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Update on Actions for MTR Public Hearing
Helpers Needed for Enviro Booth
JULY 17 MEETING ON WHAT'S IN THAT COAL SLUDGE
If you want to learn more about what's in that blackwater coming off coal sludge impoundments sites, this meeting is for you. At 6:00 p.m. in the Inez (Kentucky) Community Center, the Martin County Phase II Project Research Team of the Eastern Kentucky University will present a public forum on the Martin County October 2000 coal sludge disaster. The researchers looked at the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry's (ATSDR) Health Consultation on the catastrophe.
Questions addressed will include: --Why was the consultation done? --What do citizens think? --What does the ATSDR report say? --What do citizens need to know? Time will be allotted for questions from the audience after the presentations are made. The meeting will be very informative for anyone who is impacted by blackwater spills.
Directions from Huntington: Take I-64 West to 23 South past Louisa, KY; Turn left on route 645 (where there's road work); Follow to Route 40 (at the caution light); Turn left at the caution light (on Route 40); Go through Inez. The Roy F. Colliers Community Center is a brick building on Main St., next door to the Ford garage. Parking is free.
Questions can be directed to Martin County Phase II Project Director at (859) 622- 3070, or by email at stephanie.mcspirit@eku.edu or Mr. Monroe Cassady, Martin County Citizen Advisory Committee Member at (606) 298-3148.
A copy of Eastern Kentucky University's "The Martin County Project: Researching Issues and Building Civic Capacity after an Environmental Disaster" is online here.
On July 22 in Hazard, Ky. and July 24 in Charleston, W.Va., several regulatory agencies will hold public hearings on the draft Environmental Impact Statement on mountaintop removal. In Charleston, the venue is the Civic Center Little Theater, 200 Civic Center Drive (basically on Quarrier St.). Both hearings have sessions from 2 p.m. - 5 p.m. and again from 7 p.m. - 11 p.m.
In Charleston, folks are planning to meet at 5:45 at the Interstate underpass parking area on Quarrier St. near the Civic Center. We'll pass out Stop MTR badges, talk more about our plans and march from there to the Civic Center, which is about two blocks. Those who cannot make the march can meet us at the entrance to the building at 6:05. (Or find us inside if you arrive later.) We are hoping for a big turnout, so please come and invite others to join you! We'll be standing outside with signs before going into the meeting. Signs are not permitted inside the Civic Center. If you need to know more details about why we are coming early, please reply to this e-mail.
Suggested signs include: --Enough! No more MTR!; We support valley fill prohibition; The EIS is a sham!; No more domestic terrorism on West Virginia citizens!
Once we are inside the meeting, if you don't feel like making comments, that's fine, but you are certainly encouraged to do so. You'll have to fill out a card to register to speak-first come, first served. There's a five minute break after each hour, after which people will have another chance to register-so you can listen to others and make up your mind if you want to talk.
The verbal comments will be handled like written comments--Someone will transcribe your comments, which, presumably, will be answered in a follow-up document.
If you do speak, be sure to say that you are against mountaintop removal and that you think the recommendations of the EIS are a sham. You might want to ask for an extension of the deadline for written comments (that deadline is now August 29). After all the EIS is 5,000 pages long and was delayed almost two and a half years. We surely could have a little more time to read it! If enough people can justify the need for an extension to the written comment period, the extension may be granted. The studies within the EIS show that that MTR is communities and the environment. Yet, the EIS does not recommend that MTR should be curtailed! Instead, the Bush administration wants to streamline the MTR-permitting process.
HELPERS NEEDED FOR ENVIRO BOOTH
We need people/groups to person the environmental groups' exhibits at the Lewis County Fair July 22-26. If you can help out, please contact Julian Martin at imaginemew@aol.com.
SPADARO AND MSHA - PLEASE TAKE ACTION
What do you get when you diligently and effectively do your job and attempt to expose wrongdoing? Investigated and put on indefinite leave, of course.
In June, Jack Spadaro, a longtime mine inspector and a champion of miners and coalfield residents, was put on administrative leave from his job as superintendent of the Mine Safety and Health Administration's National Mine Academy. Please take a few minutes to learn what has happened to Jack and then write your Congresspeople on his behalf. Learn more here.
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