Trump administration cancelled NAS study examining potential links to negative health outcomes in 2017

Coalfield residents living near mountaintop removal mining sites have long suspected this terrible, destructive practice is hurting our health.
I first started thinking about it during the long fight to replace the Marsh Fork Elementary School, which sat at the foot of a huge mountaintop removal mining site near my home in Peachtree Hollow.

The United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights has concluded a visit to communities in West Virginia to explore the human rights cost of mountaintop removal mining. In West Virginia on Thursday of last week (April 25), the UN Working Group conducted morning meetings with officials at the West Virginia Department of Environmental…

Associate Attorney Neil Gormley took a trip to West Virginia to visit partners and clients and to see the effects of mountaintop removal mining first-hand. As he explains, his visit prompted questions about the relationship between this destructive practice and regional poverty.

Appalachians also overwhelmingly support increasing clean water protections

Administration halted study on public health risks without explanation in August 2017

Appalachian communities win challenge to state permit, but still seeking federal protection from devastating mines and pollution

U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. affirms district court; finds U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reasonably and lawfully decided that huge mountaintop removal mine in WV would cause unacceptable environmental harm

Yesterday, one of the nation’s top coal companies, Patriot Coal, announced that it is getting out of the business of mountaintop removal mining. The decision comes out of a settlement with several Appalachian community groups—West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Sierra Club, represented by Appalachian Mountain Advocates—requiring Patriot to clean up toxic selenium…

Appalachian communities need EPA to set a water quality standard to protect them from mountaintop removal mining pollution

Last Thursday, the House Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment held an absurdly one-sided hearing entitled “EPA Mining Policies: Assault on Appalachian Jobs – Part I.” I’ve never heard so much agreement in Congress — but that was, of course, because the only people allowed to speak were chosen to speak because they were already…

Big news today in our fight to end destructive mountaintop removal mining: 13 congressional leaders joined to introduce legislation to protect communities and families from the dangerous health effects of our nation’s most extreme form of coal mining—mountaintop removal mining. The Appalachian Community Health Emergency Act is the first federal legislation to address the human…

Guidance focuses on ensuring compliance with longstanding requirements where stronger oversight is essential to protect water quality and Appalachian communities

Conservationists urging new administration to stop mountaintop removal coal mining

A Solidarity Day at White House and historic photo petition delivery to save communities, public health, and mountains

EPA embraces science and the law in two strong actions

The mining industry and its allies have been crying long and hard since President Obama took office, but the other side of the story has not gotten nearly enough attention. The problem is not that President Obama has done too much to regulate coal mining; the problem is that he could do more—much more—to protect the families and communities of Appalachia.

Recently, thanks to a nonprofit flight operation called SouthWings, I had the opportunity to fly in a small airplane over a mountaintop removal coal mining site in West Virginia.
We flew over the Hobet mountaintop removal mining site, which measures to more than 20 square miles of demolition, and though I will try to put what I saw into words, it can only really be understood through the eyes. So I’m sharing a few photos that illustrate a scale of destruction that words cannot convey.