mountaintop removal
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Must-read new story on the Tennessee coal ash disaster and the myth of “clean coal”
Stop what you’re doing and proceed immediately to the current issue of GQ magazine, which contains a blockbuster piece of investigative journalism: “Black Tide,” by Sean Flynn. Here’s the slug: Just days before Christmas last year, an environmental disaster one hundred times the size of the Exxon Valdez (yes, you read that right) unfolded on […]
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University president quits Massey board after green group campaign
After a 14-week campaign by green groups, Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee stepped down from the board of directors of mountaintop-removal mining company Massey Energy today. Ohio Citizen Action, then Sierra Club, Greenpeace USA, Earthjustice, and Friends of the Earth, said that Gee’s relationship with Massey worked against his school’s efforts to develop […]
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Operation Appalachian Spring grows
In three separate direct actions in the West Virginia coalfields yesterday, nonviolent protestors launched the new phase of Operation Appalachian Spring, a growing national campaign to stop mountaintop removal mining and raise awareness of the catastrophic potential of government regulated blasting near a coal sludge impoundment. “The toxic lake at Brushy Fork dam sits atop […]
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EPA clears waterboarding for Appalachia
As American citizens in Mingo County and other areas of the flood-stricken Kentucky and West Virginia coalfields continue to dig themselves out of the muck, indefatigable Charleston Gazette reporter Ken Ward is reporting on his Coal Tattoo blog that the EPA has “signed off on almost all (87.5 percent, to be exact) of the mountaintop […]
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Debate: Roberts v. ‘clean coal’ flack Joe Lucas
In early April, the excellent investigative journalism show NOW on PBS ran an episode called “Can Coal be Earth-Friendly?“ In conjunction with the episode, NOW hosted an online debate between me and Joe Lucas, spokesflack for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE). We were given a series of five questions. We each answered […]
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Dear Mr. President: Declare Aug. 3 as Armistice Day
On the upcoming anniversary of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, President Barack Obama has the opportunity to declare an armistice in the polarized Appalachian coalfields, mend a 30-year mining policy of betrayal, and call an end to the most divisive and egregious human rights and environmental violation sanctioned by our federal government. On […]
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Urgent letter to EPA and Interior Dept. from coalfield residents
As three million pounds of ammonium nitrate/fuel oil explosives continue to rip through the lush green Appalachian mountains and historic mountain communities every day, coalfield residents from West Virginia issued an extraordinary letter on Wednesday asking EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to assert primacy over the negligent West Virginia […]
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Mr. King Coal's Neighborhood Comes to Washington
What does a Wyoming rancher, a Navajo elder, a Southern community organizer, a Latino immigrant organizer from Chicago, a young indigenous Ottawa woman from Michigan, and an Appalachian coal miner’s widow have in common? All of their neighborhoods are under deadly assault from King Coal. And all of these six American heroes have journeyed to […]
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Obama’s first 100 days of coal
“If you’re going to lead my country,If you’re gonna say it’s freeI’m gonna needa little honestyJust a few honest words” — Ben Sollee, “A Few Honest Words” With those proverbial first 100 days coming to a close, here are ten moments–some good, some confusing, some hair-raising–in the short swift time of coal in the Obama […]
