Some of the nation’s top environmental scientists are calling on the Obama administration to end the destructive practice of mountaintop coal mining, saying that the environmental holocaust it creates is irreversible.
In an article appearing in the journal Science tomorrow, the scientists will present new evidence they say “unequivocally documents More…
If you did a free association test on political insiders and said “Robert Byrd,” 90 percent of them would probably respond immediately with “coal.” The Democratic senator from West Virginia has undergone some major transformations over his record-setting career — most notably from KKK member to semi-reliable liberal — More…
The collision between environmental protection and coal extraction is nothing new to the Appalachian states, which are home to some of the largest coal deposits in the world. But in the middle of an unemployment crisis — and with a new administration showing signs of cracking down harshly More…
As Kate pointed out a few weeks back, the Environmental Protection Agency earlier this month stalled 79 applications for new surface mines in the Appalachian Mountains, citing concerns that those operations would harm local water quality. Today, the agency went a step further, announcing in a More…
The EPA just issued a statement announcing that they have extended the review period for 79 surface mining permit applications in Appalachia. This means that the permits will not be streamlined for approval, and is in accordance with the Obama administration’s memorandum issued in June to subject coal-mining permits More…
The Environmental Protection Agency last week quietly asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers “to suspend, revoke or modify” the coal mining permit for the largest mountaintop removal operation in West Virginia, the Charleston Gazette reported today. In turn, the Army Corps has asked a federal More…
No plans for Labor Day? The coal industry has you covered.
At no cost to the public, the heavyweights of the industry are putting on the Friends of America Rally, a one-day country music extravaganza in Southern West Virginia featuring the talents of Hank Williams Jr. More…
A federal judge today blocked the Obama administration’s efforts overturn a Bush administration rule allowing coal companies to dump their mining waste in mountain streams.
The ruling is a victory for Appalachian mountaintop removal operations, where the peaks of mountains are literally lopped off with dynamite More…
Whatever else there is to be said about mountaintop mining (and there’s plenty), no one can deny that it makes a place ugly. How could it not? The technique involves the blasting away of mountain peaks to get at the coal inside, leaving oceans More…
Missed this over the long holiday weekend, but The Washington Post on Friday published a biting op-ed from Robert Kennedy Jr. in which the prominent environmental activist calls mountaintop coal mining “the worst environmental tragedy in American history” and attacks the Obama administration for doing far too little to More…
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