that their reservations were suddenly canceled.
Board member and attorney for the trust that operates the camp, Sidney Douglass told the Lexington Herald-Tribune that several board members have ties to the coal industry and “board members didn’t want to get the camp involved in the kind of controversies that they’re involved in.”
Here is Judd’s speech, delivered at a Kentuckians For The Commonwealth rally. The footage of strip mined mountaintops is horrifying:
According to the Sierra Club, mountaintop removal mining:
…has already buried more than 1,200 miles of streams and threatens to destroy 1.4 million acres of land by 2020. The mining poisons drinking water, lays waste to wildlife habitat, increases the risk of flooding and wipes out entire communities.
A recent federal ruling allows the Army Corps of Engineers to start mountaintop removal mining in several sites in Appalachia. This overturns a 2007 ruling that found the permits to mine the land illegal. There is a backlog of 80-90 permits that could be granted, dramatically increasing the devastating mountaintop removal mining in the area. Local activist groups and the Sierra Club are asking President Obama “to follow up on statements he had made during his campaign that were critical of mountaintop mining by reversing Bush administration policies intended to expand the practice,” according to the New York Times.
Climate action group Rising Tide is joining forces with City Life/Vida Urbana, a housing justice organization, to announce a mass action against Bank of America. Instead of the usual sign holding and chanting (which has also been taking place), they are asking people across the country to close their bank accounts on February 14th- Valentines Day.
Why?
Because Bank of America continues to kick poor families out of their foreclosed homes and finance the ecologically devastating practice of mountaintop removal. The two causes may seem unrelated, but house foreclosures affect primarily low income families- many of them minorities, and harmful coal extracting practices often take their biggest toll on poorer rural families. According to Rising Tide, the pollution from mountaintop removal poisons the water in Appalachia and has forced people to leave their homes.
