In June, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) signaled its approval of Arch Coal subsidiary Coal-Mac’s Pine Creek surface mine in Logan County, WV. Yesterday, the agency announced that the US Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) had issued its final Clean Water Act permit for the mountaintop removal mine.
In other words...
They are still blowing up our mountains, and we still need a law.
This permit was issued despite...
- EPA’s new guidance for mountaintop removal operations and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s proclamation that “No or very few valley fills...are going to meet standards like this.”
- The fact that the mine could create three new valley fills (each over 40 acres).
- The fact that the site will impact over two MILES of already suffering headwater streams.
- The fact that local communities are already contending with increased flooding due to strip mining in the area (a problem additional sites will exacerbate).
- The fact that deforestation on site will continue to dismantle an important global carbon sink, while the mine itself will produce over 14 million tons of coal - which when burned in power plants - will contribute over 40 million tonnes of carbon dioxide greenhouse gas pollution to our planet’s atmosphere.
We can end mountaintop removal in 2010. Ask your Congressman to support two bipartisan bills aimed at sharply curtailing mountaintop removal: the Clean Water Protection Act (HR 1310) in the House and the Appalachia Restoration Act (S 696) in the Senate. The health and heritage of Appalachia is at stake and a “few valley fills” is a few too many.
Coal tar, which would be listed as a ‘hazardous waste,’ were it not for a special federal exemption, contains benzo[a]pyrene. Benzo[a]pyrene is dangerous chemical that made EPA’s list of 12 priority “persistent bioaccumulative toxins.” Still, coal tar is being applied to asphalt across the country, and concerns are growing that toxins from the product are being tracked into homes, schools, hospitals and other buildings.
Check out the following presentation from Austin that more fully explains how coal tar sealants harm our environment.
The city of Austin, TX banned the product almost 5 years ago, when it was recognized to be damaging the local ecosystem. More recently a few other cities, including Washington, D.C., have followed suit. Overwhelmingly, though, the product remains unregulated, exacting unmeasured costs on cities and ecosystems (like Boone and Hodge’s creek) across the country.
Click here to check out a story in the Watauga Democrat’s about Hodge’s Creek accident.
Click here to see photos of the Riverkeeper Team doing an aquatic life assessment on Hodge’s Creek with the Division of Water Quality.
The word on everyone’s mind after the first ever Watauga Riverkeeper Festival: Success!
Kids and adults alike came out in droves to celebrate the beautiful mountain rivers of Appalachia at the Valle Crucis Community Park on Saturday. The Watauga Riverkeeper and Appalachian Voices worked together to create a family-friendly event with plenty for kids (and adults) to do.
Between the arts and crafts, hula hooping, make-your-own trail mix, poker run, nature walks, face painting, costume parade, and beautiful weather, people of all ages had a day full of fun in the sun. There was even a watermelon-eating contest, with a messy twist – contestants had to keep their hands behind their backs for the duration of the contest!
Musical entertainment was provided by the Alberta Boys and Melissa Reaves, both of whom had the crowd excited about the mission of the Watauga Riverkeeper and Appalachian Voices.
The festival featured local foods, including homemade slaw and tomatoes straight from the garden of Appalachian Voices’ own Willa Mays.
The festivities concluded with a raffling of items donated from supporters of Appalachian Voices. All proceeds from food, T-shirts, and raffling will go to support the Riverkeeper and Appalachian Voices in protecting the mountains of Appalachia and their rivers.
Special Thanks to Mast General Store, Earth Fare, Foscoe Fishing, River and Earth Adventures, and all the volunteers who helped to make the event possible.
Be sure to check out photos from the Festival!
Appalachian Voices staff was on hand at the National Press Club last week to watch Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship predict further mining tragedies, dismiss coalfield citizens, and brag about blowing up Appalachia to export coal to India. Needless to say that the press walked away unimpressed. Sunday’s Washington Post put the quick kibosh on Don Blankenship’s high flying public relations circus with Dana Milbank’s headline screaming” Massey Energy’s Blankenship: No shame, but plenty of blame.”
Milbank laments for Blankenship:
Poor CEO Blankenship. That mean federal government is not allowing him to pursue his happiness, just because his employees are dead.
Massey Energy is the #1 perpetrator of mountaintop removal. Don Blankenship is the man leading the charge. If you care about ending mountaintop removal, and protecting Appalachia from greedy, reckless CEOs, read the whole piece here and then call your Congressman (202-224-3121) and ask them to stop mountaintop removal. They can support the Clean Water Protection Act (HR 1310) in the House, or the Appalachia Restoration Act (S 696) in the Senate.
Appalachian Voices’ Legislative Associate JW Randolph was quoted on Friday in an article by the news organization Truthout. The piece, entitled Protesters Crash Massey Energy Lunch, but Don’t Sway Conversation, was about Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship’s recent July 22 luncheon at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. There, Blankenship argued that expanding surface mining is essential not only for the US economy but also global health.
Randolph’s presence at the event offered a refreshingly sane perspective on surface mining in Appalachia and a not so refreshing jar of murky tap water from a home in the heavily strip mined Mingo County in West Virginia.
“We want every American to see ... that Massey Energy creates dangerous communities for anybody living in Appalachia,” the article quotes Randolph.
For more on Massey’s less than earnest PR campaign head over to Coal Tattoo. Ken Ward Jr.’s insightful blog has covered the company’s shenanigans in depth.
Five days ago, we kicked off the Dear Companion tour in Lexington, KY in full force. We packed the house and many stopped by the Appalachian Voices table to pick up materials and ask questions. The amazing part of doing this work in areas like Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Virginia is the stories you can come across. One of the ushers at the Lexington show stopped by and commented on how she had protested strip mining in Eastern Kentucky back in the 60’s. Others talked of family and friends in the region who have come and gone due to the the distressing effect mining has on the area. A young woman nabbed an I Love Mountains bumper sticker before rushing into the show calling over her shoulder, “I’m from Eastern Kentucky, I"m so glad they are doing this work..”
After a great show in Knoxville, TN which brought in a new App Voice member (whee!), Dear Companion took a small break in Louisville before working our way to Charleston, WV. On stage in Charleston, the Dear Companion crew showed no shyness in letting the audience know why they were doing this tour. The crowd was receptive and the boys received a standing ovation for their performance. Later that night, many of us jumped on bicycles and rode around town, enjoying the cooler climate and new scenery.
It’s day five of the Dear Companion tour and we have landed in the small mountain town of Marlinton, WV. The town’s population is probably around 2,000. Nestled in Pocahontas County with the Greenbrier River running through, Marlinton is quiet and charming. I currently bring this update to you from a small local coffee shop called the Dirt Bean where the conversation has been abuzz with tonight’s performance. A family walked in earlier that drove from Huntington, WV to see the show. They were excited about the project and were looking forward to the evening. A young girl skipped in and said she had been to a gas station in Lewisberg, WV where a sign was posted condemning anyone who attended the show this evening. The barista commented the town was mostly pro coal and that she was skeptical about how many would attend.
Marlinton, WV is an interesting stop. It’s the smallest town we will be visiting on this tour and could be the most challenging. This is what this tour is about though, further opening a difficult conversation through the beautiful voices of Kentucky artists. Perhaps we’ll reach some new audiences today.
If you haven’t seen them yet, there’s still time! Catch em at the following venues:
Jul 27 - Charlottesville, VA - Jefferson Theater
Jul 29 - Woodstock, NY - Bearsville Theater
Jul 31 - Newport, RI - Newport Folk Festival
Aug 1 - Newport, RI - Newport Folk Festival
Last Friday, West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin appointed his former chief counsel, Carte Goodwin, to fill the vacated Senate seat of the late Robert C. Byrd. Goodwin, at the age of 36, has become the youngest member of the US Senate, replacing the chamber’s oldest and longest serving member. Goodwin will hold the seat until November, at which point Manchin hopes to fill it.
Speaking of Byrd, Governor Manchin said, “I think today we’ve honored him by choosing a worthy replacement.” Both President Obama and US Representative Nick Rahall [D-WV3] praised the appointment.
Before he had even taken the oath of office, Goodwin was already blasting the climate bill. Our nation’s newest Senator proclaimed:
From what I’ve seen of the Waxman-Markey bill that passed the House of Representatives and other proposals pending in the Senate, they simply are not right for West Virginia.
And went on to say:
I will not support any piece of legislation that threatens any West Virginia job, any West Virginia family, or jeopardizes the long-term economic security of this state.
Quite the mantra. But Goodwin must realized that coal mining employs fewer people than it did at the turn of the last century in West Virginia? Owing much to the advent of mountaintop removal, the increasingly mechanized industry has taken the miner out of the mine and turned what once amounted to 130,000 jobs in West Virginia alone, to around 20,000 jobs.
Is Goodwin not concerned about the declining availability of Central Appalachian coal, and what this will mean for the “long-term economic security” of his state? As staunch coal advocate Rep. Nick Rahall himself has admitted:
The state’s most productive coal seams likely will be exhausted in 20 years. And while coal will remain an important part of the economy, the state should emphasize green job development.
On a brighter note, the Associated Press points out that Goodwin was the principal author of coal-mine rescue reforms following the Sago and Aracoma mine disasters of 2006. Yet, Coal Tattoo notes that Goodwin was also involved in “Governor Manchin’s decision to back off any real investigation of the concerns about the safety of Marsh Fork Elementary School in Raleigh County.” Marsh Fork Elementary sits below Massey’s massive earthen Shumate impoundment, which holds back billions of gallons of coal sludge. Byrd, contrarily, showed true concern for the students and families of West Virginia, making the the following statement about Marsh Fork and Massey:
“For the sake of the kids, they should address these serious environmental concerns at Marsh Fork Elementary immediately.”
Not long before he passed away, Senator Byrd addressed the coal industry and the state of West Virginia stating:
The greatest threats to the future of coal do not come from possible constraints on mountaintop removal mining or other environmental regulations, but rather from rigid mindsets, depleting coal reserves, and the declining demand for coal as more power plants begin shifting to biomass and natural gas as a way to reduce emissions.
He furthered:
Change has been a constant throughout the history of our coal industry. West Virginians can choose to anticipate change and adapt to it, or resist and be overrun by it. One thing is clear. The time has arrived for the people of the Mountain State to think long and hard about which course they want to choose.
Only time will tell if Goodwin is willing to accept the realities of the 21st century and embrace the change that Byrd envisioned.
Internationally renowned author and farmer, Kentuckian Wendell Berry, has taken back personal papers he donated to the University of Kentucky. The prolific writer made the decision after his Alma Mater, where he also taught for 19 years, named a basketball dormitory the “Wildcat Coal Lodge.”
“The University’s president and board have solemnized an alliance with the coal industry, in return for a large monetary ‘gift,’ granting to the benefactors, in effect, a co-sponsorship of the University’s basketball team,” Berry explained.
Mr. Berry has penned as many as 50 books and received multiple awards for his writing. The papers at hand are 60 cubic feet in volume - extensive enough to fill around 100 boxes - and the author plans to move them to the Kentucky Historical Society in Frankfort.
The famous Kentuckian is no fan of the coal industry and staunchly opposes mountaintop removal. In a 2005 essay entitled, Not a Vision of Our Future, But of Ourselves, he wrote:
Eastern Kentucky, in its natural endowments of timber and minerals, is the wealthiest region of our state, and it has now experienced more than a century of intense corporate “free enterprise,” with the result that it is more impoverished and has suffered more ecological damage than any other region. The worst inflictor of poverty and ecological damage has been the coal industry, which has taken from the region a wealth probably incalculable, and has imposed the highest and most burdening “costs of production” upon the land and the people. Many of these costs are, in the nature of things, not repayable. Some were paid by people now dead and beyond the reach of compensation. Some are scars on the land that will not be healed in any length of time imaginable by humans.
The author goes on to say:
If Kentuckians, upstream and down, ever fulfill their responsibilities to the precious things they have been given—the forests, the soils, and the streams—they will do so because they will have accepted a truth that they are going to find hard: the forests, the soils and the streams are worth far more than the coal for which they are now being destroyed.
At present, Mr. Berry is focused on promoting Wes Jackson’s 50-Year Farm Bill (pdf) and working to stop mountaintop removal. The author was recently featured in a special issue of Solutions journal, dedicated to ideas for a brighter future in Appalachia.
The Watauga Riverkeeper Festival is THIS SATURDAY! Come out on July 24, from 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. at the Community Park in Valle Crucis, N.C.! Enjoy a day of outdoor recreation and a celebration of the river with live music, games, food and if the river is running—a float down the wild and wonderful Watauga River. This week’s river critter:
The Crawdad: A Southern Staple
We all know that people down south love their “crawfish boils”, where crayfish (more colloquially called crawfish or crawdads) are seasoned to delicious tastes and eaten en masse.
But crawdads aren’t just an important staple of a southern diet; even more importantly they are a staple of rivers and their ecology. The largest diversity of crawdads in the world is exhibited right here in the southeastern United States, with over 330 species populating the waters.
Relatives of the lobster, crawdads are freshwater crustaceans of the order Decapoda. This means they have ten legs, one pair of which is a set of large, sharp pincers.
When cooking up some Louisiana crawdads, we might not think about what they eat at their parties. Crawdads generally feed off of small aquatic creatures, living and dead, and plants. This diet provides important ecological processes to keep rivers healthy.
One important note: Crawdads are very sensitive to changes in river health. Most crawdads cannot withstand water pollution of any kind, so it is important to keep the waters fresh for our crustacean friends.
News broke today that former Congressman and West Virginia Secretary of State Ken Hechler has also filed to run for the vacated Senate seat of the late Robert C. Byrd. Representative Capito, meanwhile, has announced that she will not be seeking the seat.
Hechler stated this morning:
I don’t want to make it a campaign against Gov. Manchin. I want to make it about mountaintop removal. A vote for me is not a vote for Ken Hechler — it’s tantamount to a vote against mountaintop removal.
Hechler is a long time opponent of mountaintop removal. The 95-year-old former representative was arrested last year for blocking traffic and protesting Massey Energy at one of the company’s prep plants in Raleigh County. More recently, Hechler took part in a protest at Marsh Fork Elementary in Coal River Valley. Marsh Fork Elementary sits below Massey’s massive earthen Shumate impoundment, which holds back billions of gallons of coal sludge. Close to the dam and the school, mountaintop removal operations detonate earth shattering explosives.
Representative Hechler and other members of the 1962 House Committee on Science and Astronautics
After being elected to the House in 1958 (the same year Senator Byrd was elected to the Senate), Hechler served nine terms. In 1974, after a House amendment was introduced to allow mountaintop removal in to the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, Hechler proclaimed:
Mountaintop removal is the most devastating form of mining on steep slopes. Once we scalp off a mountain and the spoil runs down the mountainside and the acid runs into the water supply, there is no way to check it. This is not only esthetically bad as anyone can tell who flies over the State of West Virginia or any place where the mountaintops are scraped off, but also it is devastating to those people who live below the mountain. Some of the worst effects of strip mining in Kentucky, West Virginia, and other mountainous areas result from mountaintop removal. McDowell County in WV, which has mined more coal than any other county in the Nation, is getting ready right now to strip mine off four or five mountaintops. They are displacing families and moving them out of those areas because everybody down slope from where there is mountaintop mining is threatened. I certainly hope that all the compromises that have been accepted by the committee, offered by industry in the committee, that now we do not compromise what little is left of this bill by amendments such as this.
Hechler served as a military officer in World War II, helped President Franklin Roosevelt write his 13-volume public papers, and was the only member of Congress to march with Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama in 1965.
He does not expect to win the seat, but has noted:
I’m running for the environmentalists who are opposed to mountaintop removal. It’s a way to put it on the ballot. I’m trying to give an opportunity for all those people in the state to show there is strength in our numbers.
West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin announced this morning that he is making a bid for the late Robert Byrd’s Senate seat. There will be an August 28 primary and a November 2 general election for the vacated seat, and the winner of the election will take over for Carte Goodwin - Manchin’s temporary appointee.
Speculation has it that Republican Representative Shelley Moore Capito could also run for the seat, though the Congresswoman has yet to announce she will make a bid.
Over the weekend, polluted runoff from the BB&T parking lot on Highway 105 in Boone, NC killed all life in a 1.5 mile long stretch of Hodge’s Creek. The incident was caused by a toxic asphalt sealant that a careless contractor failed to keep from entering the creek during rainfall on Saturday. Of the many fish that were killed, most were trout, including one that was 13 inches long.
Call 336-771-5000 to ask the local Deptartment of Water Quality to investigate the incident! The Appalachian Voices Waterkeeper Team is investigating and produced the video below.
The material data safety sheet (MSDS) for Asphalt Based Pavement Sealer reads:
SECTION VII—SPILL OR LEAK PROCEDURES SARA TITLE III: #302: No #304 CERCLA: No #313: No Steps to be Taken in Case Material is Released or Spilled: Ventilate the area. Wear approved respiratory protection. Wear suitable protective clothing, gloves, and eye/face protection. Coal Tar Driveway Sealer is a marine pollutant and should be placarded as such when transported in bulk over sea or large bodies of water. Coal Tar Driveway Sealer will harm waterlife and should be prevented from entering any body of water. Dispose of in accordance with federal, state and local regulations.
Stay tuned for more updates, CLICK HERE to visit the Upper Watauga River Keeper website, and don’t forget to call 336-771-5000 to ask the local Dept. of Water Quality to investigate the incident!
Make sure you don’t miss today’s NPR article about methane monitors being disabled at Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine.
From the article:
An NPR News investigation has documented an incident in February 2010 in which an Upper Big Branch electrician was ordered to circumvent the automatic shutoff mechanism on a methane detector installed on a continuous mining machine. The machine then continued to cut rock without a working methane monitor, a dangerous and possibly illegal act.
The incident occurred two months before the explosion that killed 29 mine workers. Running mining machines without methane monitors risks similar explosions.
Massey contends:
The supervisor did not order an electrician to bridge a methane monitor on a continuous miner “to keep the mining machine from shutting off while operating.” The methane monitor was bypassed in order to move the miner from the area that did not have roof support to a safer area for repair.
An unannounced change in the EPA’s web page for Coal Combustion Products Partnership (C2P2) may signal a shift in the agency’s stance on reusing toxic coal ash for “beneficial reuse.”
Since July 2, 2010 the informational page has been blank except for a lone note: “The Coal Combustion Products Partnerships (C2P2) program Web pages have been removed while the program is being re-evaluated.”
Every year, 129 million tons of coal ash waste is produced by coal fire power plants in the United States. This toxic fly-ash is made of fine particulates and heavy metals that pose a growing threat to the environment and public health. Yet, the EPA has allowed coal ash waste to be reused in agriculture, construction materials, consumer products, concrete, and even mine filling. Ash that is not reused is stored in billion-gallon ponds, known as slurry ponds, or dumped in landfills.
In late June the EPA proposed two regulation standards for coal ash waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The more stringent option, Subtitle C, would classify coal combustion waste as a hazardous material; however, beneficial reuse would not be regulated under either EPA regulation option. The EPA is currently accepting public comments on the proposed regulation, which you can submit here or through Appalachian Voices in the near future.
The C2P2 program seems a contradictory step for the EPA. Shouldn’t an environmental agency be regulating hazardous materials, not promoting its use in public works, our food supply, or in potential contamination situations? Recent news from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) cites the EPA allowing coal executives to “edit agency reports and fact sheets to downplay risks of coal ash.”
PEER also uncovered the EPA using coal industry research as basis for promoting the reuse program, and filed a formal complaint this month over EPA publications that claim coal ash reuse is a form of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
“We suggest that EPA use this opportunity to honestly review the entire range of potential public health and environmental effects of injecting millions of tons of unquestionably hazardous materials into the stream of commerce,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch.
Downplaying the disastrous consequences of the TVA ash spill is impossible, as is denying coal ash’s threat to public health. Through further regulation and dismissal of the “beneficial” factors in coal ash reuse, coal companies may finally begin to pay the real price for an outdated fuel source.
In June, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) signaled its approval of Arch Coal subsidiary Coal-Mac’s Pine Creek surface mine in Logan County, WV. Yesterday, the agency announced that the US Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) had issued its final Clean Water Act permit for the mountaintop removal mine.
Appalachian Voices staff was on hand at the National Press Club last week to watch Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship predict further mining tragedies, dismiss coalfield citizens, and brag about blowing up Appalachia to export coal to India. Needless to say that the press walked away unimpressed. Sunday’s Washington Post put the quick kibosh on Don Blankenship’s high flying public relations circus with Dana Milbank’s headline screaming” 
Appalachian Voices’ Legislative Associate JW Randolph was quoted on Friday in an article by the news organization 
Five days ago, we kicked off the Dear Companion tour in Lexington, KY in full force. We packed the house and many stopped by the Appalachian Voices table to pick up materials and ask questions. The amazing part of doing this work in areas like Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Virginia is the stories you can come across. One of the ushers at the Lexington show stopped by and commented on how she had protested strip mining in Eastern Kentucky back in the 60’s. Others talked of family and friends in the region who have come and gone due to the the distressing effect mining has on the area. A young woman nabbed an I Love Mountains bumper sticker before rushing into the show calling over her shoulder, “I’m from Eastern Kentucky, I"m so glad they are doing this work..”
After a great show in Knoxville, TN which brought in a new App Voice member (whee!), Dear Companion took a small break in Louisville before working our way to Charleston, WV. On stage in Charleston, the Dear Companion crew showed no shyness in letting the audience know why they were doing this tour. The crowd was receptive and the boys received a standing ovation for their performance. Later that night, many of us jumped on bicycles and rode around town, enjoying the cooler climate and new scenery.
It’s day five of the Dear Companion tour and we have landed in the small mountain town of Marlinton, WV. The town’s population is probably around 2,000. Nestled in Pocahontas County with the Greenbrier River running through, Marlinton is quiet and charming. I currently bring this update to you from a small local coffee shop called the Dirt Bean where the conversation has been abuzz with tonight’s performance. A family walked in earlier that drove from Huntington, WV to see the show. They were excited about the project and were looking forward to the evening. A young girl skipped in and said she had been to a gas station in Lewisberg, WV where a sign was posted condemning anyone who attended the show this evening. The barista commented the town was mostly pro coal and that she was skeptical about how many would attend.
Don’t miss yesterday’s enlightening 
Last Friday, West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin appointed his former chief counsel, Carte Goodwin, to fill the vacated Senate seat of the late Robert C. Byrd. Goodwin, at the age of 36, has become the youngest member of the US Senate, replacing the chamber’s oldest and longest serving member. Goodwin will hold the seat until November, at which point 
Internationally renowned author and farmer, Kentuckian 
Make sure you don’t miss today’s 