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Brian Sewell

Brian Sewell is an environmental news junkie concerned with energy policy and revealing the true cost of coal on the environment and the climate. He is Appalachian Voices' Program Communications Coordinator.

A Must-Read Report, Another Reminder It’s Time to Build Something New in Central Appalachia

Tuesday, May 14th, 2013 | Posted by Brian Sewell

An updated and expanded report is a potent reminder that coal's decline isn't going away and policymakers should accept the challenges, just as many people already have. Click through to read the report's key findings.

The litany of voices pointing to the writing on the wall for the Central Appalachian coal industry continues to grow. They’re saying the same thing in almost every way imaginable, and have been for some time.

Watching coal production decline and demand shift as other energy sources out-compete coal domestically, it is vital that policymakers in Central Appalachia begin implementing policies and investments aimed at building a foundation for economic alternatives in coal-producing counties. A report released this morning by the consulting firm Downstream Strategies is a pretty good reminder why.

“The Continuing Decline in Demand for Central Appalachian Coal: Market and Regulatory Influences” expands on a January 2010 study and provides a detailed look at the challenges Central Appalachia faces, further making the case for the urgent need to act.

As the report’s lead author, Rory McIlmoil, who recently joined Appalachian Voices’ staff as energy policy director, points out:

Numerous factors influence demand for Central Appalachian coal, each of which has had — and will continue to have — a significant impact on the local economies where the coal is mined. In 2010, we recommended that state and local leaders take immediate steps to help diversify coalfield economies. To a large extent, that has not happened. However, it is vital that public officials begin making the political and financial investments necessary to build the foundation for new economic development opportunities in coal-producing counties.

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Permit to Mine one of America’s “Most Endangered Mountains” Denied

Wednesday, May 8th, 2013 | Posted by Brian Sewell

IsonRock

Ison Rock Ridge was one of the "most endangered mountains" in America, that is, until the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy denied a permit that would have obliterated nearly 1,300 acres of mountainous terrain.

Appalachian residents in Virginia are breathing a sigh of relief with the news yesterday that the state Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy has denied a permit for a massive strip mine on Ison Rock Ridge in Wise County.

Although the coal company, A&G Coal Corp., has appealed the decision (no surprise there), local citizens and opponents of mountaintop removal stand ready to continue defending Ison Rock Ridge, and the citizens of Wise County.

“Preserving our clean mountain water, protecting our productive forests and making this a place businesses want to move to is a key part of building an economy built to last the next 100 years. Stopping the destruction of Ison Rock Ridge is an important first step,” said Sam Broach, president of Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards (SAMS), a Wise County-based group of local citizens, including former miners.

A&G had proposed a 1,200-acre mountaintop removal coal mine on the ridgetop, behind the town of Appalachia. The mine would have buried about 14,000 feet of streams with more than 11 million cubic yards of rock and dirt in nine separate valley fills, posing tremendous harm to the citizens and the environment.

The good news about the permit denial is due to the passion and perseverance of SAMS, Sierra Club and Appalachian Mountain Advocates. These groups have fought the project for going on five years now. (See this post from Sierra Club with a press release from SAMS.)

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Mountaintop Removal 101: Congressional Research Service Updates Report

Thursday, May 2nd, 2013 | Posted by Brian Sewell

Frasure_Valley_Fill_big

An updated report by the Congressional Research Service provides a look at the current legal and legislative challenges to mountaintop removal.

Every day, more Americans become concerned with the threat of mountaintop removal in Appalachia. Just yesterday, I was made aware of a website called “What About Mountains?” created by a fourth grade class at the Episcopal School of Knoxville. These students may just be learning about the issue, but they know that “mountaintop removal coal mining is not OK,” and seeing a photo of lush mountains reduced to “ugly blobs of land” is as fine a place to start as any.

Whether you’re in fourth grade or in your forties, it’s helpful to have a convenient compendium on the issue of mountaintop removal, especially considering the ever-evolving legal battles, status of bills on Capitol Hill, and state and federal level regulations. An updated report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service called Mountaintop Mining: Background on Current Controversies acts as a CliffsNotes for anyone concerned with the situation and interested in catching up.

The report summarizes the legal challenges, agency and congressional actions related to mountaintop removal and points out that, despite two recent court rulings underscoring the need for greater protections, few people on either side are please with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s record on the issue. Mountaintop removal supporters complain of onerous rules that hamper employment and opponents point to poisoned water, unhealthy communities and shortened lives.

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A Good Week for Mountains – Multiple Court Rulings Favor Science and Enforcement

Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013 | Posted by Brian Sewell

Earth Week is off to a good start after two major rulings in two days mean we may start seeing less of this.

We’re only two days into Earth Week — if we must limit it to one week out of the year — but it sure is getting off to a great start. In the past two days, two major court rulings have underscored the need for increased scrutiny from the federal agency responsible for evaluating environmental impacts of mountaintop removal coal mining according to the National Environmental Policy Act and issuing permits under the Clean Water Act.

Yesterday, the 6th U.S. Court of Appeals revoked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers use of Nationwide Permit 21 (NWP 21), a streamlined and inadequate process that has contributed to the expansion of mountaintop removal in Appalachia since 1992. Kentucky and West Virginia residents, with the support of groups including Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, Kentucky Waterways Alliance and the Kentucky Riverkeeper, have challenged the legality of NWP 21 in state and federal court for a decade.

In its ruling, the three-judge panel called the Corps’ actions “arbitrary and capricious” and found that the agency did not follow the applicable Clean Water Act (CWA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations, which require it to document its assessment of environmental impacts and examine past impacts before issuing new permits. From the ruling:

Though we generally give greatest deference to an agency’s “complex scientific determination[s] within its area of special expertise,” we may not excuse an agency’s failure to follow the procedures required by duly promulgated regulations.

After opting for streamlined nationwide permitting, the Corps took the easier path of preparing an environmental assessment instead of an environmental impact statement. Having done so, it needed to follow the applicable CWA and NEPA regulations by documenting its assessment of environmental impacts and examining past impacts, respectively. Failing these regulatory prerequisites, the Corps leaves us with nothing more than its say-so that it meets CWA and NEPA standards.

According to the Corps, approximately 70 surface mining permits authorized under NWP 21 qualify for a five-year accommodation to “provide and equitable and less burdensome transition” for coal operators. Whatever its impact on existing mountaintop removal permits, the ruling acknowledges that when it comes to protecting Appalachia, the Corps “say-so” is insufficient.

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Coal Ash Floods Congress and the Courts

Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013 | Posted by Brian Sewell

e. The trend is likely to continue until EPA announces clear rules to regulate the to

Since the 2008 Kingston, Tenn., coal ash spill, the toxic waste has been hotly debated in the media, Congress and the courts.

On April 11, the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Environment and Economy held a hearing in part to promote the Coal Ash Recycling and Oversight Act of 2013, drafted legislation that would prevent the EPA from implementing federal regulation of coal ash, leaving regulation up to the states.

Some witnesses, including the former director of the Mine Safety and Health Academy, Jack Spadaro, and Lisa Evans, an attorney for Earthjustice focused on hazardous waste, testified against the draft, which is modeled on past legislation that failed and was called “unprecedented” in environmental law by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

“Without a doubt, when mismanaged, coal ash harms Americans nationwide by poisoning water and air and by threatening the very existence of communities living near high hazard dams,” Evans said at the hearing. “We must work together to establish regulations that foremost prevent injury to health and ensure the safety of all communities.”

Spadaro, who has been involved in the evaluation and regulation of coal waste dams since 1972 and wrote federal and state regulations governing the structural integrity of dams in the wake of the Buffalo Creek Flood, cautioned subcommittee members against moving ahead with the draft. According to Spadaro, the proposed legislation lacks the adequate engineering requirements and enforcement by a federal agency necessary to prevent another spill similar to the TVA disaster that would lead to irreversible environmental damage and possible loss of life.

“There are thousands of such structures in the United States at this time,” Spadaro said, “and the failure of one or more of these dams is assured unless strict engineering standards are imposed.” The Southeast is home to 40 percent of the nation’s coal ash impoundments, and according to the EPA, contains 21 of the nation’s 45 high hazard dams.

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Meet Your New Interior Secretary

Monday, April 15th, 2013 | Posted by Brian Sewell

Secretary_Sally_Jewell

Sally Jewell, 51st Secretary of the Interior

Last week the U.S. Senate approved Sally Jewell, the chief executive of the outdoor retailer REI, as the Secretary of the Department of the Interior. Jewell was confirmed after an 87-11 vote — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was the only Appalachian senator to vote against her confirmation.

The day before her confirmation, President Obama said that Jewell had an “appreciation for our nation’s tradition of protecting our public lands and heritage, and a keen understanding of what it means to be good stewards of our natural resources.” Likewise, Oregon Sen. Rob Wyden, who chairs of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, stood in support saying Jewell had the “right kind of leadership” to rise to the task of reconciling competing environmental and energy interests.

No matter where you stand, Jewell faces a daunting task considering the department’s duty to oversee more than 500 million acres of public lands including national parks used for recreation and energy development. And regardless of her bipartisan support, Jewell will face a cantankerous Congress whose polarization is without precedent.

The broadly defined department’s responsibilities range from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. Also under the Interior’s purview — and of particular interest to Appalachian politicians — is the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, which oversees regulation of mountaintop removal under the Surface Mine Control and Reclamation Act. Since the beginning of 2009, OSM has worked to rewrite the stream protection rule to protect waterways from valley fills, and the process has been challenged, delayed and slowed-down at every turn.

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Stop Brushing off the Bad Stuff

Tuesday, March 19th, 2013 | Posted by Brian Sewell

However complex the causes of the ongoing health crisis in Appalachia, denial accomplishes nothing but the perpetuation of the status quo. Yet every time claims that could negatively impact the coal industry surface, Appalachian legislators throw up a black sheet.

West Virginia University professor and public health researcher Dr. Michael Hendryx’s latest article, “Personal and Family Health in Rural Areas of Kentucky With and Without Mountaintop Coal Mining,” appeared in the online Journal of Rural Health a couple of days ago. The study immediately gained the attention of Kentucky media, and supporters of the coal industry have been quick to write off Hendryx’s methods and conclusions — they just haven’t gotten around to reading it yet.

Hendryx has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles. He’s the director of the West Virginia Rural Health Research Center and after receiving a Ph.D. in psychology, he completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Methodology at the University of Chicago. Little of that seems to matter, however, because much of his research is concentrated on poor health in Appalachian coal-mining communities, especially those where mountaintop removal takes place.

Like other studies Hendryx has conducted, the eastern Kentucky-focused article relies on comparing data gathered in counties with mountaintop removal to data from counties without it. More than 900 residents of Rowan and Elliott counties (no mountaintop removal) and Floyd County (mountaintop removal) were asked similar questions about their family health history and incidents of cancer to those that the U.S. Center for Disease Control uses in gathering data.

After ruling out factors including tobacco use, income, education and obesity, the study found that residents of Floyd County suffer a 54 percent higher rate of death from cancer, and dramatically higher incidences of pulmonary and respiratory diseases over the past five years than residents of Elliott and Rowan counties.

These results should surprise no one, least of all the families in Floyd County that participated in the study. Yet somehow, supporters of the widespread use of mountaintop removal still refuse to consider that blowing up mountains might impact human health.

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Lesson Learned: The Buffalo Creek Flood

Tuesday, February 26th, 2013 | Posted by Brian Sewell

dam

Inspecting the Aftermath: Residents of Buffalo creek worried constantly about the stability of the slurry dams upstream. Nothing was done. Photo courtesy of West Virginia State Archives.

I woke up this morning to a frozen world. Fog and ice descended on the hills above Boone, N.C., last night and are still waiting around for the thaw. It was silent other than the periodic crack of a branch and the following echo that bounced around the hills. Stepping outside after reading Ken Ward Jr.’s remembrance of the Buffalo Creek Flood, I wondered if this stillness was similar to what the residents of communities in Logan County, W.Va., felt that morning 41 years ago today.

To contain the refuse of a coal preparation plant operated by Buffalo Mining Co., a series of three dams were built upstream from the communities along Buffalo Creek in the 1950s and 60s, as Logan County continued to grow into one of southern West Virginia’s prolific coal-producing counties. Dam No. 3, the largest, stood 60 feet above the pond and downstream dams below. When it gave way on the cold morning of Feb. 26, 1972, the others collapsed instantly.

The poor construction and regulation of coal waste impoundments that precipitated the Buffalo Creek Flood intensified during boom times when coal preparation plants used more water and produced more slurry just to keep up with coal production. As Jack Spadaro, a former superintendent at MSHA’s Mine Health and Safety Academy, told me for a story last year, “All along, as these dams were being built, they weren’t really constructed using any engineering methods. They were simply dumped, filled across the valley.”

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N.C. Rep. Pricey Harrison to Make Case for Federal Environmental Protections

Thursday, February 14th, 2013 | Posted by Brian Sewell

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North Carolina Rep. Pricey Harrison will testify at a House subcommittee hearing on the states' role in environmental protection.

On Friday morning, North Carolina Rep. Pricey Harrison will testify before a House hearing on “the role of the states in protecting the environment under current law.” It’s an area she knows a lot about – in 2007, Harrison introduced a bill to prohibit utilities in North Carolina from purchasing or burning coal from mountaintop removal mines.

Subcommittee members will hear testimony on issues related to current laws including the Safe Drinking Water Act and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act under which states are given the primary authority to regulate wastewater and coal ash pollution.

Watch Rep. Pricey Harrison’s testimony and the hearing Friday at 9:30 a.m. here.

During tomorrow’s hearing, Harrison will likely focus on the concerns of North Carolinians surrounding coal ash and the state’s failure to adequately protect communities and local waterways. The problem of coal ash is growing in North Carolina, and even as Duke Energy begins to retire ancient coal-fired power plants, the state has no clear plan on how to deal with legacy ash disposal sites that will remain long after plants are closed.

Learn about the hazards and history of coal ash sites in North Carolina and across the Southeast.

Duke merged with Progress Energy last year to become the largest utility in the country. Meanwhile, the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources is coming off a fresh round of budget cuts, and faces continued uncertainty if North Carolina lawmakers continue on their current path.

Adding insult to injury, nearly every step of the process to bring fracking to North Carolina has been haphazardly handled. Now, the state General Assembly has introduced a law to circumvent the rule-making commission it put in place, you know, if it isn’t moving fast enough.

North Carolina has a history of environmental leadership, but recent proposals in the state legislature, including a reckless plan to remove all the members of several environmental commissions, are threatening to reverse that trend.

Lawmakers are on an anti-regulatory bender in the Tarheel State. And without federal oversight North Carolinians will be at risk as underfunded state agencies work to enforce environmental rules while finding ways to prevent the next budget cut.

New Report Explores the Frontiers of Energy Efficiency

Saturday, January 19th, 2013 | Posted by Brian Sewell

A new report from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy explores the next generation of energy efficiency. Each year, the council releases a state scorecard ranking states based on energy efficiency policy and programs. Graphic from ACEEE

After combing through the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy’s far-reaching report, Frontiers of Energy Efficiency: Next Generation Programs Reach for High Energy Savings, it would be hard not to have high hopes for a more efficient future.

Surveying 22 residential, commercial and industrial energy savings programs, the Frontiers of Energy Efficiency report estimates that advances in energy efficiency could reduce forecasted electricity use by as much as 27 percent by 2030.

“Natural gas isn’t the only abundant energy resource in this country — we’ve also discovered deep reservoirs of energy efficiency,” Dan York, ACEEE utilities program director, and lead-author of the report says. “Even as tried and true energy efficiency measures become commonplace, we continue to dig deeper and find new technologies and practices plus new program approaches to unlock further opportunities to achieve large energy savings.”

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More Southeastern Coal Units Scheduled to Retire

Monday, January 7th, 2013 | Posted by Brian Sewell

Georgia Power's Plant Bowen (above) has been upgraded with pollution-reducing scrubbers, but many units are uneconomical to upgrade due to low cost natural gas and other economic factors.

Georgia Power, the largest subsidiary of Atlanta, Ga.-based Southern Co., announced it is seeking to retire 15 coal- and oil-fired units at four plants across the state.

The utility cited several contributing factors, including current and future economic conditions, low natural gas prices and the cost of compliance with future environmental regulations, for its decision to retire the aging units, some of which have been in operation since 1950.

Here is a quote from Georgia Power President and CEO Paul Bowers issued in a press statement today:

“We recognize the significant impact that these retirements will have on the local communities and we took that into account when making these decisions. These decisions were made after extensive analysis and are necessary in order for us to maintain our commitment to provide the most reliable and affordable electricity to our customers. We are in the midst of a significant transition in our fleet that will result in a more diverse fuel portfolio – including nuclear, 21st century coal, natural gas, renewables and energy efficiency – to ensure we maintain our commitment for generations to come.”

Many of the units slated for retirement will be converted to natural gas or biomass. Additionally, the company says it will convert a coal-fired unit from Central Appalachian Coal to Powder River Basin coal.

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A New Year, New Plants for Duke Energy

Friday, January 4th, 2013 | Posted by Brian Sewell

Duke Energy's 825-megawatt Cliffside Steam Station Unit 6 in Mooresboro, N.C., which began commercial operation Dec. 30, 2012, could be the last coal plant built in the state.

As we ring in the New Year, Duke Energy is touting three facilities that came online at the end of 2012 with a combined capacity of 2,365 megawatts of new generation. The newly operational units include the Cliffside Power Station Unit 6, and natural gas-fired units at the Dan River Power Station and the H.F. Lee Plant.

The new unit at Cliffside, which Duke calls “state-of-the-art” and “the cleanest pulverized coal plant in the country,” could be the last coal-burning unit to be built in the state due to cost-prohibitive regulations on new coal plants. It began commercial operation on Dec. 30, replacing four 1940s-era coal units that were retired in October 2011.

Located about an hour west of Charlotte, N.C., in Cleveland County, plans for the Cliffside Power Station expansion were mired in controversy beginning in 2007. Much of the criticism was aimed at the N.C. Utilities Commission, which was seen as rushing the permitting process for the new units at Cliffside. Thousands of letters and comments by North Carolina residents were sent to the commission opposing the $2.2 billion project. Eventually, only one of the two proposed units was approved by the commission.

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A Physician’s Take on Coal Pollution

Tuesday, December 4th, 2012 | Posted by Brian Sewell

"I look at the attacks on EPA as a war on health … The Environmental Protection Agency is working mightily and against increasing odds to really make important public health decisions that are protective of human health and benefit everyone." - Dr. Alan Lockwood in an interview with Earthjustice.

A few weeks after releasing our report, The Human Cost of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining, and helping launch the No More Excuses campaign through iLoveMountains.org, I was turned on to a interview about the impacts to human health during various stages of the coal use cycle.

On Earthjustice’s Down to Earth podcast, Jessica Knoblauch spoke with Dr. Alan Lockwood, the co-chair of the Physicians for Social Responsibility’s Environment and Health Committee and the author of the new book, The Silent Epidemic: Coal and the Hidden Threat to Health.

For its short length, the interview does a great job of touching on coal’s impacts, the importance of regulations that protect human health, and why Lockwood feels it is his responsibility as a physician to educate others in the medical community, legislators and the general public about the true cost of coal. Listen to the full interview below, or read the transcript here.

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Don’t Depress, Divest — Reflections on 350.org’s Climate Change Roadshow

Wednesday, November 21st, 2012 | Posted by Brian Sewell

Executive director of The Sierra Club, Michael Brune, speaks at the 350.org "Do the Math" tour stop in Durham, N.C.

On Monday, author and environmentalist Bill McKibben and 350.org’s climate change roadshow, the “Do the Math” tour, packed the Page Auditorium at Duke University. The energy in the room was high, the crowd was diverse and full of familiar faces, and maybe I’m just biased, but my younger brother and I couldn’t help but recognize the strength of North Carolina’s environmental community. As we settled into our seats, the house lights dimmed and, anticipating McKibben’s speech, the fellow sitting behind us whispered, “If he gets too gloom and doom, I’m leaving.”

McKibben has become well-known for presenting the stark reality of climate change and the challenges we face in the simplest terms possible. By his own admission as he took the stage, his basic role in life “is to bum people out.” Fortunately, for the group behind me and any other eco-anxious attendees, the “Do the Math” tour isn’t about gloom and doom, it’s about getting down to brass tacks. It’s about going on the offensive, and after fossil fuel companies. Or as McKibben said, the “fossil fuel industry is wrecking the future, so we’re going to take away their money.”

That’s exactly the message of the “Do the Math” tour: If it is not OK to wreck the planet, it is not OK to profit from it. So we, especially universities and large institutions, should divest from them. McKibben put it more eloquently in his most recent column for Orion magazine when he wrote that “It’s completely nonsensical for [universities] to pay for educations with investments that will guarantee there’s no planet on which to make that learning count. Pension funds can’t sensibly safeguard people’s retirements by investing in companies that wreck the future.”

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Sustaining Healthy Appalachian Communities

Friday, November 16th, 2012 | Posted by Brian Sewell

Editor’s Note: Wendy Johnston is a sixth generation West Virginian from Mercer County and the granddaughter and great granddaughter of coal miners. Her post is the second in a series of guest blogs coinciding with our “No More Excuses” campaign on iLoveMountains.org, where we ask impacted Appalachians why President Obama should make ending mountaintop removal a priority in his second term. We’re happy to feature her story here.

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"Our plea is this: please quit pitting neighbor against neighbor in a fabricated war against a finite resource, support our sustainable business ventures, invest in the future of our children so that they can stay in healthy Appalachian communities."

“Oh the West Virginia hills how majestic and how grand, with their summits bathed in glory like our Prince Emmanuel’s land. Is it any wonder then that my heart with rapture fills, as I stand once more with loved ones on those West Virginia hills?”

That is a verse from the state song of West Virginia. As a child I can remember feeling so proud every time I sang this song. As a college student living away from my family this song made me feel closer to the hills that seemed so very far away, and as a young mother just moving home after a long absence I could not wait to teach my children the song that would be their state song. Little did I know that one day the words to this song may not be true, that our majestic mountain summits would someday be destroyed and that even our loved ones gone on before us would have their resting places disturbed.

Mountaintop removal has put in jeopardy more than just those mountain summits though. This form of mining has destroyed entire communities, poisoned water systems, polluted our air and caused one of the largest health emergencies in our nation’s history.

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Congratulations to our conservation allies on a major victory in the fight to end mountaintop removal!

Thursday, November 15th, 2012 | Posted by Brian Sewell

Patriot Coal Co., one of the largest coal companies operating in Central Appalachia, today announced it will phase out mountaintop removal mining coal mining over the next several years, saying its decision is in the “best interests of the company and the communities where it operates.”

The announcement is the result of an agreement between Patriot and environmental and community groups who have won a series of legal victories to force Patriot to clean up selenium pollution from its coal mines.

Appalachian Voices sends a hearty congratulations to Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, the Sierra Club, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy — and especially to Joe Lovett and Appalachian Mountain Advocates — for this unprecedented victory, which is the result of more than a decade of hard work and brilliant legal strategy.

Credit is also due to Patriot’s President and CEO Ben Hatfield for acknowledging the significant impact that mountaintop removal mines have on nearby communities and the environment.

Despite dozens of scientific studies demonstrating severe environmental and health impacts of mountaintop removal coal mining, this is the first time a major operator of mountaintop removal mines has acknowledged those impacts.

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Moving Appalachia Forward!

Thursday, November 8th, 2012 | Posted by Brian Sewell

Editor’s Note: As part of the launch of the “No More Excuses” campaign on iLoveMountains.org, we asked people whose lives have been directly impacted by mountaintop removal coal mining to contribute their thoughts on why President Obama should make ending mountaintop removal a priority in his second term.

The first in the series is a reflection by Nick Mullins, who was born and raised in southwestern Virginia and, until recently, worked at an underground coal mine there. Nick is now studying at Berea College in eastern Kentucky and blogs on the web site he created, The Thoughtful Coal Miner.

What are the Appalachian Mountains? Are they simply huge mounds of dirt and rock covered by forests? Are they containers for vast resources of energy and wealth? To my family — who have called the Appalachian Mountains home for ten generations — the mountains are much, much more. The mountains are our life, our heritage and our happiness. They are our shelters, our providers of clean water. They are a place where community and being a neighbor is more than just living beside someone.

Unfortunately, there are also those who see our mountains only as a source of wealth, rather than as part of our homes and our culture. They see them as obstacles to profit, and the people of Appalachia as the labor resource to harvest it.

Every day more blasts are detonated and more miles of freshwater streams are destroyed by mountaintop removal mining operations in the mountains where I was raised. The clean water that families once depended upon is now and forever stained and polluted.

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On the Air, Dispelling the Many Myths of Coal

Monday, October 29th, 2012 | Posted by Brian Sewell

Hear an interview with Appalachian Voices' Matt Wasson dispelling the myths of coal on Sea Change radio.

A few weeks ago, listeners of Sea Change Radio, a syndicated show and podcast covering the shift to sustainability, were treated to an impromptu debate and discussion between Appalachian Voices’ Matt Wasson and host Alex Wise.

We know full well the ecological devastation and economic inequites caused by mountaintop removal coal mining, and it seems Wise does too. But you’ll likely enjoy hearing him challenge Matt with an assortment of industry talking points, most of which have been parroted by Congress and the media over the last several months.

“Do you cringe when you hear the term clean coal?,” Wise asks at the beginning of the show. But it’s not just the concept that coal is clean Matt takes on. Another is Central Appalachian coal’s “abundance.” As recent as a few years ago, coal produced around half of America’s electricity. But as mining conditions continue to deteriorate and the most accessible coal seams are mined out. For each of the past 15 years, the Energy Information Administration has dramatically over-projected Appalachian coal production.

Central Appalachian coal reserves are declining, and that should surprise no one. Still, West Virginia Coal Association President Bill Raney has gotten a lot of press recently for simply saying “we mined the low-hanging fruit a long time ago.”

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Worried about Water? The EPA’s New Tool Can Help

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012 | Posted by Brian Sewell

Maps provide a valuable perspective of the lay of the land, the ability to identify local waterways, their length and proximity to urban or agricultural areas, and their connectivity as they wrap around hills or snake through open plains. But there was always something you couldn’t learn about rivers and streams near your community by just looking at a map, at least until now.

On the 40th Anniversary of the Clean Water Act last week, Appalachian Voices was so caught up celebrating with the release of our “Clean Water Act at 40” report and video, we almost missed the release of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ingenious, easy-to-use website and mobile app, “How’s My Waterway?” Just enter your town, or let the tool find your location, and you’ll see a map like most others. But in a few clicks, you can find out which of your local waterways are polluted — and for those that are, what’s being done about it.

Once a river or stream is selected, “How’s My Waterway?” provides a rundown on the type of pollution reported for that waterway. Keep clicking and you’ll find a wealth of technical information and reports with descriptions of each type of water pollutant, likely sources and potential health risks. Pretty cool, huh?

Checking up on my local waterways using the EPA's new "How's My Waterway" tool.

So cool, that I’ve been digging into water data that I didn’t even realize was available. After letting the tool find my home in downtown Boone, I zoomed in on the Middle and East forks of the New River where they run through the eastern edge of town. According to the 2010 data used in creating “How’s My Waterway?”, both stretches of water are impaired for aquatic life. Looking at the map, the streams border the Boone Golf Course.

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Report Exposes How Big Coal, Electric Utility Money Dominates Virginia Politics and Policy

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012 | Posted by Brian Sewell

How devoted is Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell to dirty energy donations? Read our report to find out.

In advance of the Governor’s Energy Conference that is sponsored by Dominion Virginia Power, Alpha Natural Resources and Appalachian Power Company, Appalachian Voices and our allies released a white paper highlighting the influence that coal companies and utilities wield over Virginia energy policy.

“The top sponsors of the energy conference are also top sponsors of Virginia’s election campaigns,” said Tom Cormons, Virginia Director for Appalachian Voices. “Unfortunately, these companies dominate Virginia’s energy policy, just as they dominate the conference agenda. This harms consumers and taxpayers, and it may be the single greatest impediment to transitioning the commonwealth to a cleaner, healthier energy future.”

Analyzing more than a decade of publicly available data, the report draws the connection between the campaign contributions and corporate gifts from these and other dirty energy companies, and the poor record of Virginia in advancing energy efficiency and renewable programs compared to other states.

The report goes on to criticize the state’s voluntary Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard, which Chesapeake Climate Action Network Virginia State Director Beth Kemler calls “the holy grail of corporate handouts.” The misguided RPS program set marks that Dominion has been able to meet without building any wind or solar projects in Virginia. By meeting the RPS goals, Dominion qualifies for a bonus that will end up costing customers approximately $76 million over two years.

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