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OVEC Action Alert - February 19, 2005 |
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People of color and women are especially encouraged to apply for the 15 available coalfield organizer positions, which are available from April through the end of Summer. For details, click here.
Take Action for Clean Elections
Please take a few minutes to contact your Delegates and ask them to support HB 2486, the WV Public Campaign Financing Pilot Project. Let's give voter-owned, publicly-financed elections a try! For more information, please visit the new www.wvoter-owned.org/. Let us know what you think of the website.
OVEC, Coal River Mountain Watch and concerned Mingo County residents are working together on the Sludge Safety Project. We hope you will visit our new website, www.sludgesafety.org. We'd really like your feedback on the website, on which you'll find some very alarming information--but our goal is not to emulate the Fear-Monger-in-Chief. Our goal is inform you and spur you to action. For now, we are asking that you (West Virginians) contact your State Delegates and State Senators to voice your concerns over coal sludge impoundments. Please tell them you would like to see coal sludge impoundments tested so we can learn what exactly is in coal sludge. Please also write letters to the editors on both coal sludge impoundments and mountaintop removal. LTEs are a great way to make your voice heard! This web tool -- www.wv.gov/sec.aspx?pgID=65 -- will help you find contact information for newspapers.
Those of you on OVEC's snail-mailing list, who live in Senatorial Districts that have coal sludge impoundments, will soon receive a mailing from us, complete with a brochure on coal sludge impoundments and postcards to mail your legislators. Everyone can download pdf versions of these documents by clicking here and here. For quick downloading, these pdf docs aren't the highest resolution. If you'd like higher resolution versions for better printing, e-mail vivian@ohvec.org.
Feb. 23: 6:30 p.m. Public Hearing on Manganese
Industry is salivating over this one, so please, if you drink water, fight back! Come to the DEP Building, 601 57th St., SE, in Kanawha City (MacCorkle Ave.), or write: to clerk@wvaqbeqb.org, or WV Environmental Quality Board, 601 57th St., SE, Charleston, WV 25304, Written comments accepted through March 24.
This Environmental Quality Board public hearing is about the board’s industry-pushed proposal to lower the water quality pollutant standards for manganese. The revision would add the following language: "The manganese human health criterion shall only apply within the five-mile zone immediately upstream above a known public or private water supply used for human consumption." Currently the manganese human health criterion is applied to all waters of the state. The WV Rivers Coalition and the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment have provided the brief comments in opposition to the proposed change. Click here for those. For more info, click here and here.
Please see the OVEC website calendar page for more information on the following events:
Feb. 22: 3:00 p.m. Hearing in Fayette County on proposed New River Gorge development. Take Written Action!
Feb. 23: 5:30 p.m. Representative Shelley Moore Capito hosts a Town Hall at the Roane County Committee on Aging, 811 Madison Ave, Spencer, W. Va.
Feb. 23: 7:00 p.m. Jack Spadaro speaks on coal sludge impoundments and mountaintop removal at Southwestern Virginia Community College.Feb. 24: 7:00 p.m. Mountain State University’s “Appalachian Visions” 2005 series begins with a showing of "Mucked." This documentary by Bob Gates examines the role of coal mining and steep slope timbering in the recurring floods of southern West Virginia. For more details, click here.
For upcoming musical fun at the Appalachian Folklife Center, see WVEC's calendar.Save the Date: E-Day! March 30
March 30: Please, please make plans now to attend the West Virginia Environmental Council's E-Day! at the State Capitol and E-Day! Awards Reception. Ask for the day off work now, and make plans to bring a carload of folks. We need a big grassroots turnout! (On March 31, the "Friends of Coal" will have their paid-to-be-there Astroturf-ers out in full force.)
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