Newsroom

Newsroom http://burningthefuture.semkhor.com/ Newsroom en-us 3/8/2010 9/7/2010 Semkhor Networks burningthefuture@dewdropmedia.com burningthefuture@dewdropmedia.com You can help RIGHT NOW! http://burningthefuture.semkhor.com/newswire.asp?content_id=21096&s=burningthefuture A message from Maria Gunnoe:Twilight, Boone County, WV <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"> It's a wonderful place to be for now...</div> Thanks to multiple mountaintop removal permits, Twilight is the next community on Route 26 to be threatened by extinction! In this bold plan, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition is raising funds to purchase property and stop the depopulation of a precious rural culture and its people. Please visit the <a title="MTR Stops Here!" href="http://www.mtrstopshere.com/node/2">MTR Stops Here!</a> website for more info and to donate. 3/8/2010 HELP SUSTAIN MARIA's COMMUNITIES http://burningthefuture.semkhor.com/newswire.asp?content_id=21095&s=burningthefuture Twilight, Boone County, WV <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"> It's a wonderful place to be for now...</div> Thanks to multiple mountaintop removal permits, Twilight is the next community on Route 26 to be threatened by extinction! In this bold plan, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition is raising funds to purchase property and stop the depopulation of a precious rural culture and its people. Please visit the <a title="MTR Stops Here!" href="http://www.mtrstopshere.com/node/2">MTR Stops Here!</a> website for more info and to donate. 3/8/2010 BTF tours globe with State Department http://burningthefuture.semkhor.com/newswire.asp?content_id=20879&s=burningthefuture BTF  has been selected by the State Department to participate in a global tour through the American Documentary showcase, which offers a broad diversified look at life in the United States and the values of a democratic society as seen by American documentary filmmakers.  This tour celebrates the grassroots activism in the coal fields as an integral part of the American dialogue.  The filmmaker David Novack will attend some of these screenings abroad, where he will meet with communities facing extraction injustice and help forge a global network of carbon-based extraction activism. 2/22/2010 EPA Halts Largest Mountaintop Mining Project in Appalachia http://burningthefuture.semkhor.com/newswire.asp?content_id=19031&s=burningthefuture Wall Street Journal reports <h3 class="byline">By <a href="http://online.wsj.com/search/search_center.html?KEYWORDS=SIOBHAN+HUGHES&ARTICLESEARCHQUERY_PARSER=bylineAND">SIOBHAN HUGHES</a> </h3>WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday put the brakes on the largest mountaintop coal mining operation ever permitted in the Appalachian region, the first time in 37 years that the agency has used its power to hold up an already authorized project. The EPA told the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that it was taking the unusual step because of the magnitude of potential environmental damage, including the burial of more than seven miles of streams. The Corps issues permits, but the EPA has the power to veto those permits. The EPA has never before rescinded a previously issued permit. The EPA said that the action begins a new review process that could lead the agency to restrict or prohibit mining at the site. Mountaintop mining involves blasting off the tops of mountains to get at the coal seams underneath. The mountaintops are remade with rubble created from the explosion, though debris also trickles into valleys, threatening water quality. <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125572895660590833.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_business">http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125572895660590833.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_business</a> 10/16/2009 EPA: Mountaintop Removal Permits Violate Clean Water Act http://burningthefuture.semkhor.com/newswire.asp?content_id=19013&s=burningthefuture The Environmental Protection Agency has taken another positive step towards <a target="_blank" href="http://www.wvpubcast.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=11479">reining in the destructive practice</a> of mountaintop removal mining.<div style="text-align: left;"> Today, the EPA declared that all of the 79 permits it was reviewing would violate the Clean Water Act and must undergo more in-depth environmental assessment by both the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers. </div><a href="http://unearthed.earthjustice.org/blog/2009-september/mountaintop-removal-violates-clean-water-act-says-epa">http://unearthed.earthjustice.org/blog/2009-september/mountaintop-removal-violates-clean-water-act-says-epa</a> 9/30/2009 MARIA GUNNOE WINS GOLDMAN PRIZE!!! http://burningthefuture.semkhor.com/newswire.asp?content_id=16105&s=burningthefuture WASHINGTON, DC. - Maria Gunnoe, an organizer with the Huntington-based Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OVEC), and heroine of "Burning the Future: Coal in America" has been awarded the 2009 Goldman Environmental Prize for North America, the world's most prestigious environmental award.   On Monday, April 21, Gunnoe accepted the award at the San Francisco Opera House before an audience of 3,000. Mistress of Ceremonies CNN's Christiane Amanpour and San Francisco philanthropist Richard Goldman presented Gunnoe the award, referred to as the Nobel Prize of the environment.     Former Vice-President Al Gore congratulated Gunnoe and six other 2009 Goldman Environmental Prize winners. He asked the audience to demand that Congress act this year to stave off catastrophic climate change.   Robert Redford narrated a short film highlighting Gunnoe's efforts to protect West Virginia's mountains and communities from mountaintop removal coal mining.  Singer /songwriter Tracy Chapman serenaded the award winners and audience with two social justice and environmental-themed songs.   A similar ceremony was  held on Earth Day, April 22, at the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum in DC. OVEC will hold a press conference, mountaintop removal ground tour with Maria and her colleagues on April 28 in Charleston, W.Va.   (See www.ohvec.org/press_room/press_releases/2009/04_19.html <http://www.ohvec.org/press_room/press_releases/2009/04_19.html>  for details on attending this press event.)   The Goldman Environmental Prize, now in its 20th year, is awarded annually to seven grassroots environmental heroes from around the world and is the largest award of its kind with an individual cash prize of $150,000.   “This is really everyone's victory. We will not continue to sacrifice our culture, our people and future for energy,” said Gunnoe, who has worked three and a half years from OVEC's Boone County office. “We are asking the Obama Administration to give back some of what has been taken away from the people of the coal-bearing regions of Appalachia.  It's time to ban mountaintop removal coal mining and give Appalachia good paying renewable energy jobs with a real future.”   “We are so proud of Maria,” said Janet Keating, executive director of OVEC. “Her courage and determination, like so many other grassroots leaders, is an extraordinary model for all who want to save the land, water, people and culture of Central Appalachia by ending mountaintop removal.”   Keating attended the San Francisco ceremony along with other OVEC staff and volunteers, and several representatives of The Alliance for Appalachia, a coalition of 13 organizations united around ending mountaintop removal and promoting a just transition to a sustainable energy future for Central Appalachia.   Gunnoe is the second woman from southern West Virginia - both former waitresses - to win the Goldman Prize for working to end mountaintop removal.     Julia “Judy” Bonds won the award in 2003. The two women live in tiny towns just 16 miles apart as the crow flies.   (To take a Google Earth virtual flyover of the mountains and mountaintop removal operation between the women's homes, see www.ohvec.org/links/general_interest/maria_gunnoe.html <http://www.ohvec.org/links/general_interest/maria_gunnoe.html> .)   Both Gunnoe, who lives in Bob White in Boone County, and Bonds, from Rock Creek in Raleigh County, were daughters of coal miners. Both worked as waitresses when mountaintop removal operations closed in on their communities and forever altered their lives.  As they educate themselves and others about the ecological and cultural toll of mountaintop removal, both women face intimidation and even death threats.   Nonetheless, they have helped to build a national movement calling for an end to the destruction of the Central Appalachian Mountains. Director / producer David Novack's documentary "Burning the Future" features Gunnoe's work and writer Michael Shnayerson book's Coal River focuses on Bonds' work. Bonds is co-director of the Whitesville-based Coal River Mountain Watch.   “Mountaintop removal is a crime against humanity and nature and should be treated as a crime,” said Bonds. “This second award illustrates the severity of the crime, and Maria's hard work has exposed the harsh realities faced by people living near mountaintop removal.”   The peaks of Cook Mountain and Cherry Pond Mountain separate the two women's homes.  Coal companies are extracting the coal from those ranges by mountaintop removal, a process which involves razing the temperate forests, blasting away layers of rock to expose the coal seams, and then dumping the soil and rock rubble into the streams winding through the valleys. The resulting valley fills can be miles long and hundreds of feet high. Water running off these fills can contain toxic levels of metals such as selenium.   Hundreds of thousands of acres of southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and parts of Virginia and Tennessee already have been annihilated by this extremely destructive type of mining. Entire communities have been driven into extinction.  Individual mine sites can be as big as Manhattan or the District of Colombia.   One of the most controversial of all mountaintop removal sites is located between the women's communities on Cherry Pond Mountain.  The expanding 2,000-acre mine site sits directly above the Marsh Fork Elementary School.  Daily blasting around a 2.8 billion gallon toxic coal sludge dam, just 400 yards above the school, poses a threat to the dam's stability and sends clouds of silica-laden dust down the valley and into the school playground.  4/20/2009 A letter from Bo Webb - Dear Mr. President http://burningthefuture.semkhor.com/newswire.asp?content_id=15363&s=burningthefuture Dear Mr. President,As I write this letter, I brace myself for another round of nerve-wracking explosives being detonated above my home in the mountains of West Virginia. Outside my door, pulverized rock dust, laden with diesel fuel and ammonium nitrate explosives hovers in the air, along with the residual of heavy metals that once lay dormant underground. The mountain above me, once a thriving forest, has been blasted into a pile of rock and mud rubble. Two years ago, it was covered with rich black topsoil and abounded with hardwood trees, rhododendrons, ferns and flowers. The understory thrived with herbs such as ginseng, black cohosh, yellow root and many other medicinal plants. Black bears, deer, wild turkey, hawks, owls and thousands of [other] birds lived here. The mountain contained sparkling streams teeming with aquatic life and fish.  Now it is all gone. It is all dead. I live at the bottom of a mountain-top-removal coal-mining operation in the Peachtree community.Mr. President Obama, I am writing you because we have simply run out of options. Last week, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court in Richmond, Va., overturned a federal court ruling for greater environmental restrictions on mountaintop-removal permits. Dozens of permits now stand to be rushed through. As you know, in December, the EPA under George W. Bush allowed an 11th-hour change to the stream buffer zone rule, further unleashing the coal companies to do as they please.During your presidential campaign, you declared: "We have to find more environmentally sound ways of mining coal than simply blowing the tops off mountains."  That time is now. Or never. Every day, more than 3 million pounds of explosives are detonated in our state to remove our mountains and expose the thin seams of coal. Over 470 mountains in Appalachia have been destroyed in this process, the coal scooped up and hauled away to be burned at coal-fired power plants across our country and abroad. This includes the Potomac River Plant, which generates the electricity for the White House.  Mountaintop removal is the dirty secret in our nation's energy supply. If coal can't be mined clean, it can't be called clean. Here, at the point of extraction, coal passes through a preparation plant that manages to remove some, but not all, of the metals and toxins. Those separated impurities are stored in mammoth toxic sludge dams above our communities throughout Appalachia.There are three sludge dams within 10 miles of my home. Coal companies are now blasting directly above and next to a dam above my home that contains over 2 billion gallons of toxic waste. That is the same seeping dam that hovers just 400 yards above the Marsh Fork Elementary School. As you know, coal sludge dams have failed before, and lives have been lost.   My family and I, like many American citizens in Appalachia, are living in a state of terror. Like sitting ducks waiting to be buried in an avalanche of mountain waste, or crushed by a falling boulder, we are trapped in a war zone within our own country.In 1968, I served my country in Vietnam as part of the 1st Battalion 12th Marines, 3rd Marine Division. As you know, Appalachians have never failed to serve our country; our mountain riflemen stood with George Washington at the surrender of the British in Yorktown. West Virginia provided more per capita soldiers for the Union during the Civil War than any other state; we have given our blood for every war since.  We have also given our blood for the burden of coal in these mountains. My uncle died in the underground mines at the age of 17; another uncle was paralyzed from an accident. My dad worked in an underground mine. Many in my family have suffered from black-lung disease.   These mountains are our home. My family roots are deep in these mountains. We homesteaded this area in the 1820s. This is where I was born. This is where I will die.On Jan. 15, 1972, U.S. Sen. John D. Rockefeller made a speech at Morris Harvey College. He declared: "The government has turned its back on the many West Virginians who have borne out of their property and out of their pocketbook the destructive impact of strip-mining. We hear that the governor once claimed to have wept as he flew over the strip mine devastation of our state. Now it's the people who weep."  Our state government has turned its back on us in 2009.  Peachtree is but one of hundreds of Appalachian communities that are being bombed. Our property has been devalued to worthlessness. Our neighbors put their kids to bed at night with the fear of being crushed or swept away in toxic sludge. And the outside coal industries continue their criminal activity through misleading and false ads.Mr. President, when I heard you talk during your campaign stops, it made me feel like there was hope for Peachtree and the Coal River Valley of West Virginia. Hope for me and my family.  Abraham Lincoln wrote that we cannot escape history: "The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation."  I beg you to re-light our flame of hope and honor and immediately stop the coal companies from blasting so near our homes and endangering our lives. As you have said, we must find another way than blowing off the tops of our mountains. We must end mountaintop removal.   I also ask you to please put an end to these dangerous toxic-sludge dams. With utmost respect, yours truly,Bo Webb Naoma, W.V. 2/19/2009 4th Circuit Overturns MTR restrictions - BAD NEWS! http://burningthefuture.semkhor.com/newswire.asp?content_id=15364&s=burningthefuture http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29184949/ from MSNBC 2/13/2009 8 more arrests at Coal River Mountain http://burningthefuture.semkhor.com/newswire.asp?content_id=15053&s=burningthefuture Eight more arrests following second wave of citizen protest at toxic coal sludge lake and mountaintop removal site. Massey Energy blasting would endanger community, destroy permanent renewable energy potential.   PETTUS, W.Va. —  This morning five activists, who had chained themselves to a bulldozer and an excavator, and one videographer were arrested for trespassing at a mountaintop removal site.  By afternoon, dozens of local residents, friends and supporters from throughout Appalachia converged at the mine’s gate.  Eight more citizens were arrested in the afternoon action.   The latest wave of protesters, trained in and committed to non-violence, delivered a letter to mine company officials. The letter, ultimately intended for Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship, insists that Massey cease the mountaintop removal operation on Coal River Mountain. (A copy of the letter is posted at http://climategroundzero.com/gate_letter.pdf).   Blasting for part of the operation could begin at any time, very close to a nine-billion-gallon toxic coal waste sludge dam called the Brushy Fork Impoundment.  Blasting would occur above underground mines close to the dam and the lake of toxic coal waste it impounds.   Instead of mountaintop removal, residents and their supporters are advocating for a wind farm on the site as a safe alternative for cleaner energy and long-term jobs (www.coalriverwind.org <http://www.coalriverwind.org/> ).   “I fear for my friends and all the people living below this coal sludge dam,” said Gary Anderson, who lives on the mountain near the site. “Blasting beside the dam, over underground mines, could decimate the valley for miles.  The ‘experts’ said that the Buffalo Creek sludge dam was safe, but it failed.  They said that the TVA sludge dam was safe, but it failed.  Massey is setting up an even greater catastrophe here.”   In 1972, a sludge dam operated by Pittston Coal Company failed and killed 125 people in Buffalo Creek, W.Va.   In 2000, a sludge dam operated by Massey Energy in Martin County, Ky., released approximately 300 million gallons of coal waste that broke through into underground mines. The EPA called that the worst environmental disaster in the Southeast.   Then, in December 2008, a coal ash sludge impoundment operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) failed near Harriman, Tenn.  That disaster released over one billion gallons of toxic sludge that destroyed three homes, damaged twelve more and covered 300 acres.   The Brushy Fork coal sludge impoundment currently contains seven billion gallons and has a nine-billion-gallon capacity.     Residents have lost faith in their state government and taken their plea nationally. Climate expert James Hansen, the head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said, “President Obama, please look at Coal River Mountain. Your strongest supporters are counting on you to stop this madness.”   “We can’t sit by while Massey jeopardizes the lives and homes of thousands of people,” said Vernon Haltom of Naoma, W.Va. “Governor Manchin and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection have proven that they are unwilling to protect the citizens. What do they expect us to do? Will they wait until we’re in body bags to take this threat seriously?”   A 2008 report by the federal Office of Surface Mining revealed serious deficiencies in the WVDEP’s regulation of coal waste dams (www.wvgazette.com/News/200901110512?page=1&build=cache <http://www.wvgazette.com/News/200901110512?page=1&build=cache> ).     In November, WVDEP approved a permit revision allowing Massey to begin the mountaintop removal operation.  Despite citizens’ objections, DEP denied public participation in its decision process.   Anderson added, “We need to stop the madness and stop Massey from blowing up our beautiful mountain.  We need to go with the better energy option, and that’s a wind farm, which is perfect for Coal River Mountain.  We could have a green energy future for the country, starting right here.”   Arrested in the morning action were Rory McImoil, Matt Noerpel, James McGuiness Mike Roselle, Glen Collins and videographer Chad Stevens.   Arrested in the afternoon action were Lorelie Scarbro, Larry Gibson, Charles Nelson, Missy Petty, Mary Wildfire, Vernon Haltom, Allen Johson and Heather Sprouse   For updates, photos and video footage, go to http://climategroundzero.org <http://climategroundzero.org/> . 2/3/2009 Greenpeace Global Coal Report http://burningthefuture.semkhor.com/newswire.asp?content_id=14544&s=burningthefuture This comprehensive report details and prices the worldwide costs of coal - at a whopping $491 Billion PER YEAR (360 Billion Euro)! <a title="True Costs of Coal" href="http://www.greenpeace.org/international/press/reports/true-cost-coal">http://www.greenpeace.org/international/press/reports/true-cost-coal</a> 1/5/2009