|
|
 
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
Press Release |
 |
February 10, 2005
Media AdvisoryContact: Bo Webb or Judy Bonds, 304-854-2182; Vivian Stockman, 304-360-1979
WHEN: TODAY Feb.10 at 1:00 p.m.WHERE: In the parking lot of the Kanawha City Lowe’s on MacCorkle Ave.
WHO: Coalfield residents and members of Coal River Mountain Watch and Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition will gather for an immediate action in regards to mountaintop removal coal mining.
WHAT: The groups will leave the Lowe’s parking lot to converge at a location to be disclosed at 1 p.m.
Statement from several groups (in several states) about Feb. 10 Day of Action:The Appalachian Mountains are among the oldest mountains in the world. They contain the most biologically diverse temperate forest and freshwater aquatic ecosystems on the planet. Two hundred million years of wind, water, and ice have eroded the Appalachian mountains to about half of their original height. Massey Energy Co., Arch Coal, National Coal and other corporations have decided that that was much too long and are trying to get the other half in only a few decades. Greedy multinational corporations, with support from corrupt government agencies, are perpetuating the greatest ecological crime in history: the destruction of water producing mountain ranges.
Groups and individuals across Appalachia are rising in united protest against the increasing cultural and environmental devastation caused by this most destructive form of mining. Mountain range removal results in loss of life, loss of employment, destruction of homes, and elimination of communities throughout the coalfields.
In West Virginia alone, three million pounds of explosives are detonated every day, perhaps 500 square miles of mountains have been reduced to barren wasteland, and more than 40,000 mining jobs have been eliminated. Valley fills have buried over 1,200 miles of Appalachian streams forever. Billions of gallons of chemical-laden sludge, restrained only by leaky, failure-prone earthen dams, loom above our communities and schools. Mountain range removal has expanded beyond West Virginia and Kentucky and is a growing problem in Virginia and Tennessee. Meanwhile, dirty politicians grant the coal industry its every desire. Such a condition can no longer be endured and will no longer be tolerated. It used to be called mountaintop removal but so many mountains have been destroyed that it is now referred to as mountain RANGE removal. It is a war against the earth.
# # #
|
OVEC Home Issues Contact Join Site Map |
|