Our friends at iLoveMountains.com are taking action tomorrow and you can too! On Tuesday, March 9, nearly 200 citizens from Appalachia and across the U.S. will gather in our nation's capital as part of the 5th Annual End Mountaintop Removal Week in Washington.

While there, our citizen participants will attend meetings with members of Congress regarding the Clean Water Protection Act (H.R. 1310) in the House and the Appalachia Restoration Act (S. 696) in the Senate--bills that would severely curtail mountaintop removal coal extraction.

Mountaintop removal coal mining is one of the most egregious environmental and social justice disasters in America today--more than 500 mountains and 1.5 million acres of land have already been destroyed by this practice.  Residents and supporters from across the U.S. are asking for an end to mountaintop removal and an investment in sustainable economic alternatives for Appalachia.

You can help! Tomorrow, Tuesday, March 9, iLoveMountains.com is having a call in day to show our support for the mountains, the people, and the waters of Appalachia. Go to iLoveMountains.com and join their newsletter to receive all the details for tomorrow's action. You can start taking action now though by writing your representatives.

Reverend Billy and The Church of Life After Shopping announced today that they're embracing a new cause: the Appalachian Mountains.  The group's new song, "Mountain-top," begins with words from Dr. Martin Luther King's last sermon:

February 26, 2010 -- The Coal Ash disaster and its effects continue in Tennessee.  CBS 42 reporter Cynthia Gold reported on it here, while Bruce Nilles, Campaign Director for the Sierra Club, spoke with residents of Southeastern Ohio, including Elisa Young, and listened in on a call with the White House Office of Management and residents who are affected.

From: http://www.theallianceforappalachia.org/meet-the-appalachian-restoration-act

The Appalachia Restoration Act (S. 696) is a bill in the U.S. Senate which will sharply reduce mountaintop removal coal mining and protect clean drinking water for many of our nation's cities. It will protect the quality of life for Appalachian coalfield residents who face frequent catastrophic flooding and pollution or loss of drinking water as a result of mountaintop removal coal mining.

More: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-696

From: http://www.nrdconline.org/campaign/nrdcaction_070909?qp_source=hp 

In June, the House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act. The bill would reduce global warming pollution 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. It also would set a goal of producing 20 percent of America's energy from renewable energy, and fund clean energy technologies and green jobs training programs to empower local communities to build these technologies.

From http://ilovemountains.org/army-corps/

On July 16th, 2009 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed the elimination of a streamlined permitting process -- known as Nationwide Permit 21, or NWP 21-- which allows coal companies to seek quick approval for their mountaintop removal coal mining projects.  We applaud the Obama Administration for taking action. Roughly one-third of mountaintop removal coal mining projects are approved under nationwide permits, which means that eliminating the streamlined rule will help slow the pace of destruction in Appalachia, not stop it. Public comment page (ends August 14, 2010) >

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. More than 400,000 acres in West Virginia alone have been leveled, and the EPA Estimates that by the end of the decade a total of 1.4 million acres of Appalachia's mountains and hardwood forests will be destroyed by mountain removal mining, which is an area the size of of Deleware.

In May of 2002, in response to the Army Corps' rule change, The Clean Water Protection Act was introduced into the House of Representatives by Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ) and Christopher Shays (R-CT). Since then, it's enjoyed a groundswell of bi-partisan support.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. of Waterkeeper Alliance put it succinctly:

"The Clean Water Protection Act is the first broad Congressional initiative aimed at reversing the Bush Administration's eight-year effort to savage our national waterways and the popular laws that protect them."

On May 4, 2007, the Clean Water Protection Act was introduced in to the 110th Congress with 55 original cosponsors. Because Representatives from around the country received thousands of letters from people like you, it ended last session with a record 153 bipartisan cosponsors. On March 4th 2009, Congressman Frank Pallone (NJ), Congressman John Yarmuth (KY), and Congressman Dave Reichert (WA) introduced H.R. 1310 with 117 original cosponsors in the 111th Congress; more than twice the number of original cosponsors at the beginning of last session! It currently has 155 cosponsors.