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Posts Tagged ‘mountain top removal’

Direct Action Against MTR at EPA

Posted in Global Warming, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 18, 2010 |

Activists are risking arrest by demonstrating outside EPA national headquarters in make-shift tripod stands. They say they won’t go away until EPA administrator Lisa Jackson promises to make a fly-over of the Appalachian Mountain Top Removal coal mines to see first hand the destruction it is causing.

Despite the Obama administration making claims they would crack down on MTR mining, the EPA has been slow to act and has actually granted some new MTR mining permits. It is only through continued pressure and media exposure that this horribly destructive practice can finally be stopped.

Civil disobedience and direct action are one of the most effective means of fighting injustice and tyranny. These activists are putting their freedom and their safety on the line to non-violently oppose one of the most irreversibly and violently destructive industries in history. Please help support their actions by posting at RAN and by contacting Lisa Jackson and asking her to go to Appalachia and take action against MTR.

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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.

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Coal Fight! Kennedy vs Blankenship

Posted in Coal, Global Warming, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 21, 2010 |

Thursday evening at 6:30pm Robert F. Kennedy Jr will debate Don Blankenship, the CEO of Massey Energy – the largest coal producer in West Virginia. The subject of debate is the future of coal, Mountain Top Removal (MTR) mining, and economic opportunities for Appalachia. Kennedy is the chief litigator for the Waterkeeper’s Alliance and a staunch opponent of coal power and MTR coal mining. The debate can be watched online Thursday night, January 21, 2010 at 5:15pm here. It will also be available on that website on-demand following the broadcast.

Blankenship is infamous for his denialist stance on global warming, and Massey Energy is infamous for violating the Clean Air Act with thousands of instances of environmental pollution violations – so bad that environmental groups have filed a lawsuit against them. Let us hope Blankenship and his company’s gross irresponsibility and criminal behavior will not be tolerated much longer, and that Kennedy will mop the floor with him tonight during the debate.

Stephen Colbert did a bit recently on the ills of MTR. Though in this segment they discuss how traditional mining would be better than MTR (and that is true) it is far more important to get us off of all coal mining and burning altogether. The efforts here are reciprocal – helping to end MTR mining will help stop coal plants and stopping coal plants helps stop MTR. Click on the photo to go to the video:

Hardest of all for Blankenship and his ilk will be to dispute this recent call by scientists to put a moratorium on all new MTR permits. A peer-reviewed study recently published in Science Magazine “unequivocally documents irreversible environmental impacts” due to MTR coal mining. Basically there is now hard, scientific proof of what we “crazy enviros” have been saying for years – that MTR mining is one of the most destructive practices in existence and must be ended. For some more previews of Blankenship and his anti-enviro rantings you can check out this video – but be sure to tune in tonight to see Kennedy go round for round with this baron of pollution and champion of denial.

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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.

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More Astroturf: “Faces of Coal” are actually IStock Photos

Posted in Coal, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 27, 2009 |

Rule #1 for being an organization even pretending to be a grassroots movement: Actually have some grassroots supporters.  Even manufactured outrage groups ginned up by Freedomworks or the Tea Bag people or United Health Care actually have people who believe and will regurgitate their corporate PR spin.  But, presumably because the coal industry couldn’t find and photograph any actual human beings who supported their agenda, they have had to resort to buying and using internet stock photos.

As DeSmogBlog had previously reported,

“The Federation for American Coal, Energy and Security (FACES of Coal).” the latest “grassroots” organization to join the public conversation on behalf of the coal industry, appears to be a project of the K-Street public relations firm, the Adfero Group, one of industry’s most accommodating voices in Washington, D.C.

The FACES website, which includes no contact information, is registered to Adfero.

And now the Front Porch Blog from Appalachian Voices has reported that

We’ve touched on the fact that the new coal industry front group “FACES” has yet to come forward with a list of their members.  Well, thanks to a few new media> gumshoes, including our own Jamie Goodman and our friends at DeSmogBlog, we’ve learned that not only is FACES hosted by a K-Street firm called Adfero, but all of the “FACES” of coal are actually just istockphotos. They couldn’t even get real photos of their supporters.

You can see the actual photos and screencaps by going to the Front Porch Blog.

If Big Coal wanted to hire models to be the faces of coal, we could’ve saved them the trouble and recommended these photos:

ZoolanderCoalMine

I think Im getting thwe black lung, pop!

"I think I'm getting the black lung, pop!"

And let’s remember that it is not that far of a drive to get out to coal country even from Washington DC, where both West Virginia and Pennsylvania coal-centric communities are less than a 3 hour drive.  It just must really be that hard for fat cat K Street lobbyists to take time out of their busy schedules wining and dining at $2300 / plate fundraisers and take a camera out to coal country to see the actual faces of coal.

Here’s an example of what they might actually find if they did:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPixjCneseE]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ats3dClc0No]

Real voices from coal country know that coal is killing us.  It kills their local economies and destroys precious landscapes and water supplies and kills workers because greedy mine owners care more about profits than human lives, such as in the case of the Crandall Canyon disaster in Utah last year.  It pollutes our air and contaminates our water when we burn it, so much so that a USGS study this week found that every fish they tested in the US had mercury contamination.  And even after it’s burned, the coal ash waste is a problem.  From when they dig it up out of the ground to when they try to store the ash, coal is dirty, cradle to grave.  And grave here is meant in the literal sense.

Don’t be fooled by expensive-cocktail-drinking, $1000-shoe-wearing lobbyists in Washington and their stock photos.  The real faces of coal are against it, and we should be moving away from it as quickly as possible.

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Thursday Film Screening: Burning the Future

Posted in Coal, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 23, 2009 |

burningthefuture1

Next Thursday, April 30, at 7:30 pm Austin Film Festival Presents will screen the film Burning the Future: Coal in America at Alamo Lake Creek off Research Blvd.

Burning the Future: Coal in America is a documentary that examines the explosive conflict between the coal industry and residents of West Virginia. Confronted by emerging “clean coal” energy policies, local activists watch a world blind to the devastation caused by coal’s extraction. Faced with toxic ground water and the obliteration of 1.4 million acres of mountains, our heroes launch a valiant fight to arouse the nation’s help in protecting their mountains, saving their families, and preserving their way of life.

The showing will be FREE for AFF members, $4 for public

For more information, and a full listing of AFF Presents screenings and other AFF events, click here.

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Just Kidding: Mountain Top Removal Battle Continues

Posted in Coal, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 27, 2009 |

The EPA in the last day or so has assumed the dreaded playground title of “taker backer”. Tuesday, Lisa Jackson announced that they would be putting a moratorium on all mountain top removal mining permits, which could delay 150-200 surface coal mines. Yay for the environment right? Well, not so fast. Later that day the announcement was made that they weren’t actually putting any type of hold on mining permits, and that they were simply reviewing two of them.

Check out the EPA’s official, and somewhat grumpy, statement:

The Environmental Protection Agency is not halting, holding or placing a moratorium on any of the mining permit applications. Plain and simple. EPA has issued comments on two pending permit applications to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers expressing serious concerns about the need to reduce the potential harmful impacts on water quality. EPA will take a close look at other permits that have been held back because of the 4th Circuit litigation. We fully anticipate that the bulk of these pending permit applications will not raise environmental concerns. In cases where a permit does raise environmental concerns, we will work expeditiously with the Army Corps of Engineers to determine how these concerns can be addressed. EPA’s submission of comments to the Corps on draft permits is a well-established procedure under the Clean Water Act to assure that environmental considerations are addressed in the permitting process.

So put away the champagne; the fight’s not over yet. But we are moving forward in the battle. At least they are finally looking at these mining permits permits seriously, as opposed to the flat denial of potential harm we heard from the Bush administration. Additional good news is that last week, in conjunction with a week-long lobbying campaign against mountain top removal, Senators Lamar Alexander and Benjamin Cardin sponsored a ban on the dumping of mine waste into streams.

While it is a little upsetting to have fallen victim to the one of the most severe cases of environmental Taker Backering in history,  there is still hope for the future. We may not be getting the silver bullet we thought, but if the current EPA is even willing to address these types of problems, we’re still in a better place than we were a year ago.

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EPA Freezes Hundreds of Mountain Top Removal Permits

Posted in Coal, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 24, 2009 |

app_mtns2

MOST EXCELLENT news from Dina Cappiello at the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency put hundreds of mountaintop coal-mining permits on hold Tuesday, saying it wants to evaluate the projects’ impact on streams and wetlands.

The decision by EPA administrator Lisa Jackson targets a controversial practice that allows coal mining companies to dump waste from mountaintop mining into streams and wetlands.

It could delay 150-200 surface coal mines, including mountaintop removal operations, according to the EPA.

Those permits are issued by the Army Corps of Engineers, an agency that has been criticized by environmental groups and has been sued for failing to thoroughly evaluate the environmental impact of mountaintop removal.

Under the Clean Water Act, companies cannot discharge rock, dirt and other debris into streams unless they can show that it will not cause permanent damage to waterways or the fish and other wildlife that live in them.

Last month, a three-judge appeals panel in Richmond, Va., overturned a lower court’s ruling that would have required the Corps to conduct more extensive reviews. The appeals court decision cleared the way for a backlog of permits that had been delayed until the lawsuit was resolved.

The EPA’s action on Tuesday leaves those permit requests in limbo a little longer.

The EPA said in a statement that it would be actively involved in the review of the long list of permits awaiting approval by the Corps, a signal that the agency under the Obama administration will exercise its oversight. The EPA has the authority to review and veto any permit issued by the Corps under the Clean Water Act, but under the Bush administration it did that rarely, environmentalists say.

The freeze only appears to apply to permits for new mines, and not those already in operation, but just the same — this is truly fantastic news for opponents of coal, the communities living near these mountains, and the environment in general.  Happy Day! Purple Mountains Majesty! Yonder Mountain String Band! Rocky Mountain High! My Home is in the Blue Ridge Mountains!

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