Not far enough.....

Coal River Mountain Watch offered the information below reminding us that we're all DOWN WIND of DIRTY COAL. 

By now you've been flooded with emails about the EPA's proposed rules to reduce power plant emissions. So mountaintop removal coal mining, the cradle of climate change, is over, right?

Wrong.

The John Amos power plant near Poca, WV.

If the rules are implemented, they will eventually reduce demand for coal burning in US power plants. But they don't address coal exports. They don't address coal used for steelmaking, such as much of the coal in Coal River Mountain. They don't address the health impacts of mountaintop removal. And they leave the specifics of compliance up to the states, many years from now.

States like West Virginia, whose politicians are already fighting the new rules, and whose regulators seem incapable of enforcing even the most modest existing laws.

So before the champagne starts to flow at the victory parties, please consider helping frontline, front-end communities like ours. Mountaintop removers are not taking a break, so we can't either. There's a lot you can do, and we urgently need your help through the summer.

Your tax deductible donation of $25 feeds a volunteer or intern for a week. $100 gets a trainer to a community meeting to help residents battle new mountaintop removal sites in their neighborhoods. And recurring monthly donations go a long way in sustaining all of our work.

You can attend the 10^th annual Mountain Justice Summer training camp, coming up June 14-22 in eastern Kentucky. Learn about administrative, legislative, and more adventurous means of tackling mountaintop removal. If you can't go to camp, you can help send someone else. $100 in fuel gets a carload of our staff and trainers to Mountain Justice camp and back. Or you can sponsor an attendee at Mountain Justice.

And those new EPA rules? You can comment here. Our position is that efficiency measures and renewable energy need to be greatly increased without delay. However, there's presently no means to make coal-controlled states like West Virginia comply. The plan also recommends increased reliance on shale gas and nuclear energy. Both have their own drawbacks, not least of which are the impacts to the air, water, land, and safety of environmental justice communities from extraction to transport to waste disposal. Fracking already takes a heavy toll on Appalachia and elsewhere, and the EPA grossly underestimated the impact of methane emissions.

Thanks for your support. Remember to like us on Facebook, and come visit us sometime.

Vernon Haltom, Executive director, Coal River Mountain Watch