Opinion: Pass the ACHE Act and Stop Destroying Appalachia

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/10/28/pass-ache-act-and-stop-destroying-appalachia
Common Dreams
Published on Tuesday, October 28, 2014
by The Hill
Pass the ACHE Act and Stop Destroying Appalachia
by Allan J. Lichtman

Imagine that explosions rattle the community in which you have lived all your life. Toxic emissions spew into the air and settle into the water supply. The streams in which you fish are obliterated by rock and rubble. You worry that your children will die prematurely from cancer or brain tumors. You pray that the nearby containment tank will not breach and spill into your water supply its billions of gallons of poisonous coal waste.

This scenario illustrates the living nightmare of mountaintop removal coal mining for the people of Appalachia. "When growing up, I thought that all Appalachian children could run through the woods wild and free like I did," said West Virginia native Cary Reed. "Now several communities feel like a war zone with daily blasting. All children should grow up playing outside and not worry about breathing the air or drinking the water."

Big coal is killing Appalachia, its land and its people, not just figuratively, but literally. Coal companies are blowing the tops off of the Appalachian Mountains to reach the thin seams of coal buried below. This mountaintop removal process is despoiling one of the America's most precious natural resources, polluting the air and water, and creating a gulag of hazardous waste dumps.

The best way to halt the destruction of Appalachia and its people is through federal passage of the Appalachian Community Health Emergency Act, known as the ACHE Act. This legislation places a moratorium on new mountaintop removal permits and the expansion of existing permits until the Department of Health and Human Services completes a study to determine whether such mining operations pose a health threat to people living nearby.... MUCH MORE at the link provided above.