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Sit-In at EPA Calls Out Lisa Jackson's Mountaintop Removal Betrayal
Listen here, Lisa Jackson.
"No or very few valley fills that are going to be able to meet standards like this."
Blaring the EPA administrator's own words from last April's press conference with her intent to end mountaintop removal mining valley fills on an amplified soundtrack, five sit-in protesters are currently occupying the lobby of the EPA's headquarters in Washington, DC.
According to the Rainforest Action Network:
After entering the EPA building, activists sat down in the center of the lobby, locked themselves together with metal 'lock boxes,' and began to blast West Virginia's adopted state song, John Denver's 'Take me Home, Country Roads,' with intermittent sounds of Appalachia's mountains being blown apart by MTR explosives spliced into the song. An additional activist has climbed to the top of the EPA front door on Constitution Ave and is standing with a banner reading: 'Blowing up mountains for coal contaminates Appalachia's water, Stop MTR.
Despite Jackson's promise last April to enforce new guidance rules
to end the reckless process of mountaintop removal mining, the EPA
stunned coalfield residents and human rights and environmental
advocates across the nation last week with the announcement of their green light for a new mountaintop removal permit at Pine Creek in West Virginia.
"We're sitting down inside the EPA to demand the EPA stand up to
protect Appalachia's precious drinking water, historic mountains and
public health from the devastation of mountaintop removal," said Scott
Parkin of Rainforest Action Network, who participated in the sit-in.
"At issue here is not whether mountaintop removal mining is bad for the
environment or human health, because we know it is and the EPA has said
it is. At issue is whether President Obama's EPA will do something
about it. So far, it seems it is easier to poison Appalachia's drinking
water than to defy King Coal."
More updates on the sit-in will be posted later today. Here are some photos.
9 Comments so far
Show AllHow long before the ruling class orders their blue collar police zombies to get rid of these Anti-capitalism terrorists? Shame on you Lisa Jackson. How much did they pay you for your soul?
We were put here to tend and keep His garden. I'd fire our collective asses.
Coal mining is destroying drinkable water. Oil extraction is using and destroying drinkable water in the tar sands of Canada. Agra business is destroying drinkable water with massive pig farms in northern Canada. Arsenic poisoning is tied to wells in Bangladesh (naturally occurring). Hydraulic fracturing, developed by Haliburton, is putting poisons into drinking water. The French have purchased water rights in parts of SA where people can not collect rain water from their roofs without a fee. The Bush's bought a very large property in, I think, Uruguay a few years back. It sits on top of one of the largest fresh water aquifer in the world.
What's going on here? Monterey California is switching to desalination as its primary water source. Is someone trying to capitalize what was once free and plentiful - water? By continually shrinking, contaminating/polluting, the supply of fresh water the price of drinking water is being driven up. Desalination plants cost money and energy is used to power them. Can you imagine water going for three dollars a gallon in the free market! When will someone figure out how to charge us for the air we breath? If air pollution gets too bad we may all need oxygen tanks at home to clean out or lungs once a day. What a business opportunity that would be!
Our inheritance is the planet earth. Will anything be left to pass on to future generations? Will people look back with astonishment at how cheaply we sold our mother earth - for the greed of the few? The earth was meant to last forever. We sold it for a few pieces of silver. There is nothing new under the sun. Those few pieces of silver are the same pieces that have been circulating for thousands of years. Only when we become gods ourselves will we be able to replace what is lost.
We have doomed our grandchildren or the American tri-centenians to lives of suffering and sickness. We have had 100 years of warnings and now it may be to late to get the tri-centenians out of the kill box. They will righty curse our names and defecate on our graves for what we have left them as an "inheritance." All I can say to the children born today is that I am terribly sorry.
you got it water, the next scarce commodity ( already sold at more than $3 per gallon.)
There must be a reason science fictions visionaries commonly depicted populations residing in domed cities.
"Pres. Bush buys 100,000acre ranch in Paraguay"
".....the real war will be fought not for oil, but for water, and recalled that Acuifero Guaraní is one of the largest underground water reserves in South America, running beneath Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay (larger than Texas and California together)".
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/10/19/18321646.php
People have underestimated the massive and almost total corruption of American government and its regulatory agencies which subsidizes and then allows corporate criminals to have free reign. Too many people still attribute the failure of congress to seriously reform anything as just a series of mistakes instead of accepting the terrible reality that the system is thoroughly corrupt from top to bottom.
Just like Ken Salazar, our Interior Sec. May you both be unemployed and replaced by those who actually care about the environment soon.
'began to blast West Virginia's adopted state song, John Denver's 'Take me Home, Country Roads,' with intermittent sounds of Appalachia's mountains being blown apart by MTR explosives spliced into the song.'
That would have been powerful to hear. They should release that version on youtube with a video accompanying it.
I strongly suggest all Commondreamers get their browsers over to climategroundzero.org,a direct action group located at the base of Coal River Mtn., in WV. These brave activists are protecting their homes,lives and future by putting their asses on the line! You are cordially invited to do the same!