>>>DO THIS TODAY! Help Save The Earth from Greenhouse Gas Pollution and Environmental Destruction

[demobabe]

This is very simple and will take less than 5 minutes of your time.

What is up? The Bush administration’s Office of Surface Mining (OSM) wants to quit requiring coal operators to prove that their mountaintop removal operations will not damage streams, fish and wildlife. They want to gut the stream buffer zone rule, which says land within 100 feet of a stream cannot be disturbed by mining unless a company can prove it will not affect the water’s quality and quantity.

This rule was at the heart of major West Virginia litigation challenging mountaintop removal in the late 1990s. If the changes the Bush administration proposes are finalized, then the illegal becomes legal. State and federal “regulatory” agencies have basically overlooked the rule and allowed valley fills in perennial and intermittent streams. Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment and other lawyers for citizen groups continue to interpret the rule as banning those fills, and federal judges have agreed with us.

The proposed rule change would say the buffer zone rule does not apply to burying streams with the rubble from former mountaintops. That is, the rule doesn’t apply to valley fills and even coal sludge dams and impoundments.

Important—in all communication please note the docket number: RIN 1029-AC04.

September 20: Call-in Day to Congress

On September 20, please call your Congressperson.
Ask her or him to please contact the Office of Surface Mining to say:
--Pull the proposed buffer zone rule change and enforce the law now on the books.
--If OSM won't pull the proposed rule change and enforce the law on the books, then it must grant a 90-day extension to the comment period AND grant a public hearing in the southern West Virginia coalfields.

By 4:30 p.m. EST September 24: Please call, write or-email the Office of Surface Mining.
Tell them:
--Pull the proposed buffer zone rule change and enforce the law now on the books.
--If you won't pull the proposed rule change and enforce the law on the books, then you must grant a 90-day extension to the comment period AND give us a public hearing in the southern West Virginia coalfields.

Call or e-mail:
Dennis G. Rice
Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement
Telephone: [phone]; e-mail: [e-mail]

For written comments, write to:
OSMRE
Administrative Record
Room 252 SIB
1951 Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington DC 20240

[demobabe]

1. Kick

Call your congressperson! :)

[demobabe]

2. kick

I know this may not seem interesting to many, but this is really awful.

The coal companies are flattening out the Appalachians, killing the area and destroying the mountains themselves. The underground water is being poisoned, and huge reservoirs of toxic coal sludge are parked on these mining sites. They contain 62 lethal chemicals, and these leech into the ground. One town ended up flooded in this deadly black poison goo.

Mountaintop Removal is changing weather patterns in Appalachia, and coal burning for electricity is one of the top contributors for greenhouse gasses - rivaling all gas driven vehicles, trucks, boats, and planes in the US.

Take action here TO HELP SAVE YOUR OWN AIR. Global Warming is perhaps the biggest issue we should fighting. Yes, I know Iraq is important, too... as is Impeachment. But neither of those issues will mean much if we're in as bad of a situation as Al Gore describes.

Please call.

[demobabe]

3. Save our Earth! This is one small step that will take 2 minutes of your time.

[demobabe]

4. Only one recommend? Come on, folks! Do you hate the earth that much?

[demobabe]

5. When I called my Congresswoman...

The staffer I talked to had never heard about this issue! Never mind I'm not in West Virginia or an Appalachian state, my Congresswoman takes action on environmental issues.

[demobabe]

6. kick

:kick: