Tag Archives: Mountaintop removal mining

Protect our world – say goodbye to dirty fuel & coal

The Sierra Club tells us that coal industry is heavily subsidized by American taxpayers to the tune of tens of billions of dollars and it’s clear that this industry’s power is not diminishing. But it should diminish. In fact, it’s so dangerous that it should be done away with altogether. In the process of mining, coal destroys waterways, ecosystems, trees, miners’ health and the health of residents of nearby communities. A well-documented example of this is the tragedy of mountain-top mining in the Appalachian Mountains, a practice which Robert Kennedy Jr., affected citizens and environmental activists continue valiantly fighting to bring to a permanent end.

When it’s burned, coal puts massive amounts of carbon in the air, and this is a main contributor to global warming which brings on drought, soaring temperatures, the rising of seas that will take over island cities and coastal areas, tsunamis, floods and drought. Coal is also a dirty fuel, so burning its puts heavy pollutants in the air that lead to poor air quality and acid rain.

Why aren’t people all over the world staging huge protests to ban coal mining and replace it with clean energy sources? It boils down to this: we’ve been supporting coal so long it’s become sort of a global institution. We can’t imagine a world without a massive coal industry any more than we can imagine a world without gas-powered vehicles, so we protect the industry even though it’s killing both us and our Earth Mother. World citizens protect our institutions. But, the truth is that clean energy is our future: it’s environmentally friendly, health friendly. It’s a massively growing jobs industry, is economically friendly and it’s also cool (in more ways than one). Can you say, win-win-win-win-win? There’s nothing wrong with protecting institutions but they need to work for us. It’s so clear that we need to give up on the old fuels that are destroying us and turn to clean energy with open arms.

For those worried about the impact that embracing clean energy will have on our economy and jobs, just look at the evidence. The Boston Herald reports,

“The growth of Massachusetts’ renewable energy economy is outpacing the overall economy nearly tenfold, according to a new report that measures clean energy sector employment and the number of businesses that use clean energy practices.”

Avaaz is working to prevent horrific environmental destruction in Australia. Please sign the petition.

Australia could let mining magnates build one of the world’s largest coal ports on top of the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem – opening access to 8 billion extra tonnes of planet-killing coal and risking the survival of this entire amazing world heritage site.

US laws which address environmental issues are the Clear Air act and Clean Water Act. They need to be strengthened and expanded.

The Clean Water Act
http://www.epa.gov/lawsregs/laws/cwa.html
The River Network’s Course on using the Act to protect local waterways
The Clean Air Act
http://www.epa.gov/air/caa/peg/
Other Proposed Legislation
2009 Waxman-Market Climate Energy bill (Died)
Everything you always wanted to know about the Waxman-Markey energy/climate bill — in bullet points and ejmatters.org/docs/Waxman-Markey_bill_summary_6-2-09.pdf

H.R. 724, the Security in Energy And Manufacturing (SEAM) Act (sponsored by Congressman Steve Rothman).  If enacted, this legislation would make needed investments in a clean energy economy by rebuilding the U.S. manufacturing sector.  It provides a 30% tax credit or grant to companies that open new or expanded facilities that manufacture a wide range of clean energy products, including wind turbines, solar panels, hybrid vehicle systems, carbon capture and sequestration systems, and biofuel refinery components, among others in the U.S. I strongly believe that this is the path we must take to end our dependence on both foreign and domestic oil and move toward a secure clean energy future. H.R. 724 is currently pending before the House Committee on Ways and Means.

H.R. 3307, the American Renewable Energy Production Tax Credit Extension Act of 2011 (co-sponsored by Congressman Steve Rothman). If enacted, this bill would provide a clean, 4-year extension of the existing production tax credit (PTC) for wind, biomass, geothermal, small irrigation, landfill gas, trash, and hydropower. This tax credit was created in the Energy Policy Act of 1992 and has frequently been extended in year-end packages of expiring tax provisions, as well as in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The current incentive is set to expire this year for wind and in 2013 for other renewable energy forms. Historically, at least six to eight months before the tax credit expires, financial lenders hesitate in providing capital for projects because of the uncertainty created by the pending expiration of the credit, stalling projects from coming online. This is why many of my colleagues and I believe it is imperative to pass H.R. 3307 now as our economy continues to recover. If the PTC is not renewed, those projects working under the credit will be reduced in size, will not be completed or will add costs, resulting in higher electricity prices for consumers. This measure is currently pending before the House Committee on Ways and Means.

Terrible destruction: Appalachian mountaintop removal mining

While residents of New Jersey and Pennsylvania deal with the health threat presented by fracking, people in the Appalachias continue to wage their long and mighty struggle to preserve their health and economy in the face of the ongoing destruction visited upon them by mountaintop mining, a practice scientists have called, “pervasive and irreversable.”

The New York times describes mountaintop removal as

…a radical form of strip mining that has left over 2,000 miles of streams buried and over 500 mountains destroyed. According to several recent studies, people living near surface mining sites have a 50 percent greater risk of fatal cancer and a 42 percent greater risk of birth defects than the general population.

Foto by Damon Winter/The New York Times
Ryan Massey, 7, shows his caps. Dentists near Charleston, W.Va., say pollutants in drinking water have damaged residents’ teeth. Nationwide, polluters have violated the Clean Water Act more than 500,000 times.

When Robert Kennedy, Jr. came to Bergen Community College in Paramus, New Jersey and spoke about his fight to halt this practice, my younger son, Ari, a high school junior and I were there to hear him. Kennedy is an environmental lawyer, and years ago he fought to stop mountaintop removal mining on the premise that it violates the Clean Water Act. Kennedy won his court battle, but lawyers for the opposition filed a lawsuit disputing the meaning of the word “fill” relative to the practice of dumping left-over sludge into streams and rivers in that region, claiming that the sludge did not “fill” up the waterways since there was still water in them after the dumping occurred, and got permission to resume their destruction of nature and of people’s lives.

The Obama Administration is working to improved the lives of Appalachia’s residents by establishing a ban on mountaintop mining, but, big monied interests have the sympathy of the courts. On July 31, a judge overthrew new protections put in place by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, and ruled that mountaintop mining operations they had blocked, could resume. This type of favoritism is not new.

Robert Kennedy Jr.’s fight agains the devastation

The Appalachian Center reviews The Last Mountain, a documentary featuring Kennedy which addresses this issue

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – the best national advocate the anti-mountaintop removal movement has – is an effective narrator and driving force throughout the film. He puts the destruction and willful violation of laws meant to curb such environmental destruction into passionate, thoughtful words.

For instance, standing atop a “reclaimed” mountain with mine safety consultant Jack Spadaro, Kennedy looks around at a “forest” that is nothing but scrub grass and picks up a chunk of rock that’s supposed to count as topsoil. He says, “The extraordinary thing about this is how many lies they have to tell to make this whole fiction work. They have to say this is a forest. They have to say this is soil. And the amazing thing is how many people believe them.”

Kennedy was also powerful when addressing one of the key areas of conflict among the residents of Appalachia: the notion that protecting the environment must come at the sacrifice of jobs. As Kennedy says in a discussion with Coal Association President Bill Raney, most of the coal jobs in Appalachia have been lost to mechanization, not to environmental regulations. Coal companies are extracting as much coal as ever with a fraction of the work force.

His explanation of idea of “the commons” and how the notion that America’s water and environment are owned by us all has been eroded is also very compelling.

Congressional Bills and The Law

Congressman Steve Rothman wrote to me about bills in Congress on both sides of the mountaintop mining issue. Democrats want to stop it, but Republicans want to prohibit any regulations of the coal mining industry. When people tell you there’s no difference between Democrats and Republicans, remember this fact. Rothman writes,
Like you, I believe that communities need to be protected from hazardous emissions and destructive practices that jeopardize their health and that of the surrounding ecosystem. As you know, H.R. 5959 was introduced by Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) on June 19, 2012. If enacted, this legislation would require a study of the potential harm of mountaintop removal coal mining on the health of individuals in surrounding communities. If mountaintop mining is found to be harmful to health, a moratorium would be placed on mountaintop mining until it was deemed to be safe. This bill is currently pending before the House Committees on Transportation and Infrastructure and Energy and Commerce. The environment and the people of the Appalachians need to be protected from careless mining practices.

You may also be interested to know that, H.R. 3049, the so-called “Coal Miner Employment and Domestic Energy Infrastructure Protection Act,” was introduced by Representative Bill Johnson (R-OH) on November 14, 2011. If enacted, this irresponsible bill would amend the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act to prohibit the Department of Interior from regulating the coal mining industry, overturning 35 years of established precedent and putting our health and waterways at risk. I strongly oppose H.R. 3049 and any other legislation that would work to weaken the ability of federal agencies to regulate polluting energy industries and toxic run off into our rivers and lakes. This legislation is pending before the House Committee on Natural Resources.