Sign the call to save a mountain and choose a new future.

Two weeks ago, the families of Pettus, West Virginia woke up to find that the blasting had started on Coal River Mountain, one of the epicenters of the fight over the hideous practice of mountaintop removal coal mining in the Appalachian Mountains. Coal River Mountain is an iconic symbol of the energy choices our country now faces: we can blast off the mountain's top to scoop out the dirty coal inside, or we can harness its enormous wind potential and start to build a better world.

Now we must take a small but signficant action to help our friends who are fighting the good fight there in Appalachia--a 350 future is not a coal-powered future, and Coal River Mountain is one of the epicenters in the fight against coal.

Use the form below to ask decision-makers in the Obama administration to intervene at Coal River Mountain.

Send a Message to the Obama Team - "Intervene at Coal River Mountain"

Subject:

Your Letter:

As a signatory of the Memorandum of Understanding on Appalachian Surface Coal Mining, we are writing to ask that you put a stop to mountaintop removal coal mining operations on Coal River Mountain in southern West Virginia, which is the area's last mountain untouched by mountaintop removal. The blasting not only threatens communities in the vicinity, it will also destroy the potential for a wind project that had rallied local residents as a prime opportunity to create permanent jobs, strengthen the local economy and provide renewable energy to the region.

Coal River Mountain has enough wind potential to house a 328-megawatt wind farm.  Every blast reduces the existing potential for clean energy, permanent jobs, and a stronger and more diverse regional economy.

Furthermore, the blasting is occurring near the Brushy Fork slurry impoundment, which holds 8.2  billion gallons of toxic coal slurry.  Should the blasting cause the impoundment to fail, nearby residents would have just minutes to evacuate before they were overtaken by a 50-foot wall of coal slurry that could cost more than 1,000 lives.

Not only does blasting near this unlined impoundment increase the risk of failure, but it will almost certainly cause more of the toxic coal slurry to enter the groundwater.  In nearby Prenter Hollow, dozens of residents have become ill from drinking water contaminated with coal slurry.

The entire nation is watching and waiting for you to take action now.  You have the power to direct your agency to halt the blasting, defend the safety of the nation's citizens, and preserve some of Appalachia's most valuable resources.  This is the sort of change that people in the Appalachian coalfields, and the rest of the nation, can believe in.

Lisa Jackson

EPA - Administrator

Terrence Salt

Army Corps of Engineers - Acting Assist. Secretary

Ken Salazar

Department of the Interior - Secretary

Nancy Sutley

White House Council on Environmental Quality - Chair