The Seminal » Senate Hearing on Mountaintop Removal Continues

By: alank Thursday June 25, 2009 11:35 pm

As devilstower at Daily Kos says, it’s mountain day:

You might not notice, what with governors going off to tango between the sheets, the health care debate rising toward a roar, protests taking place overseas, the economy still doing loop-de-loops, and a press corps that (after 8 years of scratching their heads) has looked up the definition of "follow-up question," but this was a big week for news about mountaintop removal mining. And it’s not over yet.

Senate Environment and Public Works water and wildlife subcommittee has been holding hearings on mountaintop removal and other types of surface mining practices that have long-term environmental consequences of the worst sort. The week is reviewed also by a national interest group in a post also over at Daily Kos.

Of note there is a SCOTUS decision affecting the Alaska environment that has dire implications for the future of Appalachia.

There are amendments to the Clean Water Act that would counter the effect of that decision: Appalachia Restoration Act, S. 696, and the Clean Water Protection Act, HR 1310.

The Climate Change Bill will be voted up or down today. It contains language that’s favorable to King Coal, thanks to Congressman Rick Boucher.

The Obama administration has so far been pretty vague about the direction they want to go in this area. There have been no developments since the June 11 announcement that basically amounted to compliance to a court order and an inter-agency initiative that seems to treat the surface mining destruction as a fait accompli that must be "mitigated" in some yet to be determined way. Check the information at CEQ and the Ken Ward’s take starting here.

A video of testimony today is available here. CSPAN is not covering this as far as I can tell.

There were protests today in West Virginia:

NASA climate scientist James Hansen and 30 other demonstrators were arrested in West Virginia while protesting the practice of mountaintop=removal coal mining, which Hansen says President Obama must ban as the U.S. weans itself off fossil fuels. Hansen; actress Darryl Hannah; Michael Brune, executive director of the Rainforest Action Network; and Ken Hechler, a 94-year-old former congressman, were among those arrested as they blocked traffic on a highway in front of a Massey Energy coal plant in Sundial, West Virginia. “We have to phase out greenhouse gas emissions over the next 20 years,” said Hansen. “Where should you start? Well mountaintop removal is producing only seven percent of the nation’s coal and it’s a destructive practice.” The mining technique, which involves blasting the tops off Appalachian mountains to get at coal seams below, has buried more than 800 miles of streams in mining debris and has severely damaged or destroyed an area of forest nearly as large as Delaware. Protesters have recently carried out acts of civil disobedience against companies involved in mountaintop removal, including chaining themselves to mining equipment.

Updates will be added to the comments section as they occur.

11 Comments

Spotlight

11 Responses to “Senate Hearing on Mountaintop Removal Continues”

selise June 26th, 2009 at 6:47 am

thank you. great diary, important topic.

Leen June 26th, 2009 at 7:05 am

In response to selise @ 1

Big Ditto alank. Thanks for keeping us up

alank June 26th, 2009 at 7:55 am

There’s also a new study following on previous ones done by Michael Hendryx on the health effects of coal mining practices that I thought would interest you. His conclusion was: The human cost of the Appalachian coal mining economy outweighs its economic benefits.

Another item of interest is a finding that mayflies are an indicator of water quality trends. Their disappearance from an ecosystem indicates very poor water quality. It’s like the canary in a coalmine. Of course, watersheds in Appalachia have taken the brunt of surface mining, so this tool has been applied there.

alank June 26th, 2009 at 11:10 am

Here’s a speech given by president Obama pitching for the vote in favor of the climate change bill. As one wag noted, “Just more words that we must read like tea leaves.”

alank June 26th, 2009 at 11:30 am

Again, an addendum to the above, in this case a preamble to the act of civil disobedience reported above, reprinted in today’s Guardian: A plea to President Obama – end mountaintop coal mining.

alank June 26th, 2009 at 12:11 pm

So, the climate change bill passed, 217-205.

alank June 26th, 2009 at 12:18 pm

…at least in round 1.

alank June 26th, 2009 at 12:43 pm

This is very interesting: White House refuses to disclose information on meetings with coal executives,

Is the White House taking a page from Dick Cheney’s playbook by refusing to disclose who’s visiting the West Wing to lobby on energy and climate issues?

Much like the preceding administration, Team Obama is fighting to keep White House visitor logs secret. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a nonpartisan watchdog group, recently requested that the Secret Service make the White House logs public, asking specifically for access to records of visits by coal company executives. The request was denied, and the group is now filing suit.

alank June 26th, 2009 at 1:01 pm

Here’s an eyewitness account of the senate hearing on mtr: Subcommittee Hearing on Mountaintop Removal

Next was organizer Maria Gunnoe, who was by far the best speaker who really put a face to the issue, and made Hauffman’s arguments look like a joke(yeah I’m biased). Really though you could tell why Gunnoe was worthy of an award and was an environmental leader in her community. She spoke very boldly and didn’t hold anything back, talking about mountaintop removal mining as providing “temporary jobs and temporary energy”, and how people quite frankly can’t live around this kind of practice because of the blasting, the chokingly poor air quality, and the terrible floods. Also, since the soil is so messed up, there’s no filtration of stormwater runoff into the watersheds, which along with all the coal pollution and sludge makes the water pollution terrible. Gunnoe’s closing statement was the highlight, declaring that “the coal will run out, we’ll be left with no water, no air, no jobs, and no energy”. I looked over at the DEP guy and he looked like someone had just handed him a pink slip. Gunnoe got a standing ovation, and I felt compelled to join in the clapping.

MarkH June 26th, 2009 at 6:15 pm

Surface mining sounds safer than deep mining, but the effects (at least in many cases) have been disastrous. The coal companies have felt the law gave them carte blanche to run over small communities. Then they run television advertisements which show reclaimed lands to prevent the wider public from realizing how bad things are.

It’s related to the climate change issue since coal is involved, but really it’s a straightforward environmental protection and human safety issue.

If you destroy the environment and make it unfit for habitation, then you are truly a sinner of the worst kind.