On a freezing December day in Charleston, WV hundreds of Appalachians and allies gathered together to demand that the blasting on Coal River Mountain be stopped. We gathered as Massey Energy put forward non-union workers to inject explosives into our Mountain and blast it to bits. As they were blasting apart the rock and topsoil, they were blasting apart a historic opportunity to put miners to work in green & permanent jobs. We gathered in the cold to demand that our government does the hard work of saving Coal River Mountain, ending mountaintop removal and implementing an aggressive plan to transition Appalachia’s Coalfields to green jobs. The battle is still raging. One month to the day after that protest, the EPA is taking action and a blockbuster study on the effects of Mountaintop Removal has been released.

The journal Science has released a huge peer-reviewed study that draws the science-based & sharp conclusion that, “Clearly, current attempts to regulate Mountaintop Mining / Valley Fill practices are inadequate … Regulators should no longer ignore rigorous science.” This is major and this is big. This provides a situation so clear that a blindfolded drunk dog would be able see what to do. The Obama Administration has long pledged to use science, not politics, as the basis for its decisions. The course of action is clear, the EPA must outright ban mountaintop removal, that is, unless they value politics over science.

Unfortunately – the EPA’s actions to date have not followed science, they have been unduly influenced by the politics of the situation. On January 5th the EPA came to a compromise with Patriot Coal that forced them to tighten up their environmental & human impacts while also allowing them to mine 91% of the coal that they had proposed to mine. One of the biggest points of this compromise is that Patriot will bury 3 miles rather than the originally proposed 6 miles of streams. Really EPA? Is this the best you’ve got? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that you’re acting. But, the people of Appalachia and the people of the United States deserve better. We will not accept a kindler & gentler version of this practice where half-measures and weak compromises count as progress. We demand an outright ban of the Mountaintop Removal / Valley Fill form of coal mining and rapid transition to green jobs for the coalfield workforce.

Like it or not, government is currently and always will be unduly influenced by politics and power – science will never be the sole guiding force of government. Our government will not be able to ban Mountaintop Removal outside of public pressure to follow science and do the right thing. This is why we need you. It is no small feat to at least get to the point where the EPA is forcing companies to reduce their impact on mountain communities and streams. That happened because there is a movement that is pressing them and pressing them hard to outlaw the practice. The EPA has all the information they need to reject every Mountaintop Removal / Valley Fill permit that is on their desk awaiting decision. What they need is to be pushed and we are the ones who must push them. All of the work, love, and sweat that has gone into the anti-mountaintop removal movement has gotten us to this point that we’re at now. It is the only thing that can push us over the edge and bring about victory – we need you to organize and act now to pressure the EPA to follow the conclusions of the groundbreaking Science report and ban rather than regulate Mountaintop Removal once and for all.