Thursday, March 26, 2009
Politics / Woods Lamar Gets It! Blowing Up Mountains Is Crazy
Posted by Jeff Woods on Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 12:35 PM
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Sen. Lamar Alexander has introduced legislation to ban the dumping of mining waste into streams. Effectively, that would stop coal companies from blowing the tops off mountains. That's a step the governor and the legislature are refusing to take. So in a bizarre twist, Pith is beginning to see Alexander in a new, improved light. You know things are tough when you have to turn to a Republican in Washington to protect the environment. A press release explains:
Mountaintop mining is a method of coal mining in which the summit of a mountain is removed to expose the coal beneath, and the resulting millions of tons of waste rock, dirt and vegetation are dumped into nearby stream and river valleys. More than 1 million acres of Appalachia have already been affected. An estimated 1,200 miles of headwater streams have been buried under tons of mining wastes. More than 500 mountains have been impacted, and homes have been ruined and drinking water supplies contaminated."Coal is an essential part of our energy future, but it is not necessary to destroy our mountaintops in order to have enough coal," says Alexander, a member of the Water and Wildlife Subcommittee of the Committee on Environment and Public Works which has jurisdiction over this issue. "Millions of tourists spend tens of millions of dollars in Tennessee every year to enjoy the natural beauty of our mountains -- a beauty that, for me, and I believe for most Tennesseans, makes us proud to live here."
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