I just returned back to our temporary HQ at the church parish hall down the Street from the House and Senate Buildings here on Capitol Hill.
I wish I can have Jane from Wiles County Virginia sit down and talk to you and tell you what it is like to live with the blowing up of mountains and where over 25% of her County has been surface striped mined. Wendy from West VA. operates a CSA farm and there is an application out for Mountain Mining 2 miles from her mom & dad's house.
Then there is Dorothy who brought us photos of the layers of coal dust covering her porch and newspaper stories of the boulders flying out from the Mountain Top Blasts that have killed people or crashed thru roofs in houses. In 2004 3 year old Jeremy Davidson was asleep in his bed when a boulder rolled off a rock slope where there was coal company road access construction work at night happening above their house -- and the boulder smashed thru the wall of his house and killed little Jeremy.
Then imagine dirty water coming out of your taps in the kitchen and bathroom thatsmells like rotten eggs and looks like nasty foul tomato soup mixed with mud. Picture miles of mountains blown off and nothing left but a moon scape...familes forced to move...this is all due to strip mining on steroids! Please help-- The people here who came from Appalachia. They are counting on you and me to help stop this destruction.
Coal from blowing up mountain tops in Appalachia account for less than 5% of U.S. electricty generation according to the 2010 Department of Energy data. Many of the layers of thin coal seams lie deep below the surface and blowing up the mountains to reach the coal means scraping off the the trees and dumping them into the valleys or burning them then blowing up the mountains as far as 500 to 800 feet deep using millions of pounds of explosives- then the coal dust comes DAILY-- then the drinking water if polluted by heavy metals including aresenic, lead, mercury is ruined. The devestation cannot be repaired nor the trauma and harm suffered on the people of Appalachia be mitigated.
The Clean Water Protection Act can do the right thing for the people of Appalachia. No in this country should have to suffer the horrors of what our fellow American families in Appalachia are living with.
We are working hard to convince Congress to do the right thing and sponsor the Clean Water Protection Act that will be introduced into the House tomorrow and we are asking for co-sponsors and with the help of your phone callsyou can help by asking your Congressman to co-sponsor this Clean Water Protection Act-- The Bill # will be assigned tomorrow-- but no need to wait -- just please get to the phones and ask your Congressman to co-sponsor this Clean Water Protection Act--
for more info ----
http://www.ilovemountains.org/
