The Bush Administration released a draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on a proposal to eliminate the Stream Buffer Zone, which, if passed, would enshrine a destructive practice known as mountaintop removal coal mining (see photo)— yet BEFORE allowing a public comment period on this EIS to even start —the administration issued the proposed RULE CHANGE!
THIS is an insult to citizens, and a clear demonstration of the Bush Administration’s attempts to enshrine mountaintop removal for the coal industry.
Read on for talking points and additional actions. * NEW!!! Visit 700mountains.org to send comments to OSM and your representatives with one click!
* CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE & SENATORS AND TELL THEM:
+ That Congress should insert itself into this process and take an active leadership role by telling the Bush Administration to “Pull the Rule” click HERE to get your representative’s phone, see below for more talking points.
Take more action:
***Submit your comments in the form of a “letter to the editor” to your local newspaper
***Learn about & Support the Clean Water Protection Act
Take Action: Talking Points
- Already, nearly 2000 miles of mountain streams in Appalachia have been buried by mountaintop removal waste, wiping out these streams and causing flooding and destruction in the surrounding communities.
- The current stream buffer zone rule is meant to protect communities and watersheds from hazardous valley fills.
- Rather then enforcing the current buffer zone law, the Bush Administration has decided to change the rule.
- The draft Office of Surface Mining (OSM) Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) does not take a “hard” look at the required NEPA guidelines to meet TN response.
- The current administration is pursuing anti-environmental policies to allow coal companies to “remove” the tops of mountains and “dispose” of them in the streams below, thus destroying thousands of miles of streams in Appalachia.
- Lapses in the enforcement of the stream buffer zone rule, a rule which makes it illegal for mining operations to disrupt an area within 100 feet of streams, have allowed significantly more than the reported 1200 miles of streams to be buried or degraded by mining waste.
- According to the U.S. Office of Surface Mining’s ( OSM ) own figures, 1,208 miles of streams in Appalachia were destroyed from 1992 to 2002, and regulators approved 1,603 more valley fills between 2001 and 2005 that will destroy 535 more miles of streams.
For updates and more check out: http://www.climatechangeroot.blogspot.com/
Learn more about groups fighting mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia
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