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Click below to read articles online, or try the PDF version to view or print a replica of the paper newsletter. Online version includes extra articles. |
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Winds of Change Contents |
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Note to President Bush from the Appalachian Coalfields: Buzz Off the Buffer Zone! |
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Global Warming, Bush, Alternative Energy Jobs and - Men on Mars? |
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Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial - A Time to Honor His Legacy |
| "Carbon Sequestration" Just Pseudo-Science Doublespeak |
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Taking the TRUTH About MTR on the Road "Up North" to New York |
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Love doesn't love us |
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The PEOPLE Speak Out About MTR Impact Statement
Wow! Thanks to your help, and the help of groups near and far, the Environmental Protection Agency received over 80,000 comments on the mountaintop removal draft environmental impact statement! Now, EPA and the other agencies have to consider our comments and tell us how they are going to address our multitude of concerns about mountaintop removal.
At the state level, groups like OVEC, Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment, Appalachian Voices, Coal River Mountain Watch, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, Save Our Cumberland Mountains, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy and West Virginia Rivers Coalition mobilized their members to send in comments. Regionally, Citizens Coal Council rallied their membership.
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Ongoing mountain range
removal in southern WV. |
Groups with a national scope, including American Bird Conservancy, American Rivers, Earthjustice, Friends of the Earth, National Resources Defense Council, National Wildlife Federation, Sierra Club and the US Public Interest Research Group asked their membership to make comments. Many more groups signed onto lengthy, powerful comments.
With all these groups drawing attention to mountaintop removal/valley fill coal mining, millions of activists know about coal companies’ outrageous and illegal behavior in West Virginia. With that kind of people power, we can stop mountain massacre!
Comments
You can read the extensive, exceptional mountaintop removal (MTR) draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) comments submitted by attorneys Jim Hecker and Joe Lovett on behalf of OVEC and the WV Highlands Conservancy online here.
There you'll find comments from others. Check out the 61-page comment, "The Social and Cultural Effects of Mountaintop Removal/Valley Fill Coal Mining," compiled by OVEC’s Viv Stockman. Below are a couple of excerpts.
"The DEIS on mountaintop removal / valley fill coal mining (MTR) fails miserably to study, measure, quantify, report and make recommendations on the social and cultural effects of mountaintop removal coal mining.
If you take a drive in regions where coal companies practice MTR, some of the social and cultural effects of this form of mining are readily apparent.
Follow a public road in Kanawha County, W V, heading toward the community of Republic. You’ll find a gate across the public road. Community gone, access denied, MTR underway.
Head toward Mud in Lincoln County. Only one home remaining, and that’s in Arch Coal’s cross hairs. The homes that were up Connelly Branch are gone, the home sites and the branch itself buried under millions of tons of former mountains. In Logan County, all that is left of Dehue are the broken foundations of homes.
Where there is MTR, you’ll find this scenario. The EIS must make an effort to list the communities lost forever to MTR and document or quantify what the losses mean for Appalachian culture."
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