September 29 |
OVEC Action
Alert Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition |
 |
- Noon Press Conference Saturday and Weekend E-Council Gathering
- Mountaintop Removal Lawsuit in Huntington Starting Tuesday
- Please Call or E-mail for the Final Blair Mountaintop Removal Permit Study
- OVEC Benefit Art Show: Donations Needed for Printing and Supplies
- Stop the Hate / Start the Healing
- Is God Green?
Noon Press
Conference Saturday and Weekend E-Council Gathering
Tomorrow, Saturday, Sept. 30: Noon, State Capitol,
near the fountain on the north side, Charleston. WV.
Please come out for the
Environmental Justice
for All Tour Press Conference. Bring signs calling for an
end to mountaintop removal. People on the tour bus will visit
Marsh Fork Elementary School and take a
flyover of the mountaintop removal devastation close to
Charleston.
The Environmental Justice for All Tour is a national campaign focusing on the devastating impacts of toxic contamination on people of color and poor communities across the United States. Three bus caravans packed with activists, health researchers, environmental scientists, and public policy experts are touring communities in the Northeast, South, and West Coast--where people are suffering serious health effects associated with toxic pollution. Organizers say the tour will provide advocacy tools to affected communities and put pressure on Congressional leaders to make the elimination of environmental hazards a priority issue in the upcoming elections.
Please support Coal River Mountain Watch, which is hosting the tour locally, by coming out to this press conference tomorrow.
This Weekend: West Virginia Environmental Council's Annual Fall Conference, outside of Morgantown, at Chestnut Ridge Regional Park, adjacent to Coopers Rock State Forest. Join environmentalists from all over WV in an atmosphere of learning, sharing, organizing and planning for future action. This year, the conference focuses on renewable energy!
Mountaintop
Removal Lawsuit in Huntington Starting Tuesday
On Tuesday, October 3 at 9:30 a.m. in the Federal
Court building, 845 Fifth Ave., Room 101, Huntington, WV 25701,
Judge Charles Chambers will begin hearing the case of the Ohio
Valley Environmental Coalition vs. the Army Corps of Engineers. OVEC
is joined in the case by the
West Virginia
Highlands Conservancy and
Coal River Mountain Watch and represented by the
Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment
and
Earthjustice.
In this case, we argue that the Army Corps of Engineers is failing to follow the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to conduct Environmental Impact Statements on valley fill permit applications and by failing to either adequately void, minimize or mitigate for the harm valley fills cause. We are specifically examining five pending Massey Energy valley fill permits that obviously would have significant environmental impacts if permitted. Massey and the West Virginia Coal Association have intervened and will be cross-examining our witnesses. The case may take the whole week to hear.
The public is welcome in the courtroom and this should prove to be quite a fascinating case. Do please remember to be respectful of courtroom etiquette if you plan to attend.
Please Call
or E-mail for the Final Blair Mountaintop Removal Permit Study
Speaking of Environmental Impact Statements, the Final Environmental
Impact Statement for the for the Spruce #1 Mine in Blair, WV is now
available from the Army Corps of Engineers. We ask you to please
e-mail or call Teresa Spagna today or as early as possible next week
to obtain a copy of the study.
E-mail Teresa.D.Spagna@Lrh01.usace.army.mil or call 304-399-5710. Simply ask for a copy of the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Spruce #1 Mine in Blair, WV.
This proposed massive mountaintop removal mine has been held at bay for nine years. Jimmy Weekly's desire to stop this mine from eating Blair was one of the major sparks of the Stop Mountaintop Removal movement.
October 23 is the deadline for comments on Final Environmental Impact Statement. We'll collect input from various folks on the statement to share with you before the deadline, but, again, we ask that you please ask for your own copy to look over soon. Click here for more info from the Corps. OVEC
Benefit Art Show: Donations Needed for Printing and Supplies
Several well-known Huntington-area artists are organizing "The
Appalachian Landscape: Bob Ross Don't Live Here No More." This group
exhibition, from 7 p.m. to ? on November 11, will benefit OVEC. We
have a great venue, 949 3rd Ave., on the corner of 3rd Ave. and 10th
St., across from Pullman Square.
We need $1,000 in donations to cover printing, mailing and supplies. When you donate to make this show possible you increase awareness of the Stop Mountaintop Removal campaign. Plus your donation can help bring in even bigger donations, via purchased art. Donate online by clicking here. Or, send in a check to: OVEC, PO Box 6753, Huntington, WV 25773-6753. Either way you donate, please specify "For Art Show Expenses" in the memo line.
Artists interested in displaying at the show may e-mail vivian@ohvec.org for the prospectus.
Stop
the Hate / Start the Healing
October 5: 5:30-7:00 p.m. Davis Park, Capitol Street,
Charleston, W. Va. Stop the Hate / Start the Healing! Celebrate
Diversity! This evening, join people of faith in standing up to hate
violence. Sponsored by the West Virginia Interfaith Center for
Public Policy, Stop the Hate Committee. Do something no matter
where you live:
How
to Stop Hate in Your Hometown.
Is
God Green?
October 11: On Public TV nationwide:
Bill Moyers on America:
Is God Green?
“Is God Green?” also goes on the ground in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia, where mountaintop coal mining has local residents bringing their faith to bear in their effort to stop widespread pollution and environmental damage. In a state where three million pounds of explosives are used a day to strip the mountains of their coal, some evangelicals are relying on scripture to battle big coal.
“I first want to apologize as a Christian for the unfaithfulness of the churches and Christians who have oftentimes – too often – been complicit in the destruction that we see upon the land,” says Allen Johnson, who co-founded the advocacy group Christians for the Mountains. “In the Book of Revelation, there's a scripture that says that God will destroy those who destroy the Earth. We're breaking a covenant with God.”
The program explores the real-world consequences of mountaintop mining and its toxic by-products on the local water supply, profiling residents forced to live with drinking water allegedly contaminated by harmful chemicals and their fight against a subsidiary of the region’s largest coal company, Massey Energy. Allen’s group is working to recruit local churches to explore the pollution problem as a theological and Biblical issue, and to join their fight. Today, after 12 years, the local government is building the infrastructure that eventually will bring clean water to the effected communities.
The broadcast looks at the rise of conservative evangelicals as political power players in national politics and policy, and at how the Bush administration’s industry-friendly stance on global warming has been supported by conservative evangelicals. One of them is Dr. E. Calvin Beisner, who believes that evangelicals are not morally obligated to take a position on global warming. He is affiliated with the Acton Institute, an organization funded in part by the oil giant ExxonMobil, which has spent millions trying to discredit the science of global warming.
www.ohvec.org 304-522-0246 vivian@ohvec.org |
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