Appalachia is rising for justice, protection of the law, and an end to mountaintop removal mining.

This week more than 600 concerned citizens will participate in the largest mass mobilization against mountaintop removal mining that this country has ever seen, Appalachia Rising: The March on Blair Mountain.

Led by many of our dedicated friends and partners in Appalachia, hundreds of people from all across the country, from all stripes and walks of life and backgrounds -- students, scholars, artists, scientists, labor leaders, union workers, historians, environmentalists, and concerned citizens -- will walk shoulder to shoulder in a peaceful and permitted demonstration for 50 miles across the rugged Appalachian Mountain terrain, all joined by this conviction: The people of Appalachia deserve protection of the law and a prosperous and just future that does not include the devastation and destruction of mountaintop removal mining. Mountaintop removal mining must end, and justice must be brought to the people and communities of this region.

You decide. Check out this picture of Florida's waterways—choked with algae—and choose which of the following quotes best describes the photo. Both speakers were referring to attempts in the state legislature to keep the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating the amount of nutrients flowing from utilities, industry and large-scale farms into Florida's waterways. The nutrients feed an explosion of algae.

The first quote is from Associated Industries of Florida CEO and President Barney Bishop, speaking at a business symposium:

Ladies and gentleman, we have clean water in Florida... Don't let any environmentalist tell you otherwise. It is clean, it smells good, it looks good.

The next quote is from David Guest, managing attorney of the Florida office for Earthjustice, which Bishop hyperbolically described as being communist-inspired:

These toxic algae outbreaks are a threat to little kids splashing in the shallows, to family pets and to the elderly... We need to clean up this pollution as soon as we can, and that’s what these EPA limits on sewage, manure and fertilizer pollution are all about.

A billboard of Mountain Hero Karen Woodrum at a busy intersection in Washington, D.C.

The faces of Earthjustice's Mountain Heroes, those courageous people from the coalfields whose lives are afflicted by mountaintop removal mining and who are standing up against it, are now staring down politicians in Congress and their staffs, as well as White House and agency staff, reminding them that they are allowing this abuse to continue. 

For several months, billboards of these Mountain Heroes—Sid, James, Karen, Ken and Donetta—have been positioned in all three D.C.-area airports to face elected officials, policy makers and the general public as they arrive and depart on their travels. They have also appeared on the pages of INC., Fast Company and Mother Jones magazines.

And now the Mountain Heroes have officially come to the streets of D.C. The billboards pictured here are all over the nation's capitol, especially in high-traffic areas and all around federal government buildings.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a new guidance that will restore protections to waterways that are currently the dumping grounds for industrial polluters. The “Clean Water Framework” is a huge deal for the millions of Americans who depend on this water for drinking.

The Clean Water Act was passed in 1972, but two muddied Supreme Court decisions in 2001 (SWANNC) and 2006 (Rapanos) removed safeguards for many of our nation’s water bodies. Basically, these rulings made it so that Clean Water Act protections would only be available for “navigable” water bodies – or waters that are significantly linked to such water bodies.
In a conference call with reporters, today, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the guidance would follow with a proposed rule and a comment period. She wouldn’t give a date for the proposed rule, but said she was really proud the EPA was moving in this direction.