Image courtesy of SouthWings

A new poll released yesterday of likely voters in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia shows widespread opposition to mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining and overwhelming support for enforcement of the Clean Water Act to better protect rivers and streams from the impacts of MTR.

In a statement that accompanies the release, the pollsters said:

“Voters across Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, and Virginia solidly oppose mountaintop removal coal mining, by wide margins and across a host of demographic and political divides. Three-quarters support fully enforcing—and even increasing protections in—the Clean Water Act to safeguard streams, rivers, and lakes in their states from mountaintop removal coal mining. Fully 76% of voters across these four states support this proposal, including a 62% majority who feel that way strongly. Just 8% of voters oppose it. Support for this proposal is far-reaching, encompassing solid majorities of Democrats (86%), independents (76%), Republicans (71%), and Tea Party supporters (67%).”

Senator Joe Manchin

Representative Nick Rahall

Someone needs to pass this on to West Virginia’s elected representatives Senator Joe Manchin and Congressman Nick Rahall. These two have been leading the charge in the attack on the Environmental Protection Agency’s attempts to strengthen enforcement of the Clean Water Act. We’ve long-known that neither politician cares about their voters’ best interests, but for how much longer will they be able to ignore their wishes?

The poll was conducted by Lake Research Partners and Bellwether Research & Consulting and commissioned by Appalachian Mountain Advocates, Earthjustice and the Sierra Club.

Hazard, KY. Flight provided by SouthWings

On Tuesday I went to the town of Hazard in Perry County,  Kentucky.

It’s a surreal-looking place, if you get up out of the valley onto any viewpoint the panorama that should be rolling hills stretching into the horizon, is missing something. The hill tops have disappeared.  It’s as if the landscape is a jigsaw puzzle missing some vital pieces.

This is because over 20% of the surface of the entire county has been strip-mined for coal.

My viewpoint is excellent as I am taken up into the sky by SouthWings to get an aerial perspective. In the small plane with me is Stanley Meiburg, Regional Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Chris Thomas, EPA and Rick Handshoe, KFTC measure stream conductivity

After the short flight, Stanley and other EPA staff meet with local community members, who have been brought together by Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. They share their experiences of living with the impacts of mountaintop removal (MTR) mining: John shares the scientific results of testing the water from the creek by his home and asks how permits can be issued when the water quality is already degraded, McKinley speaks of his family’s water supply “running black”.

The EPA staff talk about how their approach to mine permitting is changing, particularly the way that they communicate and coordinate with the many other federal and state agencies involved in regulating the coal industry’s practices.

After lunch, we head out to the community of Handshoe in Floyd County to see a stream where there has not been any surface mining, we stop there briefly to do a conductivity test using Rick Handshoe’s conductivity meter. The meter reading tells us the stream’s conductivity level is over 600 microSiemens per centimeter. Rick tells us this is double the reading he took two days previously and I become nervous for the future of the minnows in this stream. (The EPA recently identified a conductivity benchmark of 300 microSiemens per centimeter that protects 95% of the genera of aquatic organisms living in streams in central Appalachia.)

We walk up the valley and take conductivity readings on several tributary streams. Alarmingly, one of them has a conductivity reading higher than the upper limit of Rick’s meter. There are no minnows swimming here, only a dead crawfish.

We check out the Raccoon Creek settlement pond, which has been a cause of concern to the community for a number of years.

Our final destination of the day is a valley fill, with a stream running at the bottom. This stream runs orange and black and the conductivity level again reads over the meter’s range.

It’s been an eye-opening day for me.  I’m curious to know what impact the day has had on the EPA staff.

The mountain community members appreciated the visit and being able to show first-hand the water degradation, flood risk and pollution.  These situations that they have been talking, writing and protesting about, to the EPA staff who have the authority to act, and stop mountaintop removal mining companies from treating the waterways  and communities of Appalachia as a dumping ground.

'Spike' Maynard and Don Blankenship vacationing in the French Riviera

Earlier this year, the supreme court ruled in the “Citizens United” case that corporations can spend unlimited funds on candidate elections.

The coal industry is getting set to take advantage.

The Lexington Herald-Leader obtained a letter sent by Roger Nicholson, senior vice president International Coal Group to other coal companies proposing they pool their resources in some key election races. He writes:

“With the recent Supreme Court ruling, we are in a position to be able to take corporate positions that were not previously available in allowing our voices to be heard … a number of coal industry representatives recently have been considering developing a 527 entity with the purpose of attempting to defeat anti-coal incumbents in select races, as well as elect pro-coal candidates running for certain open seats.”

International Coal Group wants to target Democratic U.S. Reps. Ben Chandler of Kentucky and Nick Rahall of West Virginia, and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jack Conway in Kentucky. While all of these politicians consider themselves “pro-coal”, they are facing challenges from some real coal-industry lapdogs.

For example Jack Conway is running against Tea Party darling Rand Paul who last week declared his love for mountaintop removal mining with this soundbite: “We’re not talking about Mount Everest. We’re talking about these little knobby hills that are everywhere out here.”

Nick Rahall is facing a challenge from ‘Spike’ Maynard. If that name sounds familiar, then you may remember that Maynard came under intense criticism for casting the deciding vote in favor of setting aside a $76 million judgment against Massey Energy Company when it later emerged that Maynard was close friends with Massey’s CEO, Don Blankenship, and has vacationed in the French Rivera with him.

International Coal Group is the 5th biggest producer of MTR coal, mining more than 4.5 million tonnes in Appalachia in 2009. Like Massey, they have come under scrutiny for a poor safety record, 12 miners were killed in disaster at ICG’s Sago mine in 2006.

Marsh Fork Elementary School, will be moved to a safer location. West Virginia Governor Manchin held a press conference on Friday to announce that funding has been secured for the move.

This announcement follows a six year campaign to get the school relocated from its current site, adjacent to a coal silo constructed by Massey Energy, and sitting at the foot of the company’s mountain top pond that holds back hundreds of millions of gallons of toxic coal slurry.

Congratulations to all who have fought hard for this victory, including Ed Wiley, grandfather of a Marsh Fork student, who walked all the way from Charleston WV, to Washington DC in 2006 asking state and federal officials to intervene and relocate the elementary school.

There’s a good summary of the campaign here on “It’s Getting Hot In Here”

Activists in Chapel Hill, NC took further action against climate change and mountain top removal, this time bringing the message to Bank of America Director W.Steven Jones – also the Dean of Kenan-Flagler Business School at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Posters were put up in and around the UNC business school with pictures of Jones’ colleague – CEO Ken Lewis and information on the bank’s socially unethical and environmentally disastrous investment portfolio.

Activists also postered climate disaster posters in the boroughs of Charlotte’s finest – to remind them of our common future. We hope they will appreciate this effort to reach out to them directly, and choose to use their positions of power and influence to call on Bank of America to end its financing of massive social and ecological destruction during this critical time of global climate change.

One of B of A’s many large-scale coal investments is a loan to Duke Energy for the construction of their new Cliffside coal plant, located between Charlotte and Asheville, NC. This plant is currently facing several legal challenges and massive citizen opposition. The climate disaster posters call for the cancellation of Cliffside as well as an end to all of B of A’s investments in dirty energy projects.

Abigail