From
EarthJustice.org:
On August 24, 2007, the Bush administration proposed repealing a longstanding environmental protection law in its relentless campaign to allow the coal mining industry to continue "mountaintop removal" mining.
In mountaintop removal mining, coal companies actually blow up entire mountaintops and dump millions of tons of waste into nearby streams, burying them forever. This parting gift from the administration to its coal industry friends would allow coal companies to continue their assault on the forests, streams, and communities of Appalachia.
The Buffer Zone Rule of 1983 prohibits coal mining activities from disturbing areas within a 100-foot "buffer" of an intermittent or perennial stream. The buffer zone rule states that coal mining activities cannot disturb these sensitive areas unless water quality and quantity will not be adversely impacted.
The new rule would allow companies to dump massive amounts of waste directly into streams -- nearly 2,000 miles of mountain streams in Appalachia have been buried by mine waste, wiping out these streams and causing flooding and destruction in the surrounding communities. The Bush administration's failure to enforce the buffer zone law led to an additional 535 miles of stream impacts nationwide between 2001 and 2005. Thus, the repeal of the buffer zone rule would allow more than 1,000 miles of streams to be destroyed each decade into the future.
...(more at link)
You can take action
here to send a comment to the Office of Surface Mining.
If you think this is a worthy effort, please K & R and spread the word. Thanks!
(Edited for premature posting problem.)
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