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Bush’s Advent message on Appalachian coal: "Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low"

December 8th, 2008 No comments

Just in time for last Sunday’s readings at Advent liturgies of Isaiah 40:4, on December 2 the White House and EPA approved the final issuance by the Department of the Interior of industry-backed changes in the 25-year-old stream “buffer zone” rule.  The revised rule, which the NYT describes as one of “the most contentious of all the regulations emerging from the White House in President Bush’s last weeks in office”, will make it much easier for coal companies to fill in streams and valleys with the rock and dirt produced by mountaintop removal mining operations.  As I described in an earlier post, these mining practices create direct physical effects on nearby communities, and produce extensive and long-lasting alterations to streamflows and aquatic life, leaching of heavy metals into streams and wells and leave behind dangerous leach ponds.  

It is clear from a review of the proceedings that the decisions of the DOI and EPA were based on the premise that mountaintop removal mining would proceed, with stream buffers not being required if the alternative to stream and valley fill were not economically practicable.  Largely because of the damage such mountaintop removal and fill operations have been proven to do to the interests of local and state residents in stream and groundwater quality and flows, the changes were strongly opposed by the public and by the governors of Kentucky and Tennessee.

Nobody seems to have swallowed the rather Orwellian announcement by the DOI’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement that the new rule will “tighten” restrictions on excess spoil, coal mine waste, and mining activities in or near streams – least of all the coal firms, who praised the new rule!

One wonders if in all the litigation over federal rules, residents who bear the impacts of mountaintop mining have considered bringing direct claims against the mining firms for damage under the common law – as opposed to struggling over the substance of federal and state regulations and whether regulators and prosecutors will try to enforce them.

While I noted this issue last week, I was gently reminded of President Bush’s Christmas gift to the coal companies by the perversely coincidental appropriateness of a church reading on Sunday (the second Sunday of Advent) of Isaiah 40:4:

Every valley shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain.

Bush and the coal companies are doing God’s work!

Almost levelled, West Virginia: Crooked justice allows mountain-top removal practices to freely injure homes and health

March 3rd, 2008 3 comments

… with the federal government, state and union all firmly
in the pocket of coal firms.

This seems to be a classic case, on a huge scale, of the difficulties individual property owners and communities face when confronting clearly wrongful acts by large
corporations with deep pockets
– and how easily our
governments and courts are suborned from their duties to enforce property rights or other
laws protecting lives, health and property.

The influence and corruption goes all the way up, as this discussion of recusals and non-recusals by W. Va. Supreme Court  justices illustrates: 

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/2/20/11531/8589

[Note: desnarked in light of fair comment.]

 

Background:

Here is a partial list  – just scratching the surface – of resources on this topic:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountaintop_removal_mining

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Mountaintop+removal+mining

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20080219/cm_thenation/769287429

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/23/us/23coal.html?ex=1345521600&en=3d104863e0d4d655&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6462-2004Aug16.html

http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press/007/mountaintop-removal-mining-permits-illegal.html

 

http://www.ilovemountains.org/ – this site has great Google Earth links 

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/you-are-connected-to-mountaintop.html

http://www.700mountains.org/

 

http://www.kftc.org/our-work/canary-project/campaigns/mtr/MTR-generalinfo

http://www.ohvec.org/galleries/mountaintop_removal/007/

http://www.stopmountaintopremoval.org/

http://www.mountainjusticesummer.org/facts/steps.php

 

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/8/21/11552/5722

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/2/16/142954/768

http://grist.org/news/maindish/2006/02/16/reece/index.html

http://grist.org/news/maindish/2006/02/16/caskey/index.html#spadaro

http://grist.org/news/daily/2000/10/18/top/index.html

 

http://www.appvoices.org/index.php?/site/mtr_overview/

http://www.christiansforthemountains.org/

 

Multimedia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7Zb3Tb0oSM

http://www.blackdiamondsmovie.com/Trailer.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPixjCneseE

http://www.vbs.tv/player.php?bctid=494918454&bccl=NDEzMjk4MjU0X19ORVdT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZoQ5Gw0r7Q&feature=user

http://www.hawriverfilms.com/id2.html

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%22Mountain+Top+Removal%22+&search_type=

 

http://www.ilovemountains.org/multimedia

 

http://www.wvculture.org/history/buffcreek/buff1.html

http://www.ohvec.org/galleries/mountaintop_removal/007/