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President Obama, please look at Coal River Mountain.

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2009-01-29 08:07

Picka
Colorado Springs, CO

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Salon.com, Blowing Away King Coal by Jeff Biggers, January 29, 2009

"After witnessing 470 mountains in central Appalachia get blown to bits by strip mining, the Coal River wind proponents were drawing a line in the sand. The verdict was in on mountaintop removal, which had been launched in 1970 as a quick and dirty option to cheaply procure coal. Thirty-eight years and a million and a half acres of destroyed hardwood forests later, mountaintop removal had run its course in the region with appalling effects. It had not only destroyed the natural heritage, it had ripped out the roots of the Appalachian culture and depopulated the historic mountain communities in the process."

Today, Rory McIlmoil and the residents living near Coal River Mountain, the last mountain left untouched in a historic range ravaged by strip mining, are fighting Marfolk Coal Company, a subsidiary of Massey Energy to preserve their last mountain top. They have proposed an alternative wind energy farm that has better long term economics. However the power of King Coal backed by Governor Manchin, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and the EPA's 11th hour ruling that did away with regulations on the dumping of coal waste into waterways, have effectively cleared the way for Massey to demolish the mountain top.

Coal River Mountain Watch members are currently awaiting a legal challenge to the permit revision at the Surface Mine Board, with a hearing scheduled for Feb. 10. Otherwise their last hope is for President Obama to reverse the EPA's recent stream buffer ruling, which regulates the strip mining impact on streams, or the passing of federal legislation for a Clean Water Protection Act, effectively banning mountaintop removal methods to dump mining waste into waterways.

"In support of Coal River Mountain residents, James Hansen, head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and the nation's foremost expert on climate change, declared: "President Obama, please look at Coal River Mountain. Your strongest supporters are counting on you to stop this madness.""

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