Monday, February 23, 2009

Environmentalists Fight to Save Mountains from Decapitation

Posted by Jeff Woods on Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 5:36 AM

A graphic video on mountaintop removal courtesy of the LEAF environmental group. Environmentalists are back in Nashville this year promoting their legislation to ban coal companies from blowing the tops off Tennessee mountains. Their bill goes before the Senate Environment Committee this week. They think lawmakers should want to save the scenic beauty that underpins our gazillion-dollar tourism industry. What a bunch of dreamers! Last year, National Coal Corp. threatened to shut down in Tennessee if mountaintop mining were banned. That would have ended 234 jobs, the sum total of the company's workforce. The whole legislature never even got the chance to vote. Five rural lawmakers on a House subcommittee killed the bill. They argued the coal company's property rights trumped the public interest in preventing ecological catastrophes. It's all the more outrageous because the legislature, at the urging of Gov. Phil Bredesen, has invested more than $100 million to acquire and protect the land the coal company would destroy. It's mostly in the 74,000-acre Sundquist Wildlife Management Area in the northern Cumberland Plateau. The state bought surface and timber rights, but mineral rights belong to National Coal. Bredesen himself admitted he was only vaguely aware of the bill to stop mountaintop removal--and that was after proponents gave hours of alarming presentations to House and Senate committees about the ravages of this method of mining. Coal companies blast up to 1,000 feet off the tops of mountains, dumping tons of rubble into hollows and creeks. Polluted water supplies, landslides and floods threaten communities in the valleys below. This year, there's talk that the governor might actually pay attention to this bill and do something to help it. But even if he does, its chances don't seem good. Sad to say, your typical state lawmaker isn't much worried about saving Tennessee's natural beauty.

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Who's sponsoring the bill?

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Posted by fluffernutter on February 23, 2009 at 6:18 PM

what do you mean "typical state lawmaker"? most of these ignorant, redneck, hayseeds can't look past their gas and cigarette prices.

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Posted by dacrizzow on February 23, 2009 at 7:35 PM

Sponsors are Ketron and Dunn.

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Posted by SeerOwemn on October 8, 2009 at 9:44 PM

this mountaintop removal is plain madness and it saddens me to think that lawmakers and coal companies think they have a right to rape the earth and destroy valuable drinking water and millions of trees that clean pollution from the air.
people like this deserve to stand trial for the genocide of future generations. these people deserve the death penalty just like any other murderers would have to face for lesser crimes than the ones they are committing.
judgment day is coming and all the money in the world will not save you when you make this planet uninhabitable. only a greedy fool would be blind to this so i say execute them now before they kill off everybody and everything.

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Posted by kim on January 31, 2010 at 5:44 AM

"Last year, National Coal Corp. threatened to shut down in Tennessee if mountaintop mining were banned. That would have ended 234 jobs, the sum total of the company's workforce. The whole legislature never even got the chance to vote. Five rural lawmakers on a House subcommittee killed the bill. They argued the coal company's property rights trumped the public interest in preventing ecological catastrophes."
234 jobs in environmental destruction are more important than the health and well being of millions of other people who will be affected later by what they are doing? tens of thousands of people have lost jobs here due to plant closures, so 234 is totally insignificant.
those 234 people should be locked up in jail for what they are doing out there, and if the lawmakers in tennessee are too scared to do what is right then they shold be impeached and locked up right there with those people as accessories to genocide.

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Posted by kim on January 31, 2010 at 5:49 AM
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