News That Matters

Editorial – Appalachia’s Agony – NYTimes.com.

The longstanding disgrace of mountaintop mining is now squarely in President Obama’s hands.

A recent court decision has given the green light to as many as 90 mountaintop mining projects in Appalachia’s coal-rich hills, which in turn could destroy more than 200 miles of valleys and streams on top of the 1,200 miles that have already been obliterated. The right course for the administration is clear: stop the projects until the underlying regulations are revised so as to end the practice altogether.

Mountaintop mining is just what the name suggests. Enormous machines — bulldozers and draglines — scrape away mountain ridges to expose the coal seams below. The coal is then trucked away, and the leftover rock and dirt are dumped into adjacent valleys and streams.

Both John McCain and Barack Obama vowed to end the practice during the 2008 campaign — even though no recent administration, Democratic or Republican, has been willing to take on Robert Byrd, West Virginia’s senior senator, or the coal companies, which insist without proof that there is no other cost-effective way to dispose of the waste.

Read More

Popularity: 1% [?]