Mining Projects Threaten Warblers and Drinking Water

By Carl Pope

In mountaintop removal mining, a coal company literally blasts apart the tops of mountains to reach thin seams of coal buried below.

To minimize waste disposal costs, they then dump millions of tons of the waste rock into the valleys below, destroying vital wildlife habitat, permanently burying streams and polluting rivers that provide drinking water to millions of Americans.

Take action now to protect our drinking water and protect habitat for the rare and beautiful cerulean warbler and other wildlife.

Representatives Frank Pallone (D-NY) and Christopher Shays (R-CT) have introduced H.R. 2169, the Clean Water Protection Act - legislation that will effectively end mountaintop removal mining by preventing companies from dumping their waste in rivers and streams.

Make no mistake about it: passing this bill is an important step to end a practice that destroys vital habitat for cerulean warblers and hundreds of other wildlife species.

Urge your representative in Washington, D.C. to support this important legislation.

When President Bush legalized mountaintop removal mining in 2002, this destructive practice had already been banned for a quarter century. Since then, coal companies have gone eagerly back into the business of obliterating whole mountains.

The federal government has estimated that past and future mountaintop removal mining could destroy more than 1.4 million acres. Hundreds of species are threatened and so are people - from the blasting, coal dust, and poisoned drinking water.

Please sign the petition today to support the Clean Water Protection Act and help the Sierra Club end this form of mining and move our nation's focus to developing clean, safe renewable forms of energy.

judythpiazza@newsblaze.com