By JW Randolph. Cross posted from the Appalachian Voices Front Porch Blog.
Controversial Appalachian politicians promoting mountaintop removal are in the vast minority in their own states
Joe Lovett, as he is known to do, says it best:
There is unfortunately a fundamental disconnect between what voters want and what our elected officials are giving us…We [...]

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Today is the statewide call in day asking the EPA to save Ison Rock Ridge in Wise County, Virginia from being blasted away by mountaintop removal coal mining.
Click here for info on how to make a call and what to say.
The state agencies have already said they will allow companies to start blasting the mountain [...]

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The state of Virginia has signed off on destroying Wise County’s Ison Rock Ridge through mountaintop removal coal mining. They have OK’d the leveling of 1200 acres above several communities - home to about 1,800 local residents. Many families’ back yards abut the slopes of Ison Rock Ridge. These families could be forced to live [...]

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The following is a blog post by Betsy Shepard of Surry County, Virginia. The largest coal plant ever proposed for the state is proposed within the small town of Dendron, in Surry County and upwind of nearly 2 million people in Hampton Roads, a region already suffering from poor air quality. Somehow Betsy finds time [...]

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By GLEN BESA, printed in the Richmond Times Dispatch on July 19th, 2011.
Lately, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been under attack. Our state and country’s worst polluters, who want nothing more than to continue polluting our air and water without consequences, are lobbying members of Congress to undermine decades of environmental protections in [...]

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Cross posted from Appalachian Voices Front Porch Blog
Memory loss. Muscle weakness. Mood swings. Kidney failure. Death.
It sounds like a doctor’s report on an aging patient, and it could well be. But these are also symptoms of mercury exposure, which affects everyone—especially children.
We all know that coal is the single biggest contributor to air pollution in [...]

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Cross posted from the Appalachian Voices Front Porch Blog
Rahall Legislates that Water Stop at State Lines. Seriously.
Yesterday evening the House of Representatives passed The Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act (HR 2018), a bill that turns back the clock forty years on the environmental and public health protections in the Clean Water Act. This brazen attack [...]

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Wise Energy for Virginia is a growing coalition of national, regional and local organizations committed to securing a clean energy future for Virginia. Since 2007 Appalachian Voices, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, the Sierra Club’s Virginia Chapter, the Southern Environmental Law Center, and the Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards joined together to fight against newly proposed [...]

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In 1921, more than 10,000 coal miners marched through southern West Virginia for their right to unionize, for their right to a decent wage, for reasonable hours and other rights that we take for granted today. On Blair Mountain the march erupted into a violent skirmish between the marchers and local authorities and hired coal [...]

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This press release about today’s march is posted on behalf of our friends at the Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards in Wise County, Va.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts:
Hannah Morgan, Sierra Club, 276-494-5686
Judiana Clark, Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, 276-523-3094
Local Residents March in Downtown Appalachia to Celebrate Ison Rock Ridge and Protest Mountain’s Pending Demise
Appalachia, VA – [...]

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Sixty-seven mountains leveled and over 156,000 acres of land lost. Countless communities sickened by heavy metals and coal ash contamination. A warming planet threatens our coastlines and promises ever-increasing extreme weather events. From the cradle to the grave, coal is a dangerous source of energy. It is time to move away from coal, and on [...]

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Last week shareholders of one of the nation’s largest utilities, Dominion, which serves Virginia and 13 other states, introduced several resolutions intended to move the massive energy company toward greener energy. The shareholder resolutions included one to get Dominion to commit to installing 20% renewable energy by 2024, another would stop the planned construction of [...]

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Everyone knows that mercury is a toxic substance. We have all been told to never hold the mercury from a broken thermometer and to handle broken compact fluorescent light bulbs with care for the miniscule amount of mercury they contain. Mercury thermometers are now no longer allowed on many public school campuses. You may have [...]

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For almost a decade, residents of Alexandria have been fighting to retire GenOn’s Potomac River Coal Plant, a 61-year-old dirty power plant.
Those efforts have forced the company that owns the plant, GenOn (formerly Mirant), to set aside $34 million in an effort to contain some of the plant’s pollution, but this is not enough.  A [...]

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March 25th, 2011 was the second annual Virginia Loves Mountains Day. Instead of having a rally in one place as we did in 2010, this year we had a rally at each of the 11 US Senate district offices across the state. Over 100 people came to visit Webb and Warner’s senate staff in Hampton [...]

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