Four hundred million years ago, the outline of North America wasn't recognizable on the map. The continents were tumbled together in an unfamiliar mass, and the great landmarks that we know today did not exist and wouldn't for many millions years to come. But in the eastern portion of the area that would become the United States, a drastic change was underway. An island chain -- something like Japan today -- was pressing up against the continent. Under the terrible pressure, a deep ocean trench -- a geosyncline -- was folding back on itself, the layers of sediment where being being distorted and twisted as gradually the down fold reversed.
Slowly, slowly, coral reefs were pushed up into the air. Trilobites and great shelled cephalopods and the armor-plated fish were forced to retreat as mud and sand and stone rose from the Ordovician Sea. For a hundred million years and more, the land kept rising. Rains that fell on the western part of this new land ran off toward the east, forming vast swamps of ferns where giant dragonflies flew and amphibians the size of crocodiles hunted. For millions of years, the land was quiet, but then came other, even greater collisions as the space between North America and the other continents opened and closed. The area that had once been so deep under the sea was thrust up again, again, and again. Pressed into hills that would never be flooded again, forced into jagged peaks that towered above the continent. By two hundred million years ago, the work was done. The Rocky Mountains were nowhere to be seen. The Mississippi River did not exist. Large amounts of the United States were inundated by sea. But the Appalachian Mountains had arrived.
Softened by the slow fall of rain over immense time, blanketed by trees that did not even exist until the mountains had been standing more than a hundred million years, they are with us still. A gift out of time. The reminder of enormous forces that started their work when there was no creature on earth yet living on the land. That long history has left us with a landscape as rich as any to be found on the continent, one full of clear-flowing streams, tumbling rivers, and steep forested slopes. A landscape with an enormous diversity of foliage and fauna, where a small cave might hold bats seen nowhere else, where a small stream might hold fish seen nowhere else, where a small glade might hold plants seen nowhere else, where a small hollow might hold some of the last eastern pumas.
And now we, in a remarkably short time, are undoing that work. In an effort to get at the remains of those ancient fern forests -- the ones laid down three hundred million years ago while the land was still rising -- we are ripping out the landscape and replacing it with rubble.
Yes, the coal in the mountains has been valued since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and it's valued still. But it doesn't have to be removed through mountaintop removal. There are other ways to get at the coal that are far less destructive. Mountaintop removal destroys forever the landscape and ecology that took four hundred million years to build. It not only levels the mountains, it fills the streams with the silt, acid, and toxic metals that come from runoff. Worse, it fills valleys with the crushed bones of the mountains, and hastily built dams which can break and cause disasters like that at Buffalo Creek, where more than a hundred people died. 1,200 miles of streams and rivers have already been filled in with mine rubble.
That's why, in 1983, the Stream Buffer Zone Rule was put in place to limit these operations in areas where the material would have to be placed in streams. Unfortunately, there was enough ambiguity in that rule that from that day to this, violators of the rule have been able to continue mountaintop removal and the anti-environment Republicans have been able to pretend the rule was never meant to restrict such mining. Some of the very worst operators in the coal industry have even been successful at putting their hand-picked judges into place to make sure a blind eye was turned.
Now the Bush administration wants to take it one step further. They've put forward their own interpretation, one that would completely gut the Stream Buffer Zone Rule and open the way for expanded mountaintop removal mining. And like so many actions of the Bush administration, they're using disasters caused through their own incompetence to justify this decision. They destroyed MSHA as an effective regulator of underground mine safety, and when a string of deaths occurred -- most recently with the tragedy in Utah -- the reaction was not to tighten up the rules, it was reward the mining industry with still easier rules. Take your eye off the ball, let Americans die, respond by taking inappropriate action that includes a corporate giveaway -- sound familiar?
The proposed change is currently up for comments, and I encourage you to leave a comment telling the administration what you think about their ringing the dinner bell for destruction. However, there is only one sure way to stop them. That's to pass the Clean Water Protection Act (H.R. 2169). This Act has clear language that would finally put some teeth behind the effort to regulate mountaintop removal mining. Unfortunately, it was introduced in the previous congress by Democratic rep Frank Pallone of new Jersey. Naturally, the Republicans tossed it into committee and never even let it up for a vote.
However, Representative Pallone has resubmitted the bill in 2007 and it now has 103 cosponsors. Now we have to hurry -- and I do mean hurry -- if we don't want to get something done before the Bush administration's new rules go into effect and we find ourselves facing dozens of already approved mountaintop removal operations leveling the work of ages.
Here's what you need to do. First, check this list and see if your congressperson is already one of the sponsors of H.R. 2719. If not, you need to go here, find that representative, and tell them to get on the stick. Now.
Here's another thing you need to do: call the campaign offices of the candidate you support. The candidates have unmatched access to the public airwaves right now. If they push this issue, it may get some fraction of the attention it deserves.
When I asked candidates' offices for support in ending mountaintop removal mining, I got that support from Dodd. I got it from Richardson. I got it from Obama.
I got no response from either Edwards or Clinton. If you are a supporter of these candidates, please call their offices and ask them to oppose mountaintop removal and support the Clean Water Protection Act. I suspect both candidates are worried about the support of union miners, but they shouldn't be. Coal mining jobs in the Appalachians have declined steeply in the last few decades, and one of the biggest reasons is that mountaintop removal mining takes fewer miners. That's what the companies like about it: it's easy and it's cheap.
The mountains have been there for ages. Our opportunity to save them is short.
Update [2007-10-13 14:11:59 by Devilstower]: Because Thomas has it rigged so that links expire (grumble, grumble), here's the Clean Water Protection Act in it's entirety.
Section 502 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (33 U.S.C. 1362) is amended by adding at the end the following:
`(25) FILL MATERIAL- The term `fill material' means any pollutant which replaces portions of the waters of the United States with dry land or which changes the bottom elevation of a water body for any purpose. The term does not include any pollutant discharged into the water primarily to dispose of waste.'.
Pretty simple, eh? And I'll stick the list of sponsors after the jump.
Cosponsors for H.R. 2169
Rep Allen, Thomas H. [ME-1] - 5/3/2007
Rep Baldwin, Tammy [WI-2] - 6/5/2007
Rep Berman, Howard L. [CA-28] - 5/3/2007
Rep Bishop, Timothy H. [NY-1] - 9/6/2007
Rep Blumenauer, Earl [OR-3] - 5/3/2007
Rep Brown, Corrine [FL-3] - 10/4/2007
Rep Butterfield, G. K. [NC-1] - 9/26/2007
Rep Capps, Lois [CA-23] - 5/3/2007
Rep Capuano, Michael E. [MA-8] - 5/23/2007
Rep Carson, Julia [IN-7] - 5/21/2007
Rep Chandler, Ben [KY-6] - 5/3/2007
Rep Clay, Wm. Lacy [MO-1] - 5/3/2007
Rep Cohen, Steve [TN-9] - 7/25/2007
Rep Conyers, John, Jr. [MI-14] - 5/3/2007
Rep Cooper, Jim [TN-5] - 5/3/2007
Rep Cummings, Elijah E. [MD-7] - 5/3/2007
Rep Davis, Danny K. [IL-7] - 5/16/2007
Rep Davis, Susan A. [CA-53] - 8/1/2007
Rep DeFazio, Peter A. [OR-4] - 5/3/2007
Rep Delahunt, William D. [MA-10] - 5/3/2007
Rep DeLauro, Rosa L. [CT-3] - 5/3/2007
Rep Ellison, Keith [MN-5] - 6/5/2007
Rep Emanuel, Rahm [IL-5] - 7/10/2007
Rep Engel, Eliot L. [NY-17] - 5/23/2007
Rep Farr, Sam [CA-17] - 5/3/2007
Rep Fattah, Chaka [PA-2] - 5/3/2007
Rep Filner, Bob [CA-51] - 10/1/2007
Rep Frank, Barney [MA-4] - 5/3/2007
Rep Gilchrest, Wayne T. [MD-1] - 5/3/2007
Rep Grijalva, Raul M. [AZ-7] - 5/3/2007
Rep Gutierrez, Luis V. [IL-4] - 5/3/2007
Rep Hare, Phil [IL-17] - 5/3/2007
Rep Hastings, Alcee L. [FL-23] - 5/3/2007
Rep Higgins, Brian [NY-27] - 5/14/2007
Rep Hinchey, Maurice D. [NY-22] - 5/3/2007
Rep Hodes, Paul W. [NH-2] - 5/3/2007
Rep Holt, Rush D. [NJ-12] - 5/21/2007
Rep Honda, Michael M. [CA-15] - 5/3/2007
Rep Inslee, Jay [WA-1] - 5/3/2007
Rep Jackson, Jesse L., Jr. [IL-2] - 7/25/2007
Rep Jackson-Lee, Sheila [TX-18] - 10/9/2007
Rep Johnson, Henry C. "Hank," Jr. [GA-4] - 6/25/2007
Rep Jones, Stephanie Tubbs [OH-11] - 10/4/2007
Rep Kennedy, Patrick J. [RI-1] - 5/3/2007
Rep Kildee, Dale E. [MI-5] - 5/3/2007
Rep Kirk, Mark Steven [IL-10] - 6/25/2007
Rep Kucinich, Dennis J. [OH-10] - 5/3/2007
Rep Langevin, James R. [RI-2] - 5/3/2007
Rep Lee, Barbara [CA-9] - 5/3/2007
Rep Levin, Sander M. [MI-12] - 6/19/2007
Rep Lewis, John [GA-5] - 5/3/2007
Rep Lofgren, Zoe [CA-16] - 5/3/2007
Rep Lynch, Stephen F. [MA-9] - 10/9/2007
Rep Markey, Edward J. [MA-7] - 5/14/2007
Rep Matsui, Doris O. [CA-5] - 5/14/2007
Rep McCollum, Betty [MN-4] - 5/3/2007
Rep McDermott, Jim [WA-7] - 5/3/2007
Rep McGovern, James P. [MA-3] - 5/3/2007
Rep McHugh, John M. [NY-23] - 5/3/2007
Rep McNerney, Jerry [CA-11] - 5/3/2007
Rep McNulty, Michael R. [NY-21] - 5/3/2007
Rep Meehan, Martin T. [MA-5] - 5/3/2007
Rep Miller, Brad [NC-13] - 5/3/2007
Rep Miller, George [CA-7] - 5/3/2007
Rep Moran, James P. [VA-8] - 5/3/2007
Rep Nadler, Jerrold [NY-8] - 10/1/2007
Rep Neal, Richard E. [MA-2] - 5/16/2007
Rep Norton, Eleanor Holmes [DC] - 5/23/2007
Rep Olver, John W. [MA-1] - 5/10/2007
Rep Pascrell, Bill, Jr. [NJ-8] - 6/11/2007
Rep Payne, Donald M. [NJ-10] - 5/3/2007
Rep Platts, Todd Russell [PA-19] - 5/3/2007
Rep Price, David E. [NC-4] - 9/17/2007
Rep Rangel, Charles B. [NY-15] - 5/3/2007
Rep Rothman, Steven R. [NJ-9] - 5/3/2007
Rep Rush, Bobby L. [IL-1] - 5/3/2007
Rep Ryan, Tim [OH-17] - 10/1/2007
Rep Schakowsky, Janice D. [IL-9] - 5/3/2007
Rep Schiff, Adam B. [CA-29] - 5/3/2007
Rep Schwartz, Allyson Y. [PA-13] - 5/3/2007
Rep Scott, Robert C. "Bobby" [VA-3] - 8/1/2007
Rep Serrano, Jose E. [NY-16] - 5/3/2007
Rep Shays, Christopher [CT-4] - 5/3/2007
Rep Shea-Porter, Carol [NH-1] - 10/9/2007
Rep Sherman, Brad [CA-27] - 6/5/2007
Rep Shuler, Heath [NC-11] - 5/3/2007
Rep Sires, Albio [NJ-13] - 5/3/2007
Rep Slaughter, Louise McIntosh [NY-28] - 5/21/2007
Rep Smith, Adam [WA-9] - 5/3/2007
Rep Solis, Hilda L. [CA-32] - 5/23/2007
Rep Spratt, John M., Jr. [SC-5] - 5/3/2007
Rep Stark, Fortney Pete [CA-13] - 5/3/2007
Rep Tauscher, Ellen O. [CA-10] - 5/3/2007
Rep Tierney, John F. [MA-6] - 5/3/2007
Rep Van Hollen, Chris [MD-8] - 5/3/2007
Rep Watt, Melvin L. [NC-12] - 7/10/2007
Rep Waxman, Henry A. [CA-30] - 5/3/2007
Rep Weiner, Anthony D. [NY-9] - 10/1/2007
Rep Wexler, Robert [FL-19] - 6/5/2007
Rep Wolf, Frank R. [VA-10] - 5/14/2007
Rep Woolsey, Lynn C. [CA-6] - 5/3/2007
Rep Wu, David [OR-1] - 5/23/2007
Rep Yarmuth, John A. [KY-3] - 5/3/2007