WV Residents Slam Bush Mining Waste Plan (Removing Stream Buffer Zones)

[hatrack]

WASHINGTON — "Tales of floods and flattened peaks and of homes swept away or devalued in central Appalachia were laid out Tuesday by opponents to the Bush administration's plan to ease a buffer-zone regulation protecting streams from coal mining operations.

Testifying at an Interior Department hearing on the proposal, Mary Miller of Sylvester, West Virginia, said the value of her home had dropped from $144,000 to below $12,000. Residents in her coalfield town won economic damages last month suing a mining company over coal dust covering their homes, vehicles, and other property. "I'm out here now trying to save my home," said Miller. "I don't have much left anyway. I don't have many years left. But I'm thinking about the water shortage for my children."

The department in January proposed easing a 1983 rule that set limits on coal mining near streams. Current policy says land within 100 feet of a stream cannot be disturbed by mining unless a company can prove it will not affect the water's quality and quantity. The new rule would require coal operators to minimize only "to the extent possible" any damage to streams, fish, and wildlife by "using the best technology currently available."

In a small auditorium at the department's headquarters, nearly all of the more than two dozen speakers opposed the plan. A lawyer for the National Mining Association was the only one to praise it."

EDIT

http://www.enn.com/news/2004-03-31/s_22343.asp

[montanacowboy]

1. Hey Mountaineers..

how do you like your boy Bush now?

[mmm]

3. Bush loves performing his daily evil. It makes him gloat and giggle.

[theHandpuppet]

5. Don't look at me...

I surely didn't vote for the Chimp-in Chief!

One of the biggest problems in WV politics is the soaring growth of the eastern panhandle, far from the coal-mining regions of WV. This part of the state is being overrun by people who have migrated west from the outer DC suburbs but still commute to DC and the 'burbs for their jobs. Just follow the bumper-to-bumper SUV traffic heading east every morning and you'd see what I mean.

These folks are also rabidly Republican and their influx, by the thousands, into the region has changed the voting demographic of the entire state. They could care less about what happens to generations of West Virginians who live in the coal regions -- they identify themselves as conservative DC suburbanites and worship at the altar of Shelley Moore Capito. They've brought with them their home-schoolers (don't want their kids mingling in the public schools with those trashy WV children) and evangelical morality.

THIS is where Kerry could lose West Virginia's electoral votes. Not in Charleston, or Huntington or Parkersburg or Wheeling -- but in eastern panhandle cities like Martinsburg and Charles Town and the surrounding towns and new commuter-oriented developments. This is where there needs to be a concerted democratic effort at voter registration and stumping. Lose the panhandle and Dems will lose the state -- the numbers are just too great now to overcome unless real effort is invested.

[montanacowboy]

6. Yes, WVA sure has changed

I actually grew up 2 miles from Wheeling on the Ohio side when steel was king and only democrats ran and won - same for Ohio - these two states have turned shamful - the influx of the eastern repukes into that region is like a cancer spreading - the poor of WVA and its once beautiful mountainous state will all be gone when Bob Byrd goes - we should all cry for these states

[Florida_Geek]

2. WV was one of Gore's biggest mistakes

He did not play attention to the Unions and in the end they had a low voter turnout and Bush won by 40,000 votes.

[CrownPrinceBandar]

4. Agreed....

Bush played up to the working folks and the hunters, and Gore was occupied elsewhere. I hope Kerry doesn't make the same mistake, or WV will go red again. Bush's election in 2000 was the first time in almost 50 years that WV didn't back a Dem incumbent for Pres.