What about our water? (Lexington Herald-Leader editorial)

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Editorial
Thursday, Jan. 22, 2009 Comments (0) |
What about our water?

One of President Barack Obama's inaugural promises to poor nations was "to work alongside you" to "let clean waters flow."

That pledge probably left many Kentuckians thinking of a rich nation that lets the coal industry routinely destroy sources of clean waters in this country.

In his speech Tuesday, Obama drew the connection between the availability of good water and the economic capacity to nourish bodies and minds. That connection hits home with coalfield residents whose water has been tainted and destroyed by mining and whose region is steeped in poverty ...

The forests are leveled by strip-mining and transformed into rocky plains that repel rather than absorb water. Hundreds of miles of headwater streams have been buried under "fills," the cheapest place to put all those tons of dislodged earth ...

http://www.kentucky.com/591/story/667457.html