Although, you are right in that companies are often granted variances to the law which technically make their actions legal – but these loopholes put in place by a corrupt government and ambivalent enforcement agencies aren’t helping our communities, they make them less safe.

I’m sure you have a nice home and maybe you are glad they strip mined it, and that you have nice clean water on your land — not all the stories are terrible around mining –and maybe you hope that all the mountains you are looking out on will be strip mined too.

But please don’t assume that I want that for my home in West Virginia — or that your neighbors want their mountains strip mined just because you enjoyed the process so much. And please don’t assume that because you had a good experience, that everyone else will. In fact, for every happy story about MTR there are many more stories of people losing their heritage, homes, and clean water, and even after years of court battles not receiving compensation for their terrible losses.

Wade Rose

To me it seems that the EPA’s goal is to mitigate the damages done by our system (that’s being optimistic), not change it in any meaningful way. Sort of like if there were a Peace Agency that regulated the shape of bullets and missiles, and did not challenging their use. Lets continue pressuring the EPA to live up to its name, but if we put all of our eggs in the “EPA save us” basket, then we have sealed our defeat.

Lisa Jackson told us EPA was back on the job at Power Shift. She’s said multiple times that science, not industry interests, will rule at EPA again. So what the F is this bull about expecting to not find anything at all concerning about blowing up hundreds of more mountains in Appalachia?!