KFTC Members Help Brief Congressional Staffers
KFTC member Mickey McCoy joined allies from the organization Appalachian Voices, J.W. Randolph and Dr. Matt Wasson, on Capitol Hill Wednesday to brief advisors to members of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on the ravages of mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia and the critical need to immediately pass the Clean Water Protection Act (H.R. 1310). The briefing was held in one of the committee’s hearing rooms on Capitol Hill while McCoy and fellow Kentuckians Carl Shoupe, Carrie Traud and Rick Moore, was in Washington lobbying House and Senate members on H.R. 1310 and it’s companion Senate Bill, the Appalachia Restoration Act (S.696).
McCoy told staffers what it was like to live with mountaintop removal in Martin County, where nearly 25% of the land surface has been mined. Mickey told the audience,
"Mountaintop removal is an assault on the Appalachian Mountains, its people, their environment, and generations to come.
Mickey went on to share with them the day-to-day and long term impacts of mining, from the clear-cutting and blasting to the contaminated waters and dust to the persistent poverty and poor health that can be found wherever coal is carved from the Earth, clearly pointing out that his experiences were shared by thousands of others throughout the coal fields of Appalachia.
One must wonder if the water quality affected by mountain top removal contributes to the Center for Disease Control's claim that Central Appalachia leads the nation in deaths from breast, prostate, colon, lung, and cervical cancers.
Mickey McCoy
Dr. Matt Wasson provided those attending with an overview of Appalachian surface mining, pointing how widespread the destruction has become and emphasizing that our nation’s energy needs can easily be met without sacrificing the land and people of Appalachia. Wasson assured the Congressional staff members, representing both parties, that there has never been a time when ending mountaintop removal was more critical or more within our reach.
Toward the end of the briefing McCoy told the audience,
"It is not right for our government to allow the dismantlement of and entire culture for the sake of the greed of the coal corporations."
H.R. 1310 current has 156 co-sponsors from every region of the country, including Rep. John Yarmuth and Ben Chandler of Kentucky. An initial hearing on the bill may be held in Transportation and Infrastructure’s Water Resources Subcommittee as early as this fall.
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