Press Release

May 15, 2007

US Groups Join Appalachian Effort to End Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

Citizens Promote Clean Water Protection Act, Say Legislation will Protect America's Waterways and Stop Devastating Forms of Coal Mining

Contact: Maria Gunnoe (304) 360-4255; Joan Mulhern (202) 329 1552

WASHINGTON, D.C. --Over 100 Appalachian coalfield residents and citizens from across the country traveled to Washington, D.C. this week to ask their Congress people and Senators to co-sponsor the Clean Water Protection Act, H.R. 2169. The citizens say the bill will end the destruction of important headwater streams and end the practice of mountaintop removal coal mining.

The coalfield citizen groups and national organizations behind the Clean Water Protection Act include West Virginia-based Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment, Coal River Mountain Watch, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and West Virginia Highlands Conservancy.

Other groups include Earthjustice, Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, Appalachians Voices based in Boone, NC and Save Our Cumberland Mountains, from Lake City, TN.

According to a report on the Clean Water Protection Act issued by the groups, “Mountaintop removal coal mining has permanently buried more than 1,000 miles of streams and headwaters in all of central and southern Appalachia.”

“The Clean Water Act was mean to protect America's water ways. In 2002, The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency, responding to intense pressure from the coal mining industry, changed the definition of waste, which created a loop hole allowing mining operators to dump their waste, filling streams, lakes, wetlands and other waters,” said Maria Gunnoe, an organizer with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition.

The bipartisan Clean Water Act was recently introduced by Representatives Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Christopher Shays (R-CT). The bill expressly forbids the dumping of mining waste into America’s waters, restoring the original intent of the 1972 Clean Water Act.

“Mountaintop removal is an extremely destructive form of coal mining where entire mountains are blasted away. Up to 1000 feet can be blasted apart with high explosives, and the resulting rubble is dumped into nearby streams and valleys” said Donetta Blankenship of Mingo County, W.Va. “The pollution and groundwater destruction damages our wells, our homes and our lives.”

“Congress was very clear when it passed the Clean Water Act. It meant to protect America’s waterways from this type of destruction,” said Joan Mulhern, senior legislative counsel for Earthjustice.

According to David Beaty, coalfield resident and member of Save Our Cumberland Mountains in Tennessee, “It simple, they're blowing up the mountains and there ought to be a la.w”

Citizen lobbyists traveled from Alabama, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, Wisconsin, and West Virginia for meeting with their Congressional representatives this week.

Bill information at: www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/thomas.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: High resolution photographs illustrating the impact of coal mining in Appalachia on America's waterways are available for media use only by contacting Vivian Stockman at vivian@ohvec.org or 304-360-1979.

Photos for media use may also be downloaded from:
www.ohvec.org/galleries/mountaintop_removal/index.html

Click on “high resolution” galleries, then click on a photo to open a high resolution version of the image. Please credit: “Vivian Stockman / www.ohvec.org. Flyover courtesty SouthWings.”

If you use a photo, please send an e-mail to vivian@ohvec.org noting the photo’s use.