(And now a word from our sponsor. No, not the site sponsor, but the sponsor of the Clean Water Protection Act -- the one I've been asking you to call about for the last three weeks. I'm very happy to have these words from Congressman Pallone, and even more thrilled at the support he has given this issue. -- Devilstower)
For many years, I have been proud to stand with the people of Appalachia in opposing mountaintop removal, though like many of you here in the DailyKos community, I have seen mountaintop removal mostly fromphotos and satellite imagery in GoogleEarth. I’ve also sat with the people of Appalachia and heard firsthand their horror stories about how their health, water, communities and very way of life are immediately endangered by mountaintop removal mining.
Good evening to the DailyKos community.
I’d first like to thank DevilsTower for the invitation to speak with you about an issue I care very deeply about. Let me also extend my gratitude to each of you for the grassroots work you do on behalf of Democrats and important progressive issues, and for your help in building our party across the country. I’ve come to ask for your help in an important effort, which I hope all Democrats (and all Americans) will get involved in – stopping mountaintop removal coal-mining in this country.
Mountaintop removal coal-mining is one of the most outrageous assaults on our environment you can imagine. The tops of mountains are literally removed using heavy explosives, turning an incredibly diverse hardwood forest into a moonscape. The toxic rubble is then dumped into the river valleys below, burying and polluting headwater streams, which feed into most of the major rivers of the east.
Earlier this year in Congress, I re-introduced H.R. 2169, the Clean Water Protection Act (CWPA). The CWPA is a simple bill which reverses the Bush Administration’s 2002 decision that the toxic rubble created by mountaintop removal coal-mining can be defined as “fill material,” and dumped into the headwater streams of Appalachia.
For communities in Appalachia, this waste has the horrible effect of poisoning water supplies, often turning tap water orange and even black. While the solid waste is dumped into “valley-fills”, liquid waste containing heavy metals like arsenic, lead and selenium is dumped into “slurry impoundments.” These ponds are known to leak and even break, most tragically at Buffalo Creek, when an impoundment break killed 125 people and displaced another 4,000. In 2000, in Martin County Kentucky, another slurry pond broke, leaking roughly 250 million gallons of toxic sludge into the Big Sandy River watershed. For those of us that remember the Exxon Valdez disaster, this spill was 30 times larger!
Mountaintop removal waste not only affects the health and water quality of the Appalachian region, but also pollutes American waters from the Mississippi River to the Chesapeake Bay to the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. (Map of affected watersheds)
If you’d like to get a visual idea of how much damage mountaintop removal has already done, I would suggest looking at the satellite imagery in GoogleEarth. In the “Global Awareness” folder, there is an “Appalachian Mountaintop Removal” layer which shows the scale of destruction mountaintop removal is doing to our country. Members of Appalachian Voices and iLoveMountains.org have put together several tools to show you historic (pre-mining) image overlays, individual mountains, and mountaintop removal site tours.
If you have already seen mountaintop removal with your own eyes, then I know you are ready to stand with us and fight for this cause. However, if you would like to learn more, I encourage you to watch this video from our friends at iLoveMountains.org. I hope you will visit their website, and get involved in our effort to stop the dumping of mountaintop removal waste into our headwater streams:
Thanks to the hard work of many people in this community, the Clean Water Protection Act now has 111 bi-partisan co-sponsors. I am hopeful that as this issue gains more prominence, we will succeed in beating the coal lobby and passing this vital legislation.