Earthbytes

Jeff Biggers: Powerful New Music Video Captures Appalachia's Grief Over Mountaintop Removal

Great article from Jeff Biggers and awesome video from Magnolia Mountain:

As millions of pounds of explosives from mountaintop removal strip mining operations continue to devastate historic mountain communities in central Appalachia, a powerful new music video released this week by the beloved American Roots band Magnolia Mountain captures the haunting grief and stories of stricken families in America's cradle of roots and country music.

Driven by Mark Utley's banjo licks and Magnolia Mountain's effortlessly haunting and plaintive harmonies, "The Hand of Man" joins the pantheon of classic mountain ballads and mining tunes, including Kentucky legend Jean Ritchie's "Black Waters" and John Prine's timeless paean to his family's demise in western Kentucky to Peabody coal, "Paradise," and 2/3 Goat's recent metrobilly hit, "Stream of Conscience."

via www.huffingtonpost.com

 

The Human Cost of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

Makayla Urias, 8, from Pike County, Kentucky holds contaminated water samples taken from her home which is surrounded by mountaintop removal coal mining.

 

If you haven't played with the new interactive map at iLoveMountains.org, please go check it out.

Over the past few years, several health studies on the interrelationship of human health and mountaintop removal coal mining have added to the urgency -- an urgency understood by citizens of Appalachia for many years -- to keep the mountains intact. Scientific evidence that this destructive mining practice hurts people and nature is piling up just about as fast now as surface mine operators can blow up the mountains and pile mining waste into Appalachian waters!

The interactive map will allow you to explore the relationship of mountaintop removal coal mining to poverty, changes in life expectancy, birth defect rates, or deaths from cancer, heart or respiratory diseases. The map allows you to view the data at various scales, from regional to state to county-level correlations.

You can also view summaries of the studies that correlate mountaintop removal coal mining with human health consequences.

After you play with the map, please visit the iLoveMountains action page. It lists several things anyone can do to make sure Makayla Urias and every other child in Appalachia has a fair chance for a long, happy and healthy life.

Visualizing The U.S. Electric Grid : NPR

Cool tool from NPR:

The U.S. electric grid is a complex network of independently owned and operated power plants and transmission lines. Aging infrastructure, combined with a rise in domestic electricity consumption, has forced experts to critically examine the status and health of the nation's electrical systems.

via www.npr.org

Coalition Files Three Lawsuits to Demand National Coal LLC Treat Pollution from Coal Mines

Here's the joint press release filed today, November 8, 2011 by Sierra Club, Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment (SOCM) and the Tennessee Clean Water Network (TCWN):

Company’s Own Records Show Violations Of Legal Limits of Iron, Selenium, Other Heavy Metals in Local Waterways

Knoxville, TN – Earlier this week, the Sierra Club and its partners, the Tennessee Clean Water Network and Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment, filed three suits in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee to enforce pollution limits on two coal mines and one coal mine waste disposal area owned and operated by National Coal, LLC. According to the company’s own monitoring, National Coal continues to violate legal limits on its selenium discharge into local waterways. The coalition filed suit in order to protect the residents and wildlife of Tennessee that depend on the state’s waterways for clean water.

The Clean Water Act governs the legal limits of various forms of pollution allowed in mining and waste disposal. The Clean Water Act also requires mining companies to test and disclose the results of water sampling at mining and disposal sites. National Coal’s records show consistent violations for selenium, iron, and manganese at these sites. As a result of these egregious violations, the coalition has now filed suit in federal court under the citizen suit provisions of both the Clean Water Act to enforce the permit limits. 

“The kinds of pollutants National Coal is releasing into Tennessee’s waters can cause health problems as well as serious environmental damage,” said Axel Ringe, Vice Conservation Chair for the Tennessee Chapter Sierra Club. “Repeat violators like National Coal need to know that wanton polluting of Tennessee’s waterways has serious consequences for local residents and won’t be allowed to continue unchecked.” 

Today’s lawsuits follow several other recent Clean Water Act enforcement actions brought by the Sierra Club and other partner organizations that have resulted in significant protections for Appalachian streams and the communities that rely on them, including the installation and operation of treatment technology that will reduce selenium pollution from mines owned by Arch Coal and Patriot Coal.

“Citizens must continue to hold a zero-tolerance attitude toward companies that pollute our watersheds,” said Cathie Bird, chair of the E3 Committee of Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment.  “Without clean water, communities can’t thrive. That’s why we have laws to protect our water, and we’ll work hard to hold companies accountable when they pollute our streams.” 

Selenium, a toxic element that causes reproductive failure and deformities in fish and other forms of aquatic life, is discharged from many surface coal-mining operations across Appalachia.  At very high levels, selenium can pose a risk to human health, causing hair and fingernail loss, kidney and liver damage, and damage to the nervous and circulatory systems. Further, in clinically toxic doses, manganese can lead to motor imbalance and psychiatric disorders and over consumption of iron can lead to cirrhosis of the liver and heart conditions.

"Tennesseans rely on our rivers, lakes and streams for clean water," said Renée Victoria Hoyos, Executive Director, of the Tennessee Clean Water Network. "National Coal regularly and knowingly pollutes the waterways around these three locations. It is simply unacceptable and these suits are critical to ensuring that polluters like National Coal take our health and the impacts their actions have on the environment seriously."

The coalition is represented by Joe Lovett and Mike Becher with the Appalachian Mountain Advocates, and Gena Lewis and Michael Bernard. For more information on selenium visit http://www.sierraclub.org/coal/downloads/Seleniumfactsheet.pdf

###

Contact:

Sean Sarah, Sierra Club, 202 548-4589, sean.sarah@sierraclub.org

Casey Self, Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment (SOCM), 865-249-7488 x105, casey@socm.org

Renée Victoria Hoyos, Tennessee Clean Water Network, 865-522-7007 x100, renee@tcwn.org

 

Murkowski: Interior’s mining overhaul needs Capitol Hill sign-off - E2-Wire

Interesting article yesterday at The Hill's E2-Wire:

Sen. Lisa Muirkowski (R-Alaska), the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, believes the Interior Department is barreling ahead with a major coal mining regulation overhaul without the needed congressional approval.

Interior announced plans Wednesday to merge its Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) into the larger Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Murkowski questioned the move Wednesday evening, noting that she’s “deeply concerned about this proposed unilateral action.”

Read more of the story at thehill.com

 

‘Something Needs to Be Done’: Massey Mine Survivor Testifies Before Congress - Working In These Times

This article summarizes a statement made by Massey miner, Stanley "Goose" Stewart at a Congressional hearing on the Upper Big Branch mine disaster. Stewart and his crew were in the mine the day of the explosion but escaped harm, unlike 29 other miners. This was my favorite quote:

"In my years of working for Massey, I feel they have taken coal mining back to the early 1990s using 3 principles; fear, intimidation, and propaganda."

via www.inthesetimes.com

Read the whole article here. Visit the EdLaborDemocrats channel at YouTube for more videos of testimony for HR 5663, Miner Safety and Health Act here.

Share the dirty secret of mountaintop removal

Stopping selenium: New EPA standards coming? « Coal Tattoo

The Obama administration is apparently nearing completion of a proposal that would tighten the selenium discharges from coal-mining operations.

Release of a new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommended water quality criteria for selenium is “imminent,” state Department of Environmental Protection officials said during a public water quality standards meeting this afternoon.

via blogs.wvgazette.com

Cathie's notes: I can hardly wait! See the rest of Ken Ward's article with some background links here.

National Academy of Sciences urges strong action to cut greenhouse gases - Los Angeles Times

In a sharp change from its cautious approach in the past, the National Academy of Sciences on Wednesday called for taxes on carbon emissions, a cap-and-trade program for such emissions or some other strong action to curb runaway global warming.

Such actions, which would increase the cost of using coal and petroleum — at least in the immediate future — are necessary because "climate change is occurring, the Earth is warming ... concentrations of carbon dioxide are increasing, and there are very clear fingerprints that link [those effects] to humans," said Pamela A. Matson of Stanford University, who chaired one of five panels organized by the academy at the request of Congress to look at the science of climate change and how the nation should respond.

via articles.latimes.com

Cathie's notes: The reports can be purchased or you can read them free online. The Executive Summaries of each one are available as free PDFs. See the webpage for the America's Climate Choices series here. See a video on the release of this series here. Or, see the archived webcast of the release here.

Kudos to Rep. Allan Mollohan of West Virginia for initiating the the request from Congress that led to the National Research Council's work on this series of reports.

BTW: I am a huge fan of the National Academy of Sciences library site, and use it often for research. All of the publications can be read free online. Executive summaries can be downloaded free. You can also by chapters individually and download them as PDFs. If you're a science geek, fan or citizen scientist, it's well worth the time to explore the range of their online titles.

Reclamation FAIL » iLoveMountains.org

Many wonder how coal companies justify blowing up the oldest mountains on the continent. It is because it's more profitable for them? Because it employs fewer miners? Nope, according to the coal companies, they are blowing up mountains because the Appalachians need more land for economic development.

We put that theory to the test and found that the promise of "reclaimed" flat land for economic development is a big, flat lie. Two new studies by NRDC and Appalachian Voices reveal that 1.2 million acres, including 500 mountains, have been demolished by coal companies in Kentucky, West Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee. Over 89% of sites are not currently being used for economic development.

But don't take our word for it. See for yourself how mountaintop removal sites are being "reclaimed" on our Reclamation Fail Map.

via www.ilovemountains.org

Cathie's notes: Check out this new page at iLoveMountains and play with the map. To the right of this post in the sidebar, click on the "What Big Coal won't tell you" box to read the studies and see related data, or go here. Rob Perk's (NRDC) blog post on these studies is here.

Kudos to NRDC and Appalachian Voices for this project!