West Virginia
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Dissing coal — and the future of West Virginia
When state leaders react to mild criticism of coal like it's an assault on the dignity of all West Virginians, they're doing more than overreacting: They're cheating the Mountain State out of a clean energy future.
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Up close and personal with blight fungus and bugs
2011 is the International Year of Forests, and as part of their efforts to promote the sustainable forestry, the National Association of State Foresters, which represents state forestry agencies, and the National Network of Forest Practitioners, granted a fellowship to photographer Josh Birnbaum to document the state of the nation's forests.
Birnbaum's first stop was in West Virginia, where he hung out with young foresters (pictured above), visited with the wood industry, traveled with researchers to a post-mining reclamation area, and documented blight fungus. -
EPA found over 20 years ago that fracking contaminates water
Fracking companies like to say that there’s never been a single case of fracking contaminating a water well. But, well, there has, and they’ve known that for over 20 years. An EPA report released in 1987 said that a tainted well in West Virginia was contaminated by fracking.
The report, which covers an 1984 incident, resurfaced this week in a New York Times article and a report from the Environmental Working Group.
The report details how fracking fluids or gels migrated from the fracking well to an active water well on a neighboring property, rendering it unusable.
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People living near mountaintop-removal mines have way more cancer
Mountaintop-removal mining is not only bad for the environment, it's bad -- very bad -- for the health of the people who are exposed to it. A new study, based on a door-to-door survey, found that in communities exposed to this type of mining, cancer rates were twice as high as in communities that weren’t exposed. That's after controlling for all of those other cancer-causing factors: age, sex, smoking, occupation, etc.
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Coal company: 'Birth defects aren't from mining, they're because you're inbred hicks'
Babies born in areas with mountaintop-removal mining have higher rates of birth defects -- we know that from a study that came out last month. But, say coal companies, that doesn't mean the mining CAUSES the birth defects! They could easily be caused by something else -- like, say, rampant inbreeding.
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More birth defects in mountaintop removal mining areas
Babies born in West Virginia regions where mountaintop removal mining takes place suffer from higher rates of birth defects than those born in non-mining regions. Mining regions tend to be low-income and deal with the slew of problems correlated with that, but the birth defect rates are higher even when accounting for "socioeconomic disadvantages."
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Don’t you dare blow up this mountain: Defending a historic spot against Big Coal [VIDEO]
Hundreds of activists from around the country joined local unionized coal miners in standing up to the coal industry last week, marching for five days and 50 miles through West Virginia. Their protest culminated on Saturday at Blair Mountain, the site of a violent clash in 1921 between 15,000 striking coal miners and a hired […]
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Labor and enviros join up in W.Va. to fight mountaintop coal mining
For the first time in years, mining unions are finding common cause with advocates who are seeking to end mountaintop-removal coal mining.
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Marching to Protect a Landmark in American Labor History – Blair Mountain
Watching this week’s massive march on Blair Mountain has been inspiring. More than 300 people (and that number’s been growing each day) are walking the roughly 60 miles from Marmet, West Virginia, to Blair Mountain in Logan, West Virginia, to call for the end of mountaintop removal coal mining and the protection of this historic […]