Below:

• No Matter Where You Live, Act by Monday: Buffer Streams from Valley Fills

• Truth, with Humor

• You Call This Justice? EPA Environmental Justice Plan Stinks

• Events Calendar

 No Matter Where You Live, Act by Monday: Buffer Streams from Valley Fills
If mining laws were enforced, then the Stream Buffer Zone rule (SBZ) would help protect streams from valley fills at mountaintop removal operations. The Bush administration wants to "clarify" (read weaken) the SBZ. However, because so many of you spoke out last year, the Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) has conceded it must conduct an environmental impact statement (EIS) on the the SBZ changes the Bush administration wants.

The first part of the study (the EIS) involves a scoping process,  during which you can comment. Please make written comments by Monday, Aug. 15 (that's the current deadline). You can send comments in by e-mail until 4 p.m. Contact information below. You may also hand-deliver your comments to OSM if you attend one of the hearings listed below.

Points to make in your letter:

• OSM’s decision to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) is an admission that proposed changes to the stream buffer zone rule would have significant adverse effects on the environment, despite prior claims by OSM that the proposed changes were just clarifications.

•OSM should allow at least a one-week extension of the written comment period beyond the last SBZ scoping hearing on August 25.

•OSM should conduct its meetings on the SBZ rule scoping process as formal public hearings, with written transcripts, and in a manner that allows all present to hear everyone's comments. 

• At the very minimum the proposed SBZ Rule should be withdrawn and the existing SBZ Rule should be enforced.

 • The stream buffer zone (SBZ) EIS should consider alternatives for strengthening and enforcing the SBZ Rule because the mountaintop removal draft EIS shows significant degradation of streams downstream from valley fills.

• The SBZ EIS must consider the cumulative environmental impacts of valley fills including but not limited to water quality, overall watershed biological and chemical health, terrestrial impacts including deforestation and impacts on interior forest bird species such as the Cerulean Warbler, and air quality impacts and toxic run off caused by the burning of coal.

• The SBZ EIS must assess the impacts of increased selenium downstream from valley fills by commissioning in-depth biological and chemical studies in areas high in selenium.

• The SBZ EIS must fully analyze the effectiveness, or ineffectiveness, of mitigation approved by the Army Corps of Engineers to offset harm caused by valley fills.

• The SBZ EIS must analyze the need for new biological water quality standards and monitoring to help protect against adverse downstream impacts of valley fills.

• The SBZ EIS must analyze the socio-economic and cultural importance of maintaining stream buffer zones.

• The SBZ EIS should include studying the impacts of long-term loss of water resources on national security.

• The SBZ EIS should study the impacts on the loss of tourism dollars in the Appalachian region as aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems are degraded and or annihilated.

Send your written scoping comments by 4 pm eastern time, August 15, 2005 to:

“EIS Scoping SBZ Rulemaking Comments”
c/o OSM Appalachian Region 3
3 Parkway Center
Pittsburgh, PA 15220

Or email your written comments to:
SBZ-EIS@osmre.gov and dhartos@osmre.gov.

You may want to hand-deliver your comments at one of these OSM-hosted meeting on the EIS scoping process:

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.
 

Rubble from a former mountaintop buried the stream that ran the length of this valley. Do not drink the water from this constructed sediment pond in the foreground, nor the stream that flows off this pond. Streams should be buffered from mining activity. After all, clean water is basic to life. Please make your comments today!

Return to Index

 Truth, with Humor
The Energy Bill: Energy Vacation

Return to Index

 You Call This Justice? EPA Environmental Justice Plan Stinks
A new Environmental Protection Agency draft strategic plan on environmental justice has generated a sharp backlash in both the House and Senate. In late July, nearly 80 legislators signed a letter denouncing the draft plan as a step backward. Read more by clicking here.  

Bush's environmental justice plan ignores the fact that racial minorities are more affected by environmental problems -- like pollution-related asthma -- than others. Read E-Raced.

Read EPA's draft "Framework for Integrating Environmental Justice" and the "Environmental Justice Strategic Plan Outline," by clicking here.

You can comment on this plan until--you guessed it--Monday, August 15. This date definitely needs to be extended! Send comments to:

Mr. Barry E. Hill, Director
Office of Environmental Justice
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.
Mail Code 2201A
Ariel Rios South Building, Room 2226
Washington, DC 20460-000.

Or save yourself a lot of writing on an envelope by e-mailing:  hill.barry@epa.gov and  gogal.danny@epa.gov. Type ""EJ Strategic Plan Comments'' in the subject line.

If you would like a sample letter (thanks to Earthjustice for providing this) to use in drafting your own letter, please reply to this e-mail with "Sample EJ letter" in the subject line.

Return to Index

 Events Calendar
 August 28: 2 p.m. Guyandotte, WV "Coal Camp Memories: A story of growing up in the coalfields of West Virginia" by actress/storyteller Karen Vuranch. Hosted by the Southern District Labor Council. Join us for this play at the United Steel Workers Hall, 712 Buffington Street in Guyandotte. Call the labor council at 304-523-2353 for more information.

Remember--this Saturday, August 13, an evening with WV author Denise Giardina at the LaBelle Theatre in South Charleston. For details, and more upcoming events, click here.

Return to Index