ATLANTA, Georgia - Environmental
groups across the southeast United States, from Georgia to the
Appalachia region, are stepping up their opposition to a controversial
but widespread practice by coal companies of removing the tops of
mountains with explosives.
The Environmental Protection Agency made good on its promise today to
assert greater scrutiny and "use the best science and follow the
letter of the law" with regard to controversial mountaintop removal
mining permits in the Appalachian coalfields. In a highly anticipated
announcement, the agency declared that all seventy-nine pending
permits in four states would "likely cause water quality impacts" and
sent them on for additional review under the Clean Water Act.
Verizon Wireless joined dozens of other companies last week in
dumping its ads on Glenn Beck's Fox New Channel program. Due to Beck's
"controversial track record," Verizon Wireless spokesman Jim Gerace told Color of Change organizers: "We made a decision that we don't want to be advertising on that program for a lot of reasons."
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- President Obama's choice to be the nation's top
strip-mining regulator said Thursday he needs to learn more about
mountaintop removal coal mining before he can comment on whether it
needs to be more strictly policed.
Joseph G. Pizarchik declined to offer his views on the practice and its
regulation during a U.S. Senate committee hearing on his nomination as
director of the Interior Department's Office of Surface Mining
Reclamation and Enforcement.
It is still technically possible to see the original white paint of
Larry Gibson's pick-up truck beneath the myriad of stickers declaring
his love of West Virginia's mountains and his opposition to coal mining.
Spoleto, Umbria--When President Barack Obama trundled into the bel
paese of Italy for the G8 gathering last month, some of my neighbors in
the verdant hills of Umbria were surprised to learn about their
country's small but lingering dependence on coal-fired plants. Draping
banners down five coal-fired towers of carbon emissions that week,
Greenpeace reminded the European gathering--and President Obama--of the
inconvenient reality of coal.
Laurel Branch Hollow was once a small West Virginia mountain valley,
with steep, forested hillsides and a stream that, depending on the
season and the rains, flowed or trickled down into the Mud River about
200 yards below. The stream teemed with microbes and insect life, and
each spring it became a sumptuous buffet for the birds, fish, and
amphibians in the valley.
Amid a volatile energy market and a lack of green job investments in
the future, the divided Appalachian coalfields have reached a state of
emergency this summer. And yet, the Obama administration remains
entrenched in a regulatory state of denial.
Never has there been such a moral imperative for the personal intervention of the 2002 Nobel Laureate for Peace, Jimmy Carter.
Mountaintop removal coal mining is the worst environmental tragedy in
American history. When will the Obama administration finally stop this
Appalachian apocalypse?
As a groundbreaking clean energy counterpart to this summer's
extraordinary Food, Inc. documentary on the agribusiness, the
long-awaited "Coal Country" movie on the cradle-to-grave process of
generating our coal-fired electricity will be hitting the theatres next
week with the big bang of an ammonium nitrate/fuel oil explosive.
And Big Coal ain't happy.
Here's the trailer:
