Dear Mr. President: Stop mountaintop removal mining

Americans are living under siege, subject to booming blasts and toxic fallout as mountains disappear in the race for cheap coal.

Fri, Feb 20 2009 at 4:56 PM EST

There use to be a mountain here. Photo credit: Flicker user Unanimous graphics

Bo Webb of Naoma, W.V., wrote a pretty amazing letter to President Obama asking him to stop the evil practice of mountaintop removal mining, which recently won a victory in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court in Richmond, Va., that will make it easier for mining companies to blast open mountains and bury valleys to get at seams of coal.

Here is a quick excerpt; swing over to Alternet to read the whole thing. It's worth the click.

The mountain above me, once a thriving forest, has been blasted into a pile of rock and mud rubble. Two years ago, it was covered with rich black topsoil and abounded with hardwood trees, rhododendrons, ferns and flowers. The understory thrived with herbs such as ginseng, black cohosh, yellow root and many other medicinal plants. Black bears, deer, wild turkey, hawks, owls and thousands of [other] birds lived here. The mountain contained sparkling streams teeming with aquatic life and fish.

Now it is all gone. It is all dead. I live at the bottom of a mountain-top-removal coal-mining operation in the Peachtree community.

Mr. President Obama, I am writing you because we have simply run out of options. Last week, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court in Richmond, Va., overturned a federal court ruling for greater environmental restrictions on mountaintop-removal permits. Dozens of permits now stand to be rushed through. As you know, in December, the EPA under George W. Bush allowed an 11th-hour change to the stream buffer zone rule, further unleashing the coal companies to do as they please.

During your presidential campaign, you declared: "We have to find more environmentally sound ways of mining coal than simply blowing the tops off mountains."

That time is now. Or never.

Read the whole letter, then head over to Whitehouse.gov and tell President Obama that the mountaintop removal mining madness has to stop.

The Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition is another great resource in the fight against mountaintop removal mining.