Coal is America's dirtiest energy source -- and the country's leading source of global warming pollution. Coal mining destroys land, pollutes thousands of miles of streams and brings massive environmental damage to mountain communities.Yet coal companies are doing everything they can -- including buying millions of dollars in TV ads -- to push the myth of "clean coal" technology. But they can't hide the truth: "Clean coal" doesn't exist, and alternatives are ready to take the place of dirty power plants and repower America with clean energy. That's reality.
Posted June 20, 2012 by Melissa Waage in Health and the Environment
There is good news today in the fight to to protect Appalachian communities from the health effects of mountaintop removal mining. Yesterday Reps. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) , Louise Slaughter (D-NY), and eleven other House members introduced The Appalachian Communities Health Emergency ("ACHE")...continued→
Posted January 10, 2012 by Melissa Waage in Health and the Environment, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
Will this be the year that Tennessee becomes the first state to ban mountaintop removal mining? Leaders in the state legislature are once again pressing forward with the Scenic Vistas Protection Act, a bill to end mountaintop removal in the state. And they...continued→
Posted December 13, 2011 by Melissa Waage in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment
The Charleston Gazette highlights a new study confirming the long-term water quality impacts of mountaintop removal mining. In the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science (PNAS) this week, a team of Duke University researchers found that contamination from MTR mines is cumulative, and...continued→
Posted November 22, 2011 by Melissa Waage in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment
The dean of West Virginia University's new School of Public Health is standing up for faculty research on the health impacts of mountaintop removal. The Charleston Gazette reports that interim founding dean Alan Ducatman expressed support for the work of Michael Hendryx, an...continued→
Posted November 22, 2011 by Melissa Waage in Curbing Pollution, Environmental Justice, Health and the Environment
Great news for Music Saves Mountains member band, 2/3 Goat! The New-York-based act uses "metrobilly" music as a platform to spread the word about mountaintop removal and why it must be stopped. Earlier this year, the group successfully funded a new video on...continued→
Posted September 22, 2011 by Melissa Waage in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment
We know that mountaintop removal kills mining jobs. But naturally that didn’t stop the House Government Reform Committee and its anti-regulation chair, Darrell Issa, from making the claim in a recent report that the EPA's lawful and appropriate regulation of mining...continued→
Posted August 9, 2011 by Melissa Waage in Curbing Pollution, Environmental Justice, Health and the Environment
CNN’s Soledad O’Brien takes on the mountaintop removal debate this Sunday in a 1-hour documentary special, The Battle for Blair Mountain: Working in America. This presentation brings the issue of mountaintop removal before what may be its largest national audience...continued→
Posted July 27, 2011 by Melissa Waage in Environmental Justice, Health and the Environment
Just weeks after scientists discovered a tie between mountaintop removal and birth defects, another peer-reviewed study indicates that cancer rates may also be higher in communities affected by MTR. The new study, published in the Journal of Community Health this week, compared...continued→
Posted June 17, 2011 by Melissa Waage in Environmental Justice, Health and the Environment
Last week, six hundred people set out from Marmet, WV for the March on Blair Mountain, a fifty-mile effort calling for an end to mountaintop removal, preservation of historic Blair Mountain, and good jobs for Appalachia. And last Saturday, after five days and fifty miles...continued→
Posted June 6, 2011 by Melissa Waage in Curbing Pollution, Environmental Justice, Health and the Environment
Today begins the March on Blair Mountain, with more than six hundred people setting out from Marmet, WV on a fifty-mile, five-day journey to recreate the 1921 labor uprising that culminated with the Battle of Blair Mountain..The marchers include environmentalists, union members, religious...continued→
