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Hundreds Call for End to Mining Damage
Mountaintop removal assailed
FRANKFORT, Ky. - Fresh from her well-publicized skirmish with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin over aerial hunting of wolves, actress Ashley Judd delivered a broadside attack on the coal industry yesterday in Frankfort.
Patrick Dunn of Berea was one of hundreds at a rally in Franfordt yesterday against mountaintop removal mining. A proposed bill would restrict placing waste rock in hollows where streams are being buried. (Courier-Journal) In a spirited speech before several hundred people who oppose strip-mining Appalachian mountains for coal, the Kentucky native railed against "the unchecked power of the coal companies" and lamented the loss of mountains that give the region's residents such a strong sense of identity.
"Let me be clear," she said. "Mountaintop removal mining is a tragedy. Mountaintop removal mining is a scourge on our land and on our people. It's killing our mountains - the very thing that produced us."
Judd was the highest-profile speaker at the annual "I Love Mountains" rally, held in support of a bill that's been bottled up in the House Natural Resources and Environment Committee for several years.
Sponsored by Rep. Don Pasley, D-Winchester, the bill would restrict waste rock blasted from the sides and tops of mountains from being placed in the upper reaches of hollows, where natural streams are being buried.
Rep. Jim Gooch, D-Providence and the committee's chairman, did not return phone calls to discuss the bill.
The coal industry opposes it.
"I love mountains, too," said Bill Caylor, executive director of the Kentucky Coal Association, when asked in a telephone interview to comment on the rally.
But he said the bill would shut down enough mining operations to kill thousands of jobs, resulting in a loss of about $350million in direct payroll to Kentuckians.
In her speech, Judd cited how coal companies had made similar claims before - when fighting previous environmental or occupational safety reforms.
But now, she said, "the coal companies are bigger, badder and richer than ever."
U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Louisville, said in an interview that he plans to introduce a bill in Congress to restrict the damage from mountaintop removal mining.
"We're going to put an end to this. We are going to stop this abomination on God's green Earth," Yarmuth said.
"If they don't listen to us in Kentucky, we'll take it (the battle) to Washington, D.C.," said Teri Blanton, a leader in the social justice group Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, which organized the rally.
In her speech, Judd talked about her family's roots in Eastern Kentucky, stretching back eight generations.
"I am very proud to be a hillbilly," she told the crowd, also mentioning her passion for University of Kentucky basketball.
Judd's recent clash with Palin, the former GOP candidate for vice president, gained widespread media attention after she worked with the group Defenders of Wildlife on an Internet video that criticized Alaska's wolf-control program, which is intended to increase the population of moose and caribou.
12 Comments so far
Show AllIn order for such campaigns to succeed , the supoort of the locals is required. When it all outsiders then those outsiders are resented for their intrusion.
In order to gain the support of locals , enviromental groups MUST address their concerns.
>>But he said the bill would shut down enough mining operations to kill thousands of jobs, resulting in a loss of about $350million in direct payroll to Kentuckians.
THIS is the big hammer. It used like a cudgel on the people leading to act against what outsiders would see as their best interests. How does this come about?
It because the resources are GIVEN to and owned by the Corporations or an individual who will profit off it.
If there is to be enviromental sustainability a resource should be OWNED in common by the peoples living there.
As example take the Haidi On the Queen Charlotte islands. For years they sought local control of that islands resources. Meanwhile lumber companies and Corporations came from outside to extract the same operating in boom and bust cycles. That is the timber licenses given, people hired, logs taken and then the company moving on leaving the people out of work.
Via the courts the Haidi have since won a great deal of control over those same resources. They LIVE there and have no intention of leaving. They have a vested interest in protecting their ecosystem and not just for logging but for all the other resources the land provides them.
A logging Company does not care one whit about salmon, or clambeds or rivers or mushrooms. They just want LOGS and if it means destroying all of these other resources they will do so.
The Haidi, as residents and common owners of the land MUST care about everything. This land and its resources will be left to their children. They have to LIVE there and drink the water.
This model of local ownership of resources MUST Imho be repeated. They should be owned IN COMMON by the citizens and not be given over to the Corporations.
GwNorth
Though we don't agree on nationalization of resources or Socialist government, so I'd normally just not comment, your point on this is so well taken I couldn't pass it by.
"In order for such campiagns to succeed , the supoort of the locals is required. When it all outsiders then those outsiders are resented for their intrusion.
In order to gain the support of locals , enviromental groups MUST address their concerns."
This is so true and the reason most "protests" go nowhere these days. A bunch of yahoo's roll into town treating everyone there to their arrogant assumption they know best and you are a bunch of hicks. As GW says, it would be a great help if the outsider's took a back seat.
The movement to end mountaintop removal is in full solidarity now. The disaster in Harlan, Tennessee showed that the coal ash pollution in dykes all over the south central part of our nation are waiting to break. Combined with increased rainfall associated with El Nino and Global Climate Change, it's only a matter of time before more break.
The flows aren't too unlike deadly lahares that occur as volcanoes erupt. The wall of water and ash slurry destroys anything in its path. It sticks to everything, then hardens like cement when it dries.
Of course those who profit from mountaintop removal are well aware of the risk of slurry dam breaks, but they do it anyway. Has a case for environmental enforcement ever been clearer? In the absence of law enforcement, we will see more slurry dams break, more destruction, and more mountaintop removal.
The impact of this practice has been egregious, as evidenced by eight years of Bush-era non-compliance with the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. Federal bodies like the Bureau of Land Management have seen fit to allow MTR despite its direct impact on thousands of miles of streams.
Every day the ant-MTR movement goes stronger. Finally, we have a voice in Washington. The damage however from years of environmental neglect and abuse will continue to unfold for decades. Perhaps, by litigating, and defending the people of Appalachia and elesewhere who stand threatened by slurry dams, we can begin to undo the wrong. The companies that have practiced MTR need to be punished--the coal ash dams they've built need to be emptied at their expense, now, before more break.
www.jbpeebles.wordpress.com
Good folks demonstrating against the destruction of the land and its beauty!
Isn't hemp legal in Kentucky? If so, KY could point out hemp pellets that could substitute for coal in time and stand up for states' rights on this issue. And abolish the DEA while we're at it.
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
Look for a documentary this summer on this issue by a filmaker from Akron, Ohio. She is the same one that did the documentary on Appalachia. Will be a good movie to organize around on this issue. Hundreds of rivers and streams have been covered over and hundreds of valleys filled in by this completely senseless destruction of the environment. At some point, there must be an uprising where people demand the democratic voice over the corporations that run the country and write the laws.
And I bet this coal is going to Canada using the new corporate thug in America...the Canadian National Railway. Plans for it to go to New Orleans, etc. cutting the country in half.
Bet we also provide "bailout funds" to build their bridges, etc. CN told the citizens outside Chicago this rail noise and traffic (and extra costs to do their infrastructure) was good for us. It is not good for our property values and homes...nor taxes for the international corporation's profit. Whose fooling who Senator Durbin and President Obama? They are looking more like oligarchy everyday.
Obama like Bush is getting out of town when things get hot (like the hated banking Ponzi schemes and no accountability, etc.). He went to Canada.
Concern over the enviornment? I don't see it with mountain top coal and that rail line. Which I suspect is the NAFTA railway between Canada and Mexico.
Didn't we kick the Brit corporate thugs (via Canada)out over two hundred years ago? We the people have no say...again.
Hillbillies are more important than coal.
Clean water is more important than coal.
There is a movie out called "Burning the Future: Coal in America" I caught it on the Sundance Ch. A must see for those people who are not sure exactly what these slimy, rotten coal people are doing to the folks up in Appalachia.
A real eye opener, to the total disregaurd to this amazing place, and it's amazing people. Coal is the past, we don't need it anymore ! And there is no such thing as clean coal, it does not exist and never will. And abolish the DEA they SUCK.
We fought a revolution against corporate control of our country. Why should we not all be concerned and help these people who are fighting big business with their wealth and power. Power to the people!
In response to the support of locals idea...
The people of Kentucky know better than anyone that coal does NOT supply us with jobs. This is a huge MYTH, for the most part. The areas with coal are the most impoverished areas in the country, hands down. Think on that for a second.
They provide a few hundred jobs, sure...maybe a couple thousand. But today one "miner" (nowadays just a giant dozer driver or blaster) does the job that 500 used to do in the days of strip mining. This is not a job-creating industry. It is loosing ground just as fast as everything else.
When it comes to global warming, the industries have half the country convinced that its not even happening...so what makes you think that when a politician from a coal county says that limiting mountain top removal will "destroy thousands of jobs", that they are being honest? These reps act like they are for the people and for jobs, but believe me, they are for the industry of coal. Everything else is secondary. They are blunt about that.
I admit it is still a debate here, but most of us know that for Kentucky to have a real economy we need to base it on things that are NOT controlled and owned by Peabody.
It is past time to limit coal extraction. Kentucky would be much better off if it steered itself in the direction of renewable sources of energy, food, and resources/crafts. We all know what kind of jobs will be there in the future, so lets stop the excuses and get to it.