Take Action: Call Your Senators to Help End Mountaintop Removal

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Ask Your Senators to Co-Sponsor the "Appalachia Restoration Act"

More than 2,000 miles of Appalachian streams have been destroyed by mountaintop removal mining operations and are being filled with mining waste. As to date, this practice is legal. To stop this devastation of the nation's waterways, Senators Cardin and Alexander have introduced the Appalachia Restoration Act - a simple piece of legislation that restores the original intent of the Clean Water Act to clarify that mountaintop removal mining waste can not be dumped into streams.

We need your Senators to co-sponsor this piece of legislation to ensure that it will pass. Please call your senators today and ask them to co-sponsor! You can use the talking points below. Then please fill out the form on the right to let us know you called.

Call 1-866-544-7573 - This will take you to the Congressional switchboard, toll-free. Ask for your Senators' offices. If you don't know who your two Senators are, simply tell them which state you live in.

Subject:

(Edit Letter Below)

I am calling to ask you to become a co-sponsor of the Cardin-Alexander "Appalachian Restoration Act" (S 696). This bill is critical for protecting Appalachia's waters from being polluted and buried by waste created during mountaintop removal coal mining.

Mountaintop removal mining involves clear-cutting native hardwood forests, blowing up entire mountaintops, and dumping millions of tons of debris into nearby streams in order to get at coal seams that lie deep beneath the surface.

Already, more than 2,000 miles of Appalachian streams have been destroyed by mountaintop removal mining operations.

For 25 years, the Clean Water Act (CWA) allowed for the granting of permits to place "fill material" into waters of the United States, provided that the primary purpose of the "filling" was not for waste disposal. As such, the CWA prohibited mountaintop removal operations from using the nation's waterways as waste disposal sites. That changed in 2002, when the Army Corps of Engineers, under the direction of the Bush administration and without congressional approval, altered its longstanding definition of "fill material" to include mining waste. This change accelerated the devastating practice of mountaintop removal coal mining and the destruction of more than 2,000 miles of Appalachian streams.

The Appalachia Restoration Act (S 696) restores the original intent of the Clean Water Act to clarify that mountaintop removal mining waste can not be dumped into streams.

Passing this legislation would help end the destruction of the Appalachian Mountains, home to our nation's most diverse forests and streams, the headwaters of the drinking water supply of many eastern cities, and a unique and valuable American culture that has endured for generations.

Please co-sponsor the Appalachia Restoration Act (S 696). Thank you for your attention to this important issue.

[Your name]
[Your address]

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Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining