Coal River Mountain Watch just premiered a new section of its web site, Edwight Watch. Here’s an excerpt from the “About” section of the site:
In the spring of 2009, Bo Webb pressured federal and state regulatory agencies to start issuing violations in response to dangerous, active blasting at the Edwight Surface Mine, just uphill of his property. The WV Department of Environmental Protection, while somewhat responsive, has continued to disobey the law in their handling of violations on Edwight.
Edwight Watch is an effort to expose the lack of regulation on Edwight and all mountaintop removal sites in the coalfields of West Virginia. Coal River Mountain Watch volunteers and interns are partnering with community members to cite violations using a variety of methods, including ground photography from nearby ridges and the use of Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping to compare aerial photography to current mine permits. We have encouraged WV Department of Environmental Protection inspectors to utilize these methods, but no changes have been made thus far. Our information is bolstered by extensive amounts of historical information and oral testimony related to the destruction of the Hazy Creek and Shumate drainages.
Taking Bo Webb and his work fighting the injustice of the mining regulatory system in West Virginia as inspiration, we hope to encourage community members to speak out about their frustrations with the regulatory systems to us and to the regulators that must hear them.
The WVDEP issued several violations in the summer of 2009, due in large part to Webb’s efforts. Several of these violations were of the same type, sending the mine site in to show cause. The WVDEP has yet to prove or explain why they will not hold a public hearing, as mandated by law, on the show cause order that Bo Webb initiated. Read the press release here.
We all know why the WVDEP is not responding…….money maybe being put in their pockets??? Looks like we have some people at a higher level listening now though. I have had a good feeling about LIsa Jackson since I first saw her. Maybe she gets it and will shut this horrendous MTR process down.
Talk about bribbery. Wonder how many democrates pockets were filled during the debate on healthcare reform? Wonder how many times Al Gores pockets were filled, oh wait he fills them I am sorry I forgot. Now he and his wonderful group of friends are spreading lies about this thing called global warming, sorry Al I don’t believe in such stuff, I mean look around at the winter we had, is it that hard to see that, that junk doesn’t hold up?
The interesting thing about global warming is that it doesn’t just mean that everything gets warmer all the time, that’s an oversimplification. It means that complex global weather patterns are shifting quickly. For instance, it snowed more in Mississippi than it ever has before this past winter. While it wasn’t hotter(clearly it was much colder) what it indicates is that these large shifts result in wildly erratic seasonal changes. This means that ecosystems have less time to adapt than they would if weather patterns held steady. Occasional big storms or seasons that are considered “extreme” whether hot or cold are of course a part of natural patterns of weather, but what we see happening all over the world is a rapid shift and disruptions of those patterns are more common now than steady slow changes. So just because its unusually cold doesn’t mean that isn’t a result of global warming, in fact it’s possibly one more local indicator of those large scale changes.
anniejane….you probably should duck about now because you do realize you just spit into the wind…..;)
true, so true!
WTF??? I guess! Change it all around to make it fit to the current situation. Typical environmentalist twist!
Too Ture!
Mr. Webb, I am glad you stated you would never watch another football game again after the NIKE ad came out for the Pitt/WVU game coming up. If I had nothing better to do with my time than to moan, bellyache over nothing but an ad then I would commit myself.
You got your apology from WVU, and why they apologized I will never understand. Now I support WVU each and everytime football/basketball season rolls around but these coal companies should stop the funding to the college and see how they like it then. That college is 80% funded by the coal companies.