Posted by Rob Perks in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , Solving Global Warming
Rising above a picturesque valley in southern West Virginia, like an oasis in the midst of coal country, Coal River Mountain represents the last, best hope for a community resisting the legacy of dirty energy in this part of Appalachia. ...
Posted by Rob Perks in Curbing Pollution , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , Solving Global Warming
What is up with the U.S. Department of Interior these days? Unlike the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which appears to be walking the walk on mountaintop removal coal mining thanks to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's leadership, it's quite another story...
Posted by Rob Perks in Curbing Pollution , Health and the Environment , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , Solving Global Warming
Kudos to the USA Today for coming out strong in its opposition to the worst of the worst coal mining: mountaintop removal. Today's excellent, hold-no-punches editorial declares "it's time to protect forests, streams from environmental degradation." It kicks off this way: Buried...
Posted by Rob Perks in Curbing Pollution , Health and the Environment , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , Solving Global Warming
Let me get this straight. President Obama, touting his administration's support for clean energy, visited Florida yesterday to tour the DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center, with its solar panels sprawling across 180 acres that can generate power for 3,000 homes. Yet on Coal River...
Posted by Rob Perks in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , Solving Global Warming
J. Henry Fair is a phenomenal photographer who generously lends his images to NRDC. He has been particularly helpful to me by providing for our use his starkly captivating photos of mountaintop removal coal mining. By hook or by crook, whether...
Posted by Rob Perks in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , Solving Global Warming
The message was like a punch in the gut: "The blasting has begun." Coal River Mountain in southern West Virginia, heretofore America's "most endangered" mountain, is now under assualt by Massey Energy, the nation's fourth-largest coal company and the worst offender...
Posted by Rob Perks in Curbing Pollution , Health and the Environment , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , Solving Global Warming
Since many of our elected leaders seem to be worried about costs, they should consider this: fossil fuels cost the United States about $120 billion a year, according to a study by the National Academy of Sciences. This cost is measured primarily by thousands...
Posted by Rob Perks in Curbing Pollution , Health and the Environment , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , Solving Global Warming , U.S. Law and Policy
Now that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has made it clear that mountaintop removal coal mining poses a severe threat to the environment -- most notably to water quality -- in Appalachia, the fate of this abominable practice appears to rest...
Posted by Rob Perks in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , Solving Global Warming
"The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants. Throughout the land that you hold, you shall provide for the redemption of the land." (Leviticus 25:23-24) "In another...
Posted by Rob Perks in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , Solving Global Warming
Go tell it on the mountain! Today the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is taking unprecedented action to bring to an end the saga of the infamous Spruce Mine, jamming a stake in the heart of what would have been the largest mountaintop removal project in the history...
Posted by Rob Perks in Health and the Environment , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , Solving Global Warming
"You can't put a mountain back." -- Judy Bonds Across the Appalachians, companies are blowing entire mountaintops to smithereens to get at the thin coal seams below. The communities of the region are paying the cost in their health, their...
Posted by Rob Perks in Health and the Environment , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , Solving Global Warming
Right now the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is holding public hearings in six Appalachian states on mountaintop removal coal mining. This controversial practice is at long last under intense scrutiny by the Obama administration, with the U.S. Environmental...
Posted by Rob Perks in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , Solving Global Warming
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, following through on EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's pledge to restore science to environmental regulation, has ruled that all 79 pending applications for mountaintop removal coal mining would violate the Clean Water Act. The agency's review of each permit deemed that...
Posted by Rob Perks in Health and the Environment , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , Solving Global Warming
The coalfields of eastern Kentucky are ground zero for mountaintop removal coal mining. Explosives rock the peaks and echo through the hollows. Twenty-story draglines scrape out enough dirt to fill several dump trucks with every scoop. Earth-movers literally move the...
Posted by Rob Perks in Health and the Environment , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , Solving Global Warming
Common-sense tells us that blowing up a mountain and dumping the waste into valley streams is bad for water quality. But that logic has yet to thwart mountaintop removal coal mining. So I take it as a positive sign that the U.S. Environmental...
