Fresh air blown into the Appalachian mountains
Checking my email is a mix of ups and downs, but lately the ups seem much more common. EarthJustice sent me an email full of ups… and they’re high up my friend, the Appalachian mountains. Their email states that they’ve been working on a campaign to stop mountain top removal for over 12 years and their efforts have finally paid off! Mountain top removal coal mining is when the top of a mountain is blown off, coal is extracted, the bits of what was removed is put back onto the mountain, and the “excess” is discarded in other areas that end up contaminating streams, nature, and all of the nearby homes. Here’s the great news straight from EarthJustice:
On Jan. 13, 2011, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency made history by announcing its decision to veto the water pollution permit for the largest proposed mine in West Virginia, Arch Coal’s Spruce No. 1 mine. In its announcement, the EPA said that it received a tremendous public outpouring of comments on this decision—50,000 in total—and those comments helped seal the deal for the agency to do the right thing. Earthjustice supporters alone sent 38,000 comments to the EPA.
If you’d like to read more about this and how it’ll help the people living in this area, please continue to read what EarthJustice has to say. It’s always fantastic seeing the great things that come out of taking action! If you live in the USA, you can even send an email thanking the EPA for making this decision.
(Image clickable straight to source: EarthJustice, originally from Vivian Stockman of OVEC, flyover courtsey of SouthWings)
27 January 2011 / Environment, People
Tags: appalachian mountains, coal mining, earthjustice, epa, mountain top removal, mountain top removal coal mining, victory
Comments
27 January 2011 - 11:15 pm
Krystal – I’m so glad that you’re taking the time to read about issues like this that I write about on my blog and get filled in. It makes my day to know that I could share good news like this with others. : )
29 January 2011 - 4:10 pm
Wow! This is awesome! I had no idea there was such a thing as “Mountain Top Removal.” And thank you for adding a definition to what that was! I was about to go google it if you hadn’t! I went and read the article, and that makes me really happy that they were able to stop this!!! Over 2,000 mountain acres would have been affected!! I am really, really glad they did something!! The Appalachian Mountains are really pretty and don’t need to be destroyed!
30 January 2011 - 12:32 am
Misty – When reading this, I kept thinking about Appalachian Trail that we “took part in” in 5th grade, remember? That’s great that you read the article to find out more about this. I’m glad I was able to post some good news!
2 February 2011 - 5:42 pm
I definitely remember the Appalachian Trail!! I was thinking about that as well as when I went to the Smoky Mountains (which are a part of the Appalachian Mountains) when I read the article. I couldn’t even imagine what they would look like if this had gone through!!
27 January 2011 - 8:11 pm
oh my gosh, there is just so much that i don’t even know about! i had no idea about anything like this, haha