Last week I went to Washington DC, along with 200 other folks from 27 US states.

We were all there 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.

Expertly coordinated by the Alliance for Appalachia, this was the biggest-yet lobby event on mountaintop removal.

We also took the opportunity to meet with staff from the various agencies involved in mountaintop removal permitting and regulation.

As I was leaving a meeting at the EPA, this image caught my eye. The poster reads “Blowing up mountains contaminates water and poisons people. EPA pledge to end mountaintop removal coal mining.“

Satellite photos recently released by NASA illustrate the real impacts of mountaintop removal (MTR) mining in Appalachia.

They were taken between 1984 and 2009 at the Hobet mine site in Boone County, West Virginia.

You can see through the time lapse the scale of the deforestation that has taken place, followed by the leveling of the mountain tops and filling of the valleys.

This is the same Hobet mine that was recently awarded a permit to expand by the EPA.

We urge EPA administrator Lisa Jackson to examine this practice firsthand, and take a citizen-led flyover of Appalachia before she considers issuing any further MTR mining permits.

Today the EPA’s two regional offices that have jurisdiction over new mountaintop removal coal mining permits got visits by RAN activists. Atlanta’s Region 4 office oversees new MTR permits in Kentucky and Tennessee, while Philadelphia’s Region 3 office is responsible for new permits in Virginia and West Virginia. Read about Philadelphia’s protest here.

Carrying banners and signs and wearing giant puppet costumes, over 60 activists rallied outside Atlanta’s Federal Building which houses the EPA’s regional office and demanded that Region 4 Regional Administrator, Stanley Meiburg, take a stand against mountaintop removal coal mining.

We heard from speakers, chanted anti-mtr chants, and acted out a skit in which the EPA and King Coal are set to get married, until (a fictional) Regional Administrator Meiburg steps in to stop the ceremony and stand up to defend air and water quality from the coal industry’s destruction.

After the skit a couple of us went inside the Federal Building to bring our anti-mtr message directly to the EPA. We were able to meet with Mr. Meiburg himself and we talked at length about our concerns about mountaintop removal. Meiburg agreed to bring together decision makers from Region 4 regarding MTR to meet with RAN and our Appalachian allies in the near future. We will be working hard to make sure that meeting happens soon and that Region 4 hears our message loud and clear – stay tuned!

All in all, today’s protest was a great success, thanks to all the great Southern activists who came out to make their voices heard!

-Annie

Philly EPA Considering 16 New Mining Permits

This morning activists in Philadelphia descended upon their Regional EPA branch to put an end to Mountaintop Removal mining (MTR). Decisions made here in Philly have devastating consequences for Appalachian communities and our country as a whole.

Activists prepared to enter the building and risk arrest by sitting-in until they were granted a meeting with officials inside, and after a successful engagement and demands met, the rally of 40 people exited.

In recent months, the EPA has wavered in their position on mountaintop removal coal mining (MTR); in particular with the recent approval of the high profile Hobet 45 Mine permit. Philadelphia’s EPA has oversight of MTR permits for Virginia and West Virginia, which includes the Hobet 45 Mine. Philadelphia’s Region 3 EPA is considering 16 upcoming MTR permits and is responsible for the enforcement of the Clean Water Protection Act at existing MTR sites, which makes it a critical agent in ending the mining practice.

This has become a national issue. Appalachians can’t wait any longer, and Philadelphia activists met this urgency with action.

Meanwhile, there is a simultaneous rally at EPA’s region 4 in Atlanta GA, also responsible for MTR permitting.

Every day, across Appalachia, the coal industry literally blows the tops off of historic mountains, impoverishing communities, poisoning drinking water, clear-cutting entire forests, wiping out the natural habitats of countless animals, and sacrificing the heritage and the health of families across the region. The EPA estimates that more than a million acres of American mountains across Appalachia have already been lost to MTR, and yet they allow it to continue.

More »

Reposted from It’s Getting Hot In Here
By Matt Wilkerson

If you live in the Southeast and want to do something for the struggle against mountaintop removal coal mining come on over to Atlanta March 1st to tell the EPA to ban MTR.

End Mountain Top Removal!
* Rally for the Mountains in Atlanta *
1:00 pm Monday, March 1st
EPA Region 4 Headquarters
Meet outside the Sam Nunn Atlanta Federal Center
61 Forsyth Street, SW Atlanta, GA 30303

To date, the practice of mountain top removal coal mining has leveled more than 800 square miles of mountains across Appalachia, destroyed over 2,000 miles of freshwater streams, and poisoned and displaced countless communities that call the mountains home. Each working day, 3,000,000 pounds of explosives are used against the mountains of West Virginia alone.

It is time to end this tragedy. On March 1st, join Asheville Rising Tide, Rainforest Action Network and other allies as we demand that the EPA do their job to protect the land, water, and livelihoods of Appalachian coalfields residents. EPA’s Region 4 office in Atlanta has the power to stop granting new mountain top removal mining permits, and the EPA nationally has the power to ban this devastating practice forever. They need to hear from us! More »

Take action today and demand that the EPA regulate coal ash and other coal combustion wastes as a hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). The Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) devastating coal ash slurry spill in Eastern Tennessee was just over a year ago.

Take action with the Waterkeeper Alliance and pressure the EPA to better regulate coal ash and prevent future spills.

-Annie

There has been a lot of grassroots pressure on the EPA in the last few weeks on the issue of Mountaintop Removal. Last Friday I was able to meet a new coalition of youth activists in Philly that has emerged when they were speaking out at the Region 3 EPA headquarters.

The group, Philadelphia Coalition Against Coal, was demanding that the EPA reject all new permits for mountaintop removal as well as intervene to stop the blasting on Coal River Mountain. They even mocked up a few example citations to illustrate to EPA what they should be doing.

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Sunday, November 8th, 2009- Philly activists protested and flyered today outside the Opening Session of the American Public Health Association’s 137 Annual Meeting at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, where EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson was a keynote speaker.

The activists were demanding that Ms.Jackson end blasting on Coal River Mountain in Coal River, WV. The mountain is the site of a campaign by local residents for a commercial-scale wind farm. A wind resources assessment and economic study commissioned by the group Coal River Mountain Watch in 2008 revealed that Coal River Mountain has enough wind potential to provide electricity for over 85,000 homes.

Instead, the EPA has allowed Massey Energy, one of the largest coal producers in the country, to begin blasting at Coal River Mountain as part of mountaintop removal mining excavation. The blasting is occurring near the Brushy Fork impoundment, the largest slurry dam in Appalachia. Critics of mountaintop removal argue that an estimated 1,000 lives are at risk if the dam at Brushy Fork were to fail. Last December, a containment pond in Kingston, Tennessee burst, flooding the area with over one billion gallons of coal ash sludge, producing the largest environmental disaster in United States history.

Attendees to the APHA’s annual meeting were given flyers on their way into the opening session urging them to “Tell Lisa Jackson: Save Coal River Mountain.” Ms. Jackson and the EPA have been the targets of a campaign by a coalition of environmental groups working to end mountaintop removal for several months.

(Posted by Branden for Daryl who joined RAN’s Michael Brune and others to protest MTR in West Virginia last week.)

Why would I fly across the country on my own dime knowing I would most likely end up in jail in one of the poorest parts of America?

Well, have you ever heard of MTR?

Don’t feel bad, my friends are intelligent well-read and informed people, but most of them had never heard of MTR (Mountain Top Removal) either.

So, I went to Coal River to help bring much needed attention to this hidden, criminal (but somehow legal) form of mining. I was honored to be joining an inspiringly brave group of concerned Americans, which included – NASA climate scientist James Hansen who was among the first to sound the alarm on the climate crisis. The sharp, charismatic, 94 year old, former West Virginia U.S. Representative and Secretary of State Ken Hechler, who was the first congressman to introduce a Federal bill to abolish strip mining in 1971. (If passed the bill could have prevented this mess we find ourselves in). And Michael Brune, executive director of Rainforests Action Network who is committed to ending to this terrible, destructive practice. I was deeply moved to be arrested with those affected by MTR in Kentucky, and the many local residents fighting for their very lives, including a half dozen senior citizens, canes, walkers and all.

Me with Dr. James Hansen at Marsh Fork Elementary School

Mountain Top Removal is a devastatingly destructive form of mining and has already destroyed 2,000,000 acres in the Appalachian Mountains.

Coal companies have literally blown up over 500 mountain tops to access the coal seams and then dumped the refuse into the valleys below, killing over 3000 miles of HEADWATER streams. The EPA just gave the go ahead for an additional 42 mountaintops to be blown off with another 6 permits pending.

Mountain Top Removal leaves behind a virtual hideous moonscape of devastated earth, billions of gallons of poisonous toxic sludge, and boarded up towns with dramatically high rates of cancer. More »