Death of a Mountain

For years, travelers crossing the State line in West Virginia were greeted by a sign welcoming them to "Wild, Wonderful West Virginia." Recently however, those signs were replaced by new ones bearing the ominous message: "West Virginia, Open for Business."

When we first saw the new sign we were somewhat surprised and uncertain as to the meaning of its message.

Then, last Friday, we read about the Bush administration's proposal for new mountaintop removal (MTR) regulations and it all made sense.

Now we know that the sign change WAS a sign of change -- and not for the better.

Instead of promoting the Mountain State, the sign advises visitors that here in West Virginia business is paramount. And because coal IS the business of West Virginia, the people and the law must genuflect to the will of old King Coal.

For all of you flat-landers out there, MTR is a process whereby a mountaintop is literally removed -- trees leveled, critters buried alive or chased off, layers of rocks and dirt blasted, scraped, and shoved off the top of the mountain to fill in the rivers and valleys below with coal sludge and debris. This not only leaves an ugly scar where the mountain once stood, it also creates catastrophic damage to the local and regional environment. You can learn more about MTR here.

And the proposed regulations will permanently legalize MTR -- already known to be a devastating and environmentally dangerous form of coal mining.

According to Joan Mulhern, legislative counsel for the environmental group, Earthjustice:

"The proposed change will say the rule requiring buffer zones does not apply to putting excess spoil into valleys near mines -- called valley fills -- or to impoundments that coal companies build to hold slurry -- water and fine particles -- left over from processing coal."

Have you ever been to West Virginia? Have you seen the sun rise over tree covered mountain tops as they peek out over mist covered valleys?

It is a breathtakingly beautiful state!

For most folks, West Virginia is just a pretty place you gotta get through on your drive to New York or Florida. We've actually met people who don't even know that West Virginia is a state unto itself but rather they believe it is merely the Western portion of the state of Virginia!

We know exactly where and what West Virginia is because it is our home.

Here we have found our own little paradise to live out the rest of our days -- surrounded by glorious mountains -- in the house we are building from recycled materials.

Our dream of living peacefully on this mountain is threatened by the fact that we live on top of the Pittsburgh coal seam and are surrounded by coal mines of all stripes -- deep wall, long wall, surface and strip mines.

Six days a week, fleets of enormous coal trucks lumber down these long and windy roads, competing with logging trucks, that carry West Virginia's rich resources to far off places where they are sold to enrich mine owners and operators who are smart enough to live somewhere else.

Sometimes called "strip mining on steroids" MTR does to mountains exactly what the term implies:

"MTR is a relatively new form of coal mining which takes the mountain off the coal. Up to 1,000 vertical feet of local relief are blasted away to get to the thin coal seams underneath. MTR requires that the targeted land be clear-cut (de-forested) and then blasted by heavy use of explosives. The debris created is typically scraped (literally pushed) into the adjacent river valleys in what is called a valley fill. At current rates, mountaintop removal will mine over 1.4 million acres (5,700 km²) by 2010."

Not too long ago, if you wanted to see the devastation with your own eyes, you had to charter a plane to fly over the mountains. Thanks to Google Earth, you can see the ravaged mountains from the comfort of your own desk.

From space, the mountains look like the coat of a once-beautiful animal with a debilitating case of mange. The mountaintops are laced with strangely shaped bald spots, where trees give way to brushy undergrowth. Giant hunks have been bitten out of the mountainsides, revealing sores of crumbling sand, broken rock and black tar. Once-neat layers of sediment are visibly torn asunder, cascading down hillsides. Strange top-hat-shaped protrusions of land rise up sharply. For miles and miles, it looks as if someone took a giant potato peeler to the side of the range.

On hot and muggy August days like this one, millions of Americans will flip on their light switches and turn down the air conditioner without ever realizing how or why they are able to enjoy such conveniences.

Today we are asking you to take a few minutes out of your day to make a difference.

We still have about 55 days remaining to submit public comments on the proposed rule. You can send your comments by mail to the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, Administrative Record, Room 252-SIB, 1951 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. 20240, or over the Internet through the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov.

Please identify your comments by including docket number 1029-AC04 in the subject line!

We hope you will take some time out of your busy schedule to write a comment opposing the new rule. We need as much support as we can get to offset the powerful coal lobby which has many politicians, from the local to the national level, in its pocket.

This new rule is probably just a quid pro quo to Bush's big coal supporters who helped him get elected in 2000 and again in 2004:

"One of Bush’s big supporters in West Virginia, James “Buck” Harless (a Bush “Pioneer”), who raised $250,000 for Bush, had a private audience with the President at Bush’s ranch. What’s more, his grandson, James H. Harless II, was chosen as an energy policy adviser during the White House transition."

Remember, coal companies are just big corporations who only desire profits at any cost. We have seen in recent months how coal mine owners and operators will even risk the lives of miners if they think they can squeeze one last dollar out of a dilapidated mine shaft. Time and time again they have shown they will do whatever it takes to get at the coal, even to the point of choking out the the life out of our communities and the democratic process.