Citizens call to Office of Surface Mining: “Pull the Rule, Enforce the Law”

Hundreds of people turned out around Appalachia in Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania to oppose the Office of Surface Mining’s (OSM) rule change, which would weaken the current Stream Buffer Zone rule that provides 100 ft buffer zone and other protections to streams when enforced. Pretty amazing that this many turned out with only 2 weeks notice of these hearings from OSM! I attended the hearing in Knoxville, where I live, and at least 250 people turned out including many member of Save Our Cumberland Mountains and over 70 youth! Every speaker I heard spoke against the rule change and the atmosphere was really incredible with lots of people giving positive visions of a future where we don’t have to poison our water to produce energy. Check out this video to hear community members, an Oak Ridge National Labs aquatic scientist, and lots of youth talk about why they think this rule change is a really bad idea! You can still submit comments here through Nov. 23, and read on for more on news coverage of the event.

Here are some tidbits from the articles:

“Reagan Richmond, president of a UT environmental group, said more than 70 UT students came to the hearing and 30 were prepared to comment.

She argued against “enshrining coal as a major part of our energy future.”

“We’re here to say that they should enforce the rule that’s already in place,” she said, which requires a 100-foot buffer zone around streams, protecting them from mining and dumping.”

here’s a tidbit from WV article:

“John Harden, an electrician at the Hobet 21 mountaintop removal mine in Boone County, said he and his fellow workers are environmentalists who improve water quality with their mining and leave reclaimed sites in good shape and ready for development.”

wow! The coal company did a really good job of convincing this worker (and probably all of their workers) that the destruction they are making happen is actually improving water quality! There is definitely a need to provide healthy, green jobs to folks in these communities, so that they work in jobs where they can actually say that they are improving water quality! This will take a lot of work, but together we can end Mountaintop Removal coal mining and at the same time create safe, healthy, green jobs. Join the movement for Mountain Justice!

About Liz

While at the University of North Carolina, Liz led one of the first successful campus renewable energy campaigns in the southeast and won the Morris K. Udall scholarship in both 2002 & 2003. She organized the first Southeast Student Renewable Energy Conference April 2-4, 2004, to engage other Southern schools beyond UNC in energy and climate work. In the summer of 2004 she became a co-founding member of Energy Action Coalition, which she has been actively involved with since then. She is now co-chairing the Energy Action Coalition Steering Committee and coordinating the Southern Energy Network, which works with students in the Southeast on clean energy and climate initiatives as part of Energy Action Coalition's Campus Climate Challenge. In late fall 2005, she attended the UN Climate Negotiations in Montreal and helped start www.itsgettinghotinhere.org .