Victory! Grassroots Organizing Stops Massive Strip Mine in VA

By Skyler Simmons, Southern Appalachians EF! Newswire Correspondent

It has been a long, hard fight but residents of the small coalfields town of Appalachia, VA can breathe a little easier after the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals, and Energy (DMME) for the second time rejected a mountaintop removal mine permit for Ison Rock Ridge. The massive strip mine, proposed by A&G Coal would have leveled over 1000 acres of Ison Rock Ridge and filled in four valleys on the outskirts of Appalachia and Inman.

“I am so pleased to finally see the DMME stand up for the people they are supposed to represent,” said Sam Broach, president of Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards (SAMS). “The people living in the areas affected by surface mining can sleep well tonight knowing that the mountains above them won’t be blown up, and the air they breathe will be a little bit cleaner.”

SAMS, along with the Sierra Club and Blue Ridge Earth First! fought the DMME for years to stop the permitting of new MTR sites in this isolated corner of Virginia with little success. It appears that their years of community organizing, protests, and direct action are finally paying off with the rejection of the Ison Rock Ridge Permit.

Mining Will Hit Tiger Habitats

by Rashme Sehgal, from Asian Age

Conservationists warn that indiscriminate coal block allocation will destroy tiger habitats of central India.
Geological Information System analysis whereby Coal India Ltd maps were juxtaposed against satellite images of forest cover undertaken by the Ecoinformatics Lab at the Bengaluru-based Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment (ATREE) has shown that the allocation of just 13 out of the 195 coal blocks allocated by the ministry of mines will adversely impact the Bandhavgarh, Pench, Tadoba, Palamu, Hazaribagh, Simlipal, Chaprala and Indravati tiger reserves.

March on Blair Mountain to stop MTR Coal Mining, June 5-11, 2011

Blair Mountain

By Rising Tide North America

Dear Friends–
If it was easy, they wouldn’t call it a “struggle.”

In 1921, 15,000 miners took up arms against the coal industry’s gun thugs and fought for the basic right to live and work in decent conditions. It was the second largest armed insurrection in the US history (after the Civil War) and the only time the US government used airplanes to drop bombs on it’s own people. The Battle of Blair Mountain has become an historic symbol of resistance against King Coal. Now, greedy coal companies have removed it’s historical preservation status and begun to strip mine Blair Mountain.

In fierce resistance, Appalachian residents most harmed by mountaintop removal coal mining are joining together with union rank and file, retired miners, environmentalists, students, teachers and more for a historic march and direct action to commemorate the battle’s 90th anniversary from June 5-11. And Rising Tide North America will be joining them.

JOIN THE MARCH ON BLAIR MOUNTAIN

The March on Blair Mountain builds on the energy of Appalachia Rising, which brought thousands to the streets of Washington D.C. last September, and spread to Kentucky where dozens occupied their governor’s office for justice in their state and the region last February.

Now we are bringing the movement to Blair Mountain.

Thanks for all you do.
For the mountains,
Rising Tide North America
http://risingtidenorthamerica.org