EcoLocalizer

Ashley Judd is speaking out against mountaintop removal mining, and you can too.

Here is Judd’s speech, delivered at a Kentuckians For The Commonwealth rally. The footage of strip mined mountaintops is horrifying:

According to the Sierra Club, mountaintop removal mining:

…has already buried more than 1,200 miles of streams and threatens to destroy 1.4 million acres of land by 2020. The mining poisons drinking water, lays waste to wildlife habitat, increases the risk of flooding and wipes out entire communities.

A recent federal ruling allows the Army Corps of Engineers to start mountaintop removal mining in several sites in Appalachia. This overturns a 2007 ruling that found the permits to mine the land illegal. There is a backlog of 80-90 permits that could be granted, dramatically increasing the devastating mountaintop removal mining in the area. Local activist groups and the Sierra Club are asking President Obama “to follow up on statements he had made during his campaign that were critical of mountaintop mining by reversing Bush administration policies intended to expand the practice,” according to the New York Times.
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Removing mountaintops and strip mining for coal has already wreaked environmental havoc in Appalachia, so it might sound incredible that things could get even worse. Sadly, they might.

Last Friday, the Bush administration submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) a proposal to severely weaken the stream buffer zone rule. This rule has, since 1983, prevented coal companies from disturbing areas that are 100 feet or less from Appalachian waterways. The EPA now has 30 days to review the proposed change.

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