Make Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining Illegal & Save the Central Appalachians/Cumberlands from Destruction

Our chance to make the utterly destructive practice of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining illegal was set in motion in March of 2009, when U.S. Senators Lamar Alexander (TN) and Benjamin Cardin (MD) co-sponsored the Appalachia Restoration Act (S 696), a bill that would do so. But the fight to make it illegal, and save the Central Appalachians /Cumberlands, besides other vital mountain regions, is ongoing and still has opposition. Meanwhile, the destruction continues. Go to the links below and click on them for pictures to see the actual devastation.

By mountaintops, I'm not talking about mere rocks. The practice is blowing off the tops of mountains comprised of thousands of acres of forests, with rich natural resources and ecosystems, and rivers below that must be protected from annihilation. In addition, the resulting runoff and detriment has been seriously affecting the health of the people living nearby, and thousands of violations of the Clean Water Act have been recorded.

According to Appalachian Voices, in August of 2011, 30,000 bottles of water were distributed to a Kentucky community, including thirteen families in Pike County whose well water is contaminated. Earlier that year, a well became contaminated with so much methane gas that it caught on fire. Residents say their well water flows black and orange sometimes, and other times it burns their skin. They reported the problem to government officials in May. Use your imagination-that's just a tip of their health problems.

As of Dec. 2011, over 500 mountains had been leveled, and nearly 2,000 miles of precious Appalachian headwater streams have been buried and polluted by mountaintop removal. For more, see http://appvoices.org/

Unless we contact our legislators and urge them to actively fight Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining, untold human lives and forest will be affected. And merely creating and signing a general-public e-mailed petition absolutely will not help one bit. No matter how many signatures they've acquired, they are entirely disregarded by the government, because there's no way to prove their authenticity. (See Snopes.com) http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/internet.asp We must either call or write them directly, or go through an authorized organization's site that provides forms with an authorized petition (see the end here for links).

Why Stop Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining? This is a process employed by coal companies that uses dynamite to completely blow off the tops of mountains, thus eradicating their forests and topsoil. This in turn destroys the natural habitat and ecosystems of a multitude of species of wildlife, vegetation, and anything living there.

But that's not all. Although the rocks and debris are scooped up by huge shovels that move them or shove them into adjacent valleys, much of the debris showers onto the homes and into the rivers and streams below, ruining their watersheds and polluting the water supply for entire communities. Note: For sure read the *Reality Check further down by columnist Don Williams.

For an explicit description of how Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining works, pictures showing its horrific results, and why we must pass the Appalachia Restoration Act bill to make this type of mining illegal, go to Mountain Justice http://www.mountainjusticesummer.org/facts/steps.php

The Central Appalachians (also called the Cumberland Region), which are in imminent threat of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining, include Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. (Although North Carolina is part of the Cumberlands, there is no coal mining there.) Therefore, we must quickly push our legislators to pass this new bill.

The rivers that flow through the coalfields of Virginia and Tennessee are among the most biologically diverse waterways in America. Native fish and mussel species―key indicators of water quality―are in dire trouble.

Tennessee's Cumberland Plateau, covering an area the size of Connecticut, is renowned for its biodiversity and expanses of unbroken forest, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center site http://www.southernenvironment.org/forests/protecting_the_cumberland_plateau/. The plateau and the rivers fed by its headwater streams harbor one of the highest concentrations of endangered species in North America. The northern plateau also provides vital breeding habitat for almost a third of all surviving cerulean warblers-migratory songbirds that have seen their populations decline by more than 70 percent in the past three decades.

Places there in need of protection from Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining include the Royal Blue and Sundquist wildlife management areas―state-owned lands that are home to a remarkable array of rare plant and animal species, including some of the highest densities of cerulean warblers ever recorded. The Tennessee Valley Authority and energy companies own rights to coal deposits below these lands, and under this designation, they would still have access to coal reserves through less-destructive underground mining.

Keeping these areas off-limits to surface mining would also help protect the watershed of the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River, which flows through the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area.

Coal companies prefer Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining because this method not only works fast, but it is relatively cheap for them. But when it comes to economics, every year millions of tourists flock to Tennessee alone for its natural beauty. And Great Smoky Mountain National Park is the most-visited national park in the U.S., with 9 million visitors annually.

To see how Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining has destroyed families and homes, read Erik Reece's graphic article at http://www.grist.org/article/reece/

Among the organizations and publications trying to spread the word for us to contact our legislators to make Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining illegal, is Appalachian Voices http://appvoices.org/. The only way it will happen is if our Senators and Representatives get enough pressure from us.

Also, the Cumberland Plateau is one of the "BioGems" that the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) http://www.itsyournature.org/files/MTR%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf has been fighting to save for years. Besides the Sierra Club http://www.sierraclub.org/coal/mtr/, there's a compilation of other organizations supporting the banning of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining http://mtrinfo.wordpress.com/organizations/.

*Reality check: I learned about the Appalachia Restoration Act (S 696), from award-winning columnist Don Williams in 2009. For a shocking reality check, I've enclosed this shortened, slightly-edited version from his e-mail: "Lamar: Our mountains are not for sale, keep your hands off."

"Environmentalist Robert Kennedy, Jr., has called the practice of blasting tops off whole mountains and dumping the slag in the nearest valley, America's worst environmental disaster. Like him, (Sen.) Alexander believes this gross technique must come to an end.

"Lands where mountaintop removal occurs become nearly lifeless in comparison to their pre-blasted state. Most of the flora and fauna that existed there for thousands or millions of years can no longer survive in the slag-heap once it's been "reclaimed" by invasive species. The travesty sullies headwaters of dozens of streams that flow into the Tennessee, the Cumberland, the Obed and many other rivers...this bill would ban coal companies from blasting away mountaintops to unearth coal."

"Now here's where it gets interesting. In a move about as cynical as it gets, a company called Coal-Mac, Inc., in West Virginia, has asked its 300 employees not to vacation in Tennessee's Smoky Mountains anymore, and is urging fellow mountain blasters in Virginia and Kentucky to join them. They claim it's because Alexander's bill would eliminate lots of jobs.

"First, we're not talking about multitudes of downtrodden miners having bread taken from their mouths. That's because mountaintop removal is about as job-friendly as robotic assembly lines. All one needs to set up shop are a few trucks, dozers and lots of dynamite. Only a few thousand miners work in mountaintop removal mines where many hundreds of thousands once worked in more traditional mines.

"Second, coal thus ripped from the earth mostly serves to line pockets of coal company owners and Chinese manufacturers. Such coal leaves the state bound for Asia, where it sullies the air and encourages the building of hundreds of new but old-fashioned power plants in China burning dirty coal.

"Third, I'd urge senators and representatives to consider the world they want for our children and theirs. Is it a world in which we're willing to trade off one of the most bountiful eco-systems in exchange for temporary prosperity for a few? Or do we want a world in which concepts such as "balance of trade" and "gross domestic product" take into account the unprecedented drawing-down of resources and the huge cost in damage to our rivers, lakes, streams, the air we breathe and the very contours of our earth.

"As far as boycotters of Tennessee tourism go, to them I can only say, yes, please stay home, and keep your trucks and dynamite well away from our beloved mountains. They're not for sale. Not at that price." --(Don Williams is also a short story writer and the founding editor and publisher of New Millennium Writings.)

The only way we can stop Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining is if our Senators and Representatives get enough pressure from us. So call or write your legislators immediately and urge them to make it illegal, immediately! Remember, signing a general-public e-mailed petition absolutely will be disregarded by the government.

To find out who your legislators are & to contact them: Both http://www.ilovemountains.org/appalachia-restoration-act/ and http://www.ilovemountains.org/write-your-officials/ provide various easy ways to reach them, although personal "snail mail" lettters are the most effective. And please forward this to everyone you know.

Yes, start a rally! Each and every one of us, no matter where we live, has to call, e-mail or write to our legislators. Flush them out with an outpouring from colossal masses, and say, "I want you to make Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining illegal."

Organizations and families are doing their best to fight it, but if they don't succeed, it'll be our fault.