Pass the buck
fill the streams
keep it close to the kids
drain bamage screams

this clean coal
is topped by two
the tandem dance
is getting cruel

one day they'll walk
and wonder why
they can no longer
see the sky

engineers, the mighty team
let go of just a little stream
the greater good
to break a few
proverbial eggs of the
national omlette

somehow the final line doesn't rhyme - hopefully because the final line in the saga is yet to be written.

A sad day for the rivers and forests of Appalachia. :(

Thank you CD for including this article.As a WVa, native,it tears another little piece out of my heart.It's so surreal that anyone not living in the area could easily deny it's happening.What has our society devolved into? Obama,order the EPA to put an immediate stop to these atrocities,or do you also,like others,consider the people of the area to be only "hillbillies"?

Montani Semper Liberi

This is an abomination. Mankind is supposed to be the steward of the land. This ruling allows mankind to destroy God's creation for profit. I feel terrible for those people who must live in the area with the filled in formerly lovely valleys and hollows and clear clean streams that will now be buried under greed.
We all need to contact the Obama administration and our Senators and Representatives to push them to make the coal companies conform to environmental laws. Always remember - Clean Coal is an oxymoron.

Kitty Lady

Do you think Diane Sawyer will even mention MTR on her special on Applalacian poverty tonight? The previews only show her in an underground mine. She probably won't mention how there are virtually no union mines anymore.

And the blame will be put on the individuals rahther than the lack of living wage jobs.

See it with a critical eye tonight at 10:00 eastern on ABC

---USAn---

i can smell it in the air, i can feel it in my bones. someday soon the politicians are going to start living in fear of the people, instead of the other way around.

if any of you would like to round up judge shedd and judge gregory, you're more than welcome to bring them on over. i'd love to introduce them to the intricacies, to the details, to the pleasureless pains of my custom-built woodshed.

Was inspired by the poem and lyrics to go find the words to a song that I still remember from the 70s.
Some things sure change faster than others.
Hope there is the energy and recourse to appeal this ruling as well. But probably not, if it was from a federal appeals court.
I grieve for the mountains, the creatures and people of the mountains and for people so alienated from life that they can justify permitting mountaintop removal mines to bury streams.

Voices From The Mountains

(Ruthie Gorton)
We'd better listen to the voices from the mountains
Trying to tell us what we just might need to know
'Cause the empire's days are numbered if we're counting
And the people just get stronger blow by blow

We'd better listen when they talk about strip mining
They're gonna turn the rolling hills to acid clay
And if we're preaching all about that silver lining
We'll be preaching till the hills are stripped away

We'd better listen to the cries of the dying miners
We'd better feel the pain of their children and their wives
We gotta stand and fight together for survival
And it's bound to mean a change in all our lives

In explosions or from Black Lung they'll be dying
And the operator's guilty of this crime
And the killing won't be stopped by all our crying
We gotta fight for what we need, let's seize the time

Then the coal company came, with the world's largest shovel,
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land.
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken.
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.
And Daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg county,
Down by the Green River, where Paradise lay.
"Well I'm sorry, my son, but you're too late in askin'."
"Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away."

John Prine

Just because we lost here doesn't mean the fight is over, it just means we missed something. Its always a fight to get anything done right.

lino, your sick... I understand the pressures one can feel, and the anger, but, to right the wrongs of injustice starts with education. Now, put up a classroom sign and we can talk.

What the hell do you expect? We've gone from being Bushwhacked to living in the Obamanation. When the cloud of rhetoric drifts away, you will still see the rich getting richer and We the People getting short change. As in Orwell's 1984, every time things get worse for the populace, the Ministry of Truth tells us how much better it is now and how we are prospering if we will just let Big Brother take care of us. Or else!

Winston Smith had the Thought Police and we have Homeland Security. Every year they get more power. It is only a matter of time.

This is yet another blatantly clear example of why the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has no business regulating any aspect of environmental law. It's an outrage that this agency, for over 30 years, has rubber-stamped project after project that have resulted in huge losses of wetlands, pollution of rivers, lakes, and oceans, and losses of potable water for humans and wildlife, to say nothing of credibility. The Army Corps should be legislated out of business as soon as possible. For the good of its ignorant bureaucratic staff, if nothing else....

I live 3000 miles away from these 2 sludge-loving judges, but I'd wholeheartedly advocate they be administered a taste of their work. Anyone willing to make the trip to Richmond might consider a sludge pond rendition for a little creative waterboarding, so these enemies of the people can experience how their malicious and ethically corrupt opinions ruin the environment and peoples' lives. They really have no reason to expect mercy, when what they deserve is Appalachian-style justice. Let's see how their black robes look festooned with the black toxins of the coal industry.

As for the USACE, I've had plenty of personal experience dealing with these over-authorized government goons, most of whom don't even know the law and regularly and repeatedly grant favor to polluting corporate and government interests. The huge mistake of policy that granted the Corps Clean Water Act and Rivers and Harbors Act oversight must be changed. In the meantime, I happen to know where a few of these administrative assholes live, and I intend to make their useless lives miserable for their roles in ruining the planet I live on.

my split personality, yes, i'm sick, but not for whatever reason you might be implying.

these are only a few of the things i am sick of:

- people in denial about global warming, citing charts and graphs comprised of statistics. as if worldwide changing weather patterns are not connected to global warming
-receeding and disappearing glaciers across the planet (these too, according to some, not connected to global warming)
- disappearing ice sheets and polar caps (these too, according to some, not connected to global warming)
- accelerated rate of extinction of plants and animals (not mankind, he's to ignorant to know he's on the same path)
- mountaintop removal for the "clean coal" concept
- oil spills anywhere, specifically in pristine wilderness
- the selling of wild lands for oil and gas exploration/development, as if wilderness could have a price tag
- witnessing the disappearance of common sense in our society

if you've been paying attention in "the classroom" then you know that i am also sick of:

- politicians saying anything they want and not being held accountable
- politicians becoming elected officials without any (none, nada, zip, zero, zilch) BASIC leadership skills
- politicians who are as crooked as a summer day in southern chile is long
- most any repulsican, specifically sarah cheerleader palin
- rising property taxes
- decreasing home values
- rising cost of groceries
- america's misplaced value on entertainment
- rising unemployment (without any help from said elected officials)
- ongoing and seemingly endless financial "bailouts" for the wealthy crooks
- young and naive, and mostly poor, children buying into the rich white man's game of war
- spying on u.s. citizens
- the rumor that 19 boxcutters brought down two major landmarks in one of the most major cities on the planet, and at the same time were able to stand down the most powerful military in the world (ha!)
- stupid people posting on common dreams

you're goddamn right i'm sick.

you say that "to right the wrongs of injustice starts with education." after the first mistake, you educate. after the second mistake, you educate. after the third mistake, you educate. sooner or later we graduate from educate to discipline. low-life creatures like judge gregory and judge shed cannot be educated. they are slim of the highest order, bought and paid for, many times over, by the very people/institutions/corporations that their decisions will impact in the most positive manner. in plain english, while we're sitting here in "the classroom", it's about financial gain (in case you're staring out the window). they are the ones who should be removed from any position in society where their decisions have such devastating consequences.

we are so far beyond having discussions in "the classroom" about the raping and pillaging of our planet. my voice will continue to be heard, and my actions will continue to be felt.

It's too simple. There are far far too many people on this planet and the ones getting the most, destroying the most are the ones that put themselves in charge with the knowledge that the 'others' will not do much to stop them. But that isn't the end result I want to bring out which is with so so many people the current policial, economic, religious, environmental and what other systems are involved are just not capable of maintaining a equitable world for everybody and of the above mentioned, they have broken out and started taking what they will. And the others let them. It is nothing less than a group insanity trying to cope with the idea that systems to maintain a control just cannot do it.

There is far far too much damage to the environment with the ideologies at work and nothing will stop it. Money still talks and everything else is lost. It had to happen because so much money is tied up in so few people's accounts that people are desparate to get even a little, so they chop down forests, level mountains, dig big holes and 'control' waterways, because that is where money can still be made at low costs. People around me will buy a chord of wood for $75 or $100 of some of the finest hardwood there is just because they are either convinced that it is cheaper and especially more romantic(greed).

Well, this behavior will keep up and I hate like hell to witness this degradation of the habitat. But I don't know anything short of physically stopping these people from what they are doing and to do so would most likely land you in jail instead of them. And the only soltice I get from these greedy insane idiots is that what they think they are doing is just fine and the only consequences will be their idea of a better place for other people while they made pile of cash. But I say that way of thinking is disaster waiting to happen because in the long run, NATURE will take charge. Modifying the planet is not one of man's strong suits as he always seems to create more problems that are harder to remedy.

Just a note for a bit of reading I found very interesting with a modern scenario of the people rising up and taking vengence on those that are taking their way with whatever and however they want is a book by John Ross, 'Unintended Consequences'. It is fiction with a decent dose of actual american history and gun owners would be particularly pleased to read it.

One more thing, I did not vote for obama and am damn sure glad that a republican did not get in the white house but too much of obama's actions and decisions bother me to no end even though that mythical first 100 days in not even close to being here and I guess that is why. Obama really does have his job cut out for him and trying to take a bipartisan approach I don't think wise at all. I don't believe those g*dd**n republicans showed any bipartiasnship on their side when they won congress in the 1990s and especially when w & dick stole the presidency. As a matter of fact they jumped on the intimidation wagon real quick and forcefully. So obama better just do to what is needed and leave those wreckers(includes the blue dogs) of our country out in the cold.

Appalachia can't stand anymore of the Bush Legacy of progress and prosperity, we've been bombed, blasted and bulldozed right into 3rd world America. http://www.wisecountyissues.com

What? no one can hear
the howls of eastern mountains?
where will the rains run?

theinitiate
WE msut wake them
from their slumbering,
the masses
lying in thier beds
made from the luxuries
of the capitalists pigs
heads
I'ts time
for the turn over
of power
all it will take
is the ALARM
that breaks their
dream state
and wakes them
to the nightmare
of our present
reality...

If pain and loss were all the price,
of land and air and water spoiled
The martyr lurking in each soul
would bear it all with small complaint
But blood and marrow, bone and sinew, are deeper in than understanding
Linked at the core to earth's resources,
inherent ties that few acknowledge,
and so with every stream and valley,
submerged in waste and robbed of life,
some portion of our human wellness
alike is buried and degraded
With each base travesty of greed
Humanity degraded,is less connected,less creative,less aware,and less humane

We feel it in our irritation, diminished tolerance and calm
We feel it in our lost elation, so little stirring hearts to joy!
NOT for "the reasons" now debated,
the "expert witnesses" clouding view
Such complicated "explanations" delay us from our common sense.
The enemy, by Misinforming; persuasive static, spews infection

The simple truth remains unyielding.
Prime Relation - our sacred bond with earth
the innate knowing that with each loss, each wound, each broken trust
our links to the sacredness of life are weakened, diminished and destroyed

So what can save us from such illness?
Must Nature again restore the balance?
Must Earth through Force compel us to defend her?
What can Restore us to our stewardship ideals?
What will inspire us to Renew our sacred vows?

We Must Forget what passes as security for mankind
The Earth Is our Mother, as she has taken care of us,
We must take Care of her - or sanction death.

Who can still hear?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hN8bcf9Fco "Strangers To The Gods"

Please educate yourselves about the serious situation facing traditional Dine and Hopi peoples impacted for over 30 years with the dreadful consequences of long term coal mining and aquifer depletion.

We needs millions willing to lay our lives on the line to truly put a stop to Mountain Top Removal and the massive mining operations by Peabody Coal company in the fragile high desert of northeastern Arizona where thousands of Dine people have lost their lives due to forced relocation and the hazards of coal extraction. Tho a recent coalition formed between traditional Hopi and Dine peoples with the MTR resisters, most activists fail to include this ongoing resistance by Indigenous peoples in the struggle against coal mining. Why is that? Why? We cannot afford to ignore the web of destruction involved in the massive rape and pillage of the Earth going on in the US!

From Black Mesa/Big Mountain to Desert Rock, the Navajo Reservation is facing total destruction by egregious greed. Peabody received a 30 year LIFE OF MINE permit in December giving them access to another aquifer to slurry coal to Page, Arizona from the Black Mesa mine. The Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nevada was at one time the single largest source of greenhouses gases on Earth utilizing the Black Mesa aquifer in a 273 mile long slurry line that drained ancient, pristine and sacred Hopi and Dine springs. Now people have to travel up to 50 miles one way to fill water barrels.

This does not even begin to address the misery caused by over 1000 uranium mines on the reservation, only half of which were covered when finished.

Obama was always backed by the Nuclear and Coal industry. I did not vote for him because of that and his support of the death penalty. His true corporate colors now bleed thru like a torrent of death and destruction. Sickening.

MAY WE COME TOGETHER IN A POWERFULLY PEACEFUL MANNER TO SAVE OUR EARTH AND HER PEOPLES AND LEAVE A LIVABLE LEGACY FOR ALL CHILDREN! It is our sacred duty! www.blackmesais.org

We need more pictures of the devastation please. This act is probably the most poignant for showing our insanity in relation to our relation(inter-being) with nature...but it's far far off the radar screen, even farther then our insanity with daily "released" uranium bombs.

Somebody got a big payday.

West Virginia went for the GOP.
What more can I say.
Where am I going to find the pity
for a state that raises it's children
while it razes it's landscape?
A place that exports coal and capital
and imports dross and poverty.
Their minds are well managed,
to paraphrase a Dylan line,
and their leaders are swine.
Capitalism at it's very best, turns the land to ash
and the air we all breath,
to the Sword of Damocles
which does remind us
of our mortal peril,
as over our heads it hangs by a hair.

dreamlot;
The people of West Virginia and others in the region affected by MTR don't want your pity.But how about some empathy instead?