Below:

• Thanks on the Rally, Thanks on the Fundraising!

• This Sunday: Stop Mountaintop Removal Rally in Tennessee

• Save the Date, Save the Buffer Zone

• Calendar of Events

• Volunteers Wanted for Tri-State Multicultural Festival

 Thanks on the Rally, Thanks on the Fundraising!
Wow! A huge thanks to all of you who participated, even from afar. The crowd at the July 30 Stop Mountaintop Removal Rally topped 400! The event featured poignant speeches, excellent original music, the Radical Cheerleaders and the Ms. Mountaintop Removal Beauty Pageant. (King Coal still loves Ms. Blind Greed and thinks Ms. Renewable Energy was really ugly, no matter what the crowd thought.) Please check the People in Action section of our website, where we will soon post photos from the rally. 

Double Wow--You really came through! It was all or nothing. The Piper Fund would give OVEC and WV Citizen Action Group $25,000 for our Clean Elections work only if we raised $25,000 from folks like you. You did it for us. We raised over $27,000! Thanks so very much to everyone who donated! Watch the news and our websites to see how, together, we put your donations and your ideas to work for a better West Virginia.

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 This Sunday: Stop Mountaintop Removal Rally in Tennessee
This Sunday August 7 from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m.: Take a Stand Against Mountaintop Mining in Tennessee with a Mountain Justice Summer Protest, Rally and March at Elk Valley, Campbell County, North of Knoxville. Directions: From I-75N take exit 141 to Hwy 63W. Follow 63W for 4.6 miles and turn right at Pioneer Post Office on to 297E. Follow road about 5 miles down, passing a cabinet shop and a church on left. About .5 mile after that, turn left onto Lick Fork Rd.
Please park in the area provided. Gather in the lot and then march to the mine site about an eighth of a mile down on the right. See www.mountainjusticesummer.org. 

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 Save the Date, Save the Buffer Zone
If mining laws were enforced, then the Buffer Zone Rule (BZR) would help protect streams from valley fills at mountaintop removal operations. The Bush administration wants to "clarify" (read weaken) the BZR, but because so many of you spoke out last year, the Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement (ha!) has realized it must conduct an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the the BZR changes the Bush administration wants. The first part of the study (the EIS) involves a scoping process, and that's where you come in. Please click here to find out what you can do to take action by August 15.

Also, please consider coming to an OSM-hosted meeting on the EIS scoping process at one the locations listed below. We'll have more info soon.

August 22: 6:00 to 9 p.m., Knoxville, TN. Hilton Hotel, Sequoia Room, 501 W. Church Avenue, Southwest, Knoxville, Tennessee

August 23: 6:00 to 9 p.m., Hazard, KY. Hazard Community Technical College, One Community College Drive, First Federal Center, Room 123A, Hazard, Kentucky

August 24: 6:00 to 9 p.m., Charleston, WV. Embassy Suites Hotel, Ballroom ABC, 300 Court Street, Charleston, West Virginia

August 25: 6:00 to 9 p.m., Pittsburgh, PA. -- Best Western Parkway Center, 8th Floor in the Horizon Room, 875 Greentree Road, Greentree, Pennsylvania.

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 Calendar of Events
Join us at 7 p.m. on Saturday, August 13 at the LaBelle Theatre, South Charleston for West Virginia Writers in Film. Admission is $2.00 for four short films by or about West Virginia
Authors: Denise Giardina - The Gift Horse; Pinckney Benedict -Getting over Arnette; Jason Freeman - Elegy: The Life and Work of Breece D'J Pancake; and Kyle Van Buskirk - Trout Dinner. Author and mountaintop removal opponent Denise Giardina will present her film. For directions to the theater, click here.

Have Fun, Raise Funds. Come to the Empty Glass (410 Elizabeth St., Charleston) on Tuesday August 23 from 6:00 - 9:30 p.m. for the Coalfield Sustainability Project fundraiser with Chris Dodson and Mad Squirrel (hip-hop). 

Many more calendar items here.

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 Volunteers Wanted for Tri-State Multicultural Festival
OVEC needs volunteers to work our table at the Tri-State Multicultural Festival on Saturday, September 3 at Ritter Park in Huntington, West Virginia. We've made new friends and had lots of fun at this festival over the years, so please join us. Call the office at 304-522-0246 or respond to this e-mail to volunteer.

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