Friends,

As part of a national day of action to stop mountaintop removal coal mining, 14 activists staged a sit-in at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) headquarters in Washington, D.C., while 50 others  rallied in front of the building. They are asking the EPA to take immediate action to stop the mountaintop removal blasting that began this week on Coal River Mountain, WV, the site of a proposed wind farm.

Please help us promote the action by posting our blog to your facebook profile, tweeting it and sending it to five friends. While President Obama spent the week trumpeting his administration’s support for clean energy, Massey Energy Company began dynamiting Coal River Mountain in West Virginia, which is the site of a proposed 328-megawatt wind farm. Coal River Mountain gained national notoriety after a study showed that its peaks and ridges have enough wind power potential to provide 70,000 households with electricity, support 700 long-term green jobs and give back $1.7 million in annual county taxes. Massey Energy began dynamiting those peaks this week in preparation for a massive mountaintop removal project. The group of environmentalists delivered a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson asking the EPA to intervene quickly and decisively to save Coal River Mountain for the safety of the community and the protection of their water.  

Please help us promote this action by posting our blog to your facebook profile and sending it to five friends.

Mountaintop removal (MTR) has been called the worst of the worst coal mining. MTR decapitates Appalachian peaks, denudes lush forests and dumps debris into valley streams—destroying or damaging more than a thousand miles of mountain waterways to date. 

In recent months, the EPA has set out a number of new restrictions on the mining practice, including a recent decision to initiate a veto on the Spruce Mine in West Virginia due to water quality impacts—the first time the agency has done this with an existing valley fill permit. Environmentalists believe that the urgency of the Coal River Mountain case necessitates that the EPA intervene and use their full authority to protect the Coal River Watershed.

In the case of Coal River Mountain, MTR mining is not only destroying one of the last intact mountains in the area, but it is also creating blasting less than 100 yards from the largest coal sludge impoundment, an earthen dam, in the country. Massey Energy’s own assessment indicates that if the impoundment is breached, more than eight billion gallons of coal slurry would spill out endangering hundreds of people who would have less than five minutes to evacuate.

We're in a fight to save Coal River Mountain and stop mountaintop removal.  Today, these 14 brave activists put their bodies on the line to end it once and for all.  Many more actions like this will be happening in the coming days. 

Please help us promote it by posting our blog to your facebook profile and sending it to five friends.

For the mountains,
Scott Parkin, Rainforest Action Network