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Put An End To Mountaintop Mining

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 18, 2008

It's difficult to think of a more environmentally destructive practice than mountaintop mining - exploding the peaks of Appalachian Mountains to get to the coal beneath.

It has already destroyed more than 2,500 mountain peaks and 1 million acres. And it doesn't just raze the mountains. The resulting rock and dirt end up in surrounding valleys and streams. Conservationists estimate 1,200 miles of streams of been buried. Drinking water sources are polluted.

Blowing up the tops off mountains is also destroying Appalachian communities, since it requires few workers and is eliminating mining jobs.

This kind of mining supplies 5 percent of the nation's energy and could easily be replaced with conventional, and less destructive, coal mining.

Yet the Bush administration continually has sought to make it easier to ravage the Appalachian Mountains. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency even rewrote clean water rules to allow mine wastes to be used to fill streams.

The administration claims coal can be a clean source of energy. Perhaps it can be, but not with practices like this.

A measure in Congress, which has 122 cosponsors, would restrict mountain mining and stop its water pollution altogether. It should be passed. And if the industry is serious about making coal a "green" energy source, it won't fight the measure.

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