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Tell Bush: Buzz Off the Buffer Zone--We Need You March 30
Welcome to all the new people. If you do not wish to be on this list, please reply with "remove" in the subject line. There was a lot to cover this time, so please excuse the length of this alert.
STATE POLITICS AND COAL Take action to thwart the latest coal industry assault on state laws (laws governing water, valley fills, coal trucks) by staying in touch with WV Environmental Council. Join their Action Alert list by e-mailing Don Alexander at paradox@spectrumz.com or read their weekly legislative updates at www.wvecouncil.org.
MARCH 30: TELL BUSH: BUZZ OFF THE BUFFER ZONE
If you want to see an end to mountaintop removal, then please come to one of the public hearings listed below, and please bring your friends and family. If you absolutely can't come to one of the hearing locations listed below, please consider donating to help sponsor a coalfield resident's attendance at these hearings. Details on sending your donation are below.
What are the hearings about? "King Coal's Return," a Jan. 11, 2004 editorial in the Louisville Courier Journal sums it up: The Bush administration has proposed a rule that will make it far easier for coal operators to savage Appalachian mountains at will. The new regulation will be a godsend for so-called mountaintop removal - a euphemism for scraping whole peaks off and dumping them in valleys below, often destroying watercourses. Over the past 15 years, 724 miles of streams have been subjected to this mistreatment in the Appalachian coalfields of Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee.
Instead of making operators protect land within 100 feet of waterways, the rule would require them only to prevent damage "to the extent possible, using the best technology currently available."
Coal operators could easily push one of their monster drag lines through weasel words like those, and they will.
The Bush administration wants to change the Buffer Zone Rule. You and I both know that mountaintop removal coal companies and regulatory agencies have been ignoring the Buffer Zone Rule by dumping former mountaintops directly into valleys and streams. However, citizens opposed to mountaintop removal have been making progress by organizing to demand that regulators enforce this law. Lawyers have been suing regulators for the same ends. Now Bush--in a staggering display of governing by quid pro quo-wants to stop our progress. He's offering up a huge gift to his coal industry funders by moving to make the illegal legal.
National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" news program spoke with four OVEC members for a segment on the proposed rule change: .
The New York Times scathingly editorialized against Bush's latest attempted gutting of environmental laws on Jan. 13. (For the text, reply to this e-mail with NY Times in the subject line.) Read what Jim Hightower has to say in "Mountain Massacre" at (scroll down): .
Also see WV Gazette and the Office of Surface Mining.
This proposed rule change is saturated with the smell of the Department of Interior's second-in-command, J. Stephen Griles. For more info on Griles, follow the links OVEC's hot topics page. Scroll down to "Government Officials and Coal."
PUBLIC HEARING LOCATIONS
Please attend one of these hearings on Tuesday, March 30:
Charleston, WV 6-9 p.m., Charleston Civic Center, Room 206, 200 Civic Center Drive.
Greentree, PA, 6-9 p.m. Best Western Parkway Center, 8th Floor in the Horizon Room, 875 Greentree Road.
Hazard, KY 6-9 p.m., Hazard Community College, Hazard Campus, Jolly Center, Room 208.
Harriman, TN 6-9 p.m., Roane State Community College, O'Brien Building, Room 101.
Washington, DC 2-4 p.m., OSM, S. Interior Auditorium, 1951 Constitution Avenue NW. Please use the rear entrance to the building and have photo ID with you.
FLIERS TO HELP SPREAD THE WORD
Help spread the word by downloading and posting this flier at work, at the local grocery store, etc. To open this pdf document you'll need Abode Acrobat reader, which, if it isn't already on you computer, is available free online.
TO DONATE If you want to help offset the expenses associated with getting a huge turnout to this hearing, you can either donate online or send us a check. We hope to be arrange transportation or pay mileage to help bring people from the coalfields to the hearings in both Charleston and DC.
To donate via PayPal online, hit the "Donate" button on OVEC's home page (just under the header). Or send a check to:
OVEC P.O. Box 6753 Huntington, WV 25773
Either way, please earmark your donation with a note: "Buffer Zone."
Over the next few weeks, we'll be sending out more information and asking for your help in getting people to this public hearing.
On Feb. 26, the anniversary of the Buffalo Creek disaster, the Charleston Gazette reported: "The Bush administration has backed off its decision to fire longtime mine inspector and engineer Jack Spadaro from the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration. But for Spadaro, the news still isn't good. On Tuesday, MSHA informed Spadaro that he was being demoted and transferred to the agency's technical support center in Pittsburgh." More here.
Remember that Jack's career as a mine safety engineer and true public servant was launched with his work on the Buffalo Creek tragedy. The Louisville Courier Journal reported: "A top mine-safety official who raised questions about the federal government's investigation of the October 2000 coal-slurry accident in Martin County, Ky., has been demoted and ordered to move to a new job in Pittsburgh. Under the decision issued Tuesday by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, Jack Spadaro must report to his new job by the end of April. Spadaro, a longtime resident of West Virginia, is contesting the decision."
Read this Courrier-Journal story: . Jack's demotion and transfer to Pittsburgh is an outrage! The Mine Safety and Health Administration official who made the decision is John Correll. A July 04, 2003 article by the Charleston Gazette's Ken Ward, "Academy chief seeks protection," reports: "A longtime federal mine inspector this week filed a complaint that alleges the Bush administration retaliated against him for reporting alleged wrongdoing by Assistant Secretary of Labor Dave Lauriski..Jack Spadaro and his Charleston lawyer, Jason Huber, filed the complaint ...(which)...alleges that top MSHA deputies John Caylor and John Correll were involved in a plot to punish him for revealing problems within the agency."
TAKE ACTION FOR JACK
Please write Senators Byrd and Rockefeller, as well as California Congressman George Miller. Ask them to stop this outrageous demotion and transfer. Jack should be reinstated to his position superintendent of the Mine Safety and Health Administration's Beckley Mining Academy. Ask the legislators why the Office of Special Counsel has taken so long to intervene on Jack's behalf. Tell them you think it is wrong for John Coreel to be involved in any decisions about Jack. More background info here.
Senator Byrd: senator_byrd@byrd.senate.gov
Senator Rockefeller: senator@rockefeller.senate.gov
Congressman Miller: George.Miller@mail.house.gov
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