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People working together for social, economic and environmental justice in Tennessee
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For release September 3, 2003
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Contact:
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SOCM
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Bill Price
Sierra Club
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Scott Gollwitzer
Appalachian Voices
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(865) 426-9455
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(304) 389-8822
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(828) 225-9685
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COMMUNITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS UNITE TO HALT MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL MINING IN TENNESSEE
Knoxville, TN-Save Our Cumberland Mountains (SOCM), the Tennessee Chapter of the Sierra Club, Appalachian Voices and Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project have joined together to stop a mining permit for a 2100 acre "Cross Ridge Mine" that will allow the Robert Clear Coal Company to remove the three peaks of Zeb Mountain in the Elk Valley Community of Campbell County.
The community and environmental groups filed a motion for an injunction to stop the mining until the Office of Surface Mining (OSM) can fully study the impacts of mountaintop removal mining on communities and drinking water near Zeb Mountain.
"Cross Ridge Mining” is a variation of mountain top removal that involves removing the mountaintop and then restoring it to approximate original contour.
Instead of properly assessing the dangerous impacts of mountaintop removal mining, the Bush Administration gave into the Robert Clear Coal Corporation, issuing a permit for the first mountain top removal mine in Tennessee since the early 1980's.
"They are going to pile 33 million cubic yards of mine spoil up where there used to be a mountain," said Charles Blankenship, a SOCM member who lives less than 1/4 mile away from Zeb Mountain.
"It is only a matter of time before that mine spoil slides down into the valley, and the problem is we live in the valley.
What we are looking at here is a delayed valley fill."
"Mountaintop removal mining is strip mining on steroids. By arbitrarily approving mountaintop removal mining for Zeb Mountain, the Bush Administration is leaving our communities at risk from toxic mining chemicals in our drinking water, flying rock from the blasting and dangerous, overloaded coal trucks," said Bill Price, environmental justice organizer for the Sierra Club.
"Instead of mindlessly rubber stamping permits for mining companies like the Robert Clear Coal Company, the Bush Administration should be protecting communities from the risks associated with mountaintop removal mining.
Why won't the Bush Administration enforce our tried and true environmental laws that protect our communities from the dangerous impacts of mining?"
Despite strong evidence that the mountaintop mining at Zeb Mountain would cause significant environmental harm, OSM issued a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) and arbitrarily approved the permit.
Community and environmental groups brought a suit against OSM to stop the mountaintop removal mining until OSM could prepare an environmental impact statement about the affects it has on the environment.
"Removing three peaks from Zeb Mountain will destroy over two square miles of habitat for the endangered Indiana bat, as well as killing dozens of threatened Blacksided dace by choking Dan Branch and its tributaries with sediment for years.
These impacts are a direct violation of the Endangered Species Act, and the ongoing effects show that OSM and Robert Clear Coal have no idea what they are doing. Cheap coal is not worth the extinction of species.
Mining at Zeb Mountain must stop!" said Marty Bergoffen, Campaign Coordinator of the Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project.
Mountaintop removal mining is an environmentally devastating method of extracting coal that has devastated the coalfields of West Virginia, Kentucky and Southwest Virginia. East Tennessee's coalfields have been heavily mined in the past.
This permit would allow the Robert Clear Coal Compan to extract the remaining low quality coal on Zeb Mountain by removing all three peaks of the mountain, and then supposedly restoring them to their original elevation using OSM guidelines, OSM’s guidelines call for 20' wide terraces every 50'.
"That sounds more like an Aztec pyramid to me," said Ann League, SOCM member in Elk Valley.
The blasting ruins homes and drinking water wells. "Fly rock" can rain off mountains, threatening homes and the very lives of people living around the mining sites.
The mining typically leaves surrounding areas more prone to flooding, results in the pollution of rivers and streams, and harms wildlife.
Coal trucks overloaded with twice the legal weight limits are crowding roads that are too small to fit both coal trucks and school buses.
Save Our Cumberland Mountains is a grassroots organization that has worked on coal issues in Tennessee for over 30 years.
The Sierra Club's members are 700,000 of your friends and neighbors. Inspired by nature, we work together to protect our communities and the planet. The Club is America's oldest, largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization.
Appalachian Voices is committed to protecting and restoring the ecological integrity, economic vitality, and cultural heritage of the central and southern Appalachians.
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