July 3: A President Breaks Hearts in Appalachia ![]() WASHINGTON, D. C. -- "If ever an issue deserved President Obama's promise of change, this is it. Mining syndicates are detonating 2,500 tons of explosives each day -- the equivalent of a Hiroshima bomb weekly -- to blow up Appalachia's mountains and extract sub-surface coal seams. They have demolished 500 mountains -- encompassing about a million acres -- buried hundreds of valley streams under tons of rubble, poisoned and uprooted countless communities, and caused widespread contamination to the region's air and water. On this continent, only Appalachia's rich woodlands survived the Pleistocene ice ages that turned the rest of North America into a treeless tundra. King Coal is now accomplishing what the glaciers could not -- obliterating the hemisphere's oldest, most biologically dense and diverse forests," Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Washington Post. MORE ON MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL COAL MINING July 3: Coal Country Premiere: Big Coal Lobby Does Not Want You to See This Powerful New Film CHARLESTON, WV-- "Why is Big Coal so afeared of this documentary film by native Appalachian daughters Mari-Lynn Evans and Phylis Geller, producer and director of three-part award-winning landmark PBS series, 'The Appalachians'? If anything, Coal Country goes out of its way to include the views and voices of the Big Coal lobby and its executives, engineers and miners. This, in fact, might be why Coal Country is so compelling; far from any hackneyed agenda, Coal Country simply allows the coal industry and those affected by its mountaintop removal operations and coal-fired plants to tell their personal stories. The end result is devastating. In a methodical and deliberate fashion, Coal Country brilliantly takes viewers on a rare journey through our nation's coal-fired electricity, from the extraction, processing, transport, and burning of coal," Jeff Biggers, Huffington Post. MORE ON MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL COAL MINING July 2: Why I Was Arrested in Coal River, West Virginia
The actress Darryl Hannah was arrested on June 23 for blocking State Route 3 near a Massey Energy coal processing plant in Raleigh County, West Virginia. COAL RIVER VALLEY, WV-- "Why would I fly across the country on my own dime knowing I would most likely end up in jail in one of the poorest parts of America? Well, have you ever heard of MTR?.... Mountain Top Removal leaves behind a virtual hideous moonscape of devastated earth, billions of gallons of poisonous toxic sludge, and boarded up towns with dramatically high rates of cancer," Daryl Hannah, Huffington Post. On June 23, hundreds of people gathered in West Virginia to protest Massey Energy's mountaintop removal mining site and coal slurry pond located several hundred yards from Marsh Fork Elementary School. According to Massey's own evacuation plans, if the slurry pond were to break, the school children and the surrounding community would have three minutes to evacuate. Along with Daryl Hannah, NASA scientist James Hansen and 94-year-old former U.S. Representative Ken Hechler were among those arrested. MORE ON MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL COAL MINING July 2: U.N. to Study Potential Threats to Canada-U.S. World Heritage Site Conservation photographers set for expedition to British Columbia's Flathead Valley near Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park ![]() A view of mountaintop removal coal mining in Elk Valley in southeastern British Columbia, northwest of Flathead Valley. Environmentalists are concerned a similar project in the Flathead will contaminate the headwaters of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (Copyright Garth Lenz, iLCP Flathead RAVE) FLATHEAD VALLEY, BRITISH COLUMBIA-- "Decades-long concerns over energy and mining development proposals near a UNESCO World Heritage Site on the Canada-U.S. border have prompted the agency to launch a fact-finding mission to investigate potential threats to the region... The mountaintop removal coal mining being proposed 'would remove the large mountaintop and dump what’s not coal into the valley,' said Chloe O’Loughlin, executive director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society’s B.C. chapter. The open pit mine would send great amounts of heavy metals and runoff into the Flathead River and downstream into the neighbouring peace park... The world’s first 'international peace park,' Waterton-Glacier is a protected area formed in 1932 from a merger of Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta and Glacier National Park in Montana. It serves as a symbol of peace and friendship between the two countries,” Cindy Chan, Epoch Times. Last summer, candidate Barack Obama took a stand opposing the Cline mountaintop removal mine, 25 miles north of the Canadian border. Since taking office as president, Obama has approved many mountaintop removal mine permits in Central Appalachia, 400 miles south of the Canadian border. MORE ON MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL COAL MINING July 1: Amendment to reduce construction costs for AMP COLUMBUS -- "An amendment in House Bill 15, the state worker’s compensation budget, could significantly reduce construction costs for the proposed American Municipal Power-Ohio Generating Station...
[Ohio Senator Jimmy] Stewart explained that if AMP-Ohio’s request is approved by the BWC, the organization could save $20-25 million on construction costs, which will be directly passed on to the municipal electric systems participating in the project. He added that quick approval of the amendment in HB 15 is critical to provide time for the BWC to perform a review of AMP-Ohio’s financial and administrative capabilities before they break ground later this year or early next year," Beth Sergent, Pomeroy Daily Sentinel. MORE ON THE PROPOSED AMP-OHIO COAL PLANT Older news Thanks to the websites that link to this one. Others are welcome to do so without seeking permission. Website hosting by Vision Net. Thanks to Adobe Systems for imaging software. This site contains copyrighted material, the use of which may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Ohio Citizen Action is making
it available to advance
understanding of environmental, consumer, economic and governmental
issues. This constitutes fair
use of such
copyrighted material as provided for in U.S.
Copyright Law, Section 107.
Accordingly, the
material on this site is made available without profit to those who
have requested it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to
use copyrighted material from this site for purposes beyond fair use,
you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
|
Ohio Citizen Action 614 W. Superior Ave, # 1200 Cleveland, Ohio 44113 216.861.5200 216.694.6904 fax 1.888.777.7135 toll-free Map & directions 3055 North High Street, 2d floor Columbus, Ohio 43202 614.263.4600 614.263.4640 fax Map & directions 2330 Victory Pkwy #100 Cincinnati, Ohio 45206 513.221.2100 513.221.2102 fax Map & directions Contribute to Ohio Citizen Action Education Fund |