If Liz were Queen

Support the Clean Water Protection Act

What can Congress do to stop mountaintop removal?

In 1977, The Clean Water Act was enacted by Congress to “restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters.” For 25 years, the Clean Water Act (CWA) allowed for the granting of permits to place “fill material” into waters of the United States, provided that the primary purpose of the “filling” was not for waste disposal. As such, the CWA prohibited mountaintop removal operations from using the nation’s waterways as waste disposal sites. That changed in 2002, when the Army Corps of Engineers, under the direction of the Bush administration and without congressional approval, altered its longstanding definition of “fill material” to include mining waste. This change accelerated the devastating practice of mountaintop removal coal mining and the destruction of more than 2,000 miles of Appalachian streams.

Representatives Frank Pallone of New Jersey and Dave Reichert of Washington introduced a bill that re-establishes the original intent of the Clean Water Act: to protect our waterways, not give industry permission to pollute and bury them.

Write your representative today and ask him/her to co-sponsor the Clean Water Protection Act (H.R. 2169 in the 110th Congress). Snail-mail makes the most lasting impression, so click here to send your Congressperson a letter. (You can also find their contact information in the phone book). For the fastest response to your letter, we recommend sending it to a district office. You can also click here to send them an email. Points to make in your letter include:

1. The Clean Water Act is meant to protect, not bury, our rivers and streams.
2. More than 400,000 acres in West Virginia alone have been leveled, and estimates are that a total of 1.4 million acres of Appalachia’s mountains have been destroyed by mountaintop removal mining.
3. Across the Appalachian coalfields, more than 2,000 miles of streams are now buried and destroyed by mountaintop removal.
4. The Clean Water Protection Act is necessary to protect clean drinking water for many of our nation’s cities.
5. The Clean Water Protection Act is also necessary to protect the quality of life and economic security for Appalachian coalfield residents who face frequent catastrophic flooding and pollution or loss of drinking water as a result of mountaintop removal.

For more information contact Appalachian Voices at 828-262-1500 or www.appvoices.org