Citizens speak out on Stream Protection Rule

As the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement finalizes the Stream Protection Rule, we urge the agency’s staff and leadership to carefully consider the best available science and the concerns of community members. This is not a matter of abstract policy. Nor is it about politics. It is about the health and well-being of Appalachian communities and ecology. It is about our water and our future.

Here are some of the comments submitted to the agency by citizens directly affected by surface coal mining pollution, expressing the need for a strong, strict and enforceable Stream Protection Rule.

“I am proud to be a Coal Miner’s daughter. It’s true. Coal put the food on my table. It also put the poison in my water. You don’t understand just how important your water is until it is gone. In Martin County, the water is loaded with heavy metals and other toxins from coal sludge. After the sludge spill in 2000, we learned chemistry by testing the water, biology by watching the effects on living creatures, and political action while trying to make our voices heard. The biggest lesson we learned is that our government was there to protect dollars, not citizens. I support the strongest possible Stream Protection Rule. The Office of Surface Mining should regulate mining and the disposal of mining waste with a heavy hand. We have learned from decades of experience that our state agencies cannot be trusted to properly enforce the regulations.
— Jonita Horn, Inez, Ky.

Good healthy forests and watersheds are required for my livelihood as well as the livelihoods of some of the young people in my community who I have mentored as a root-digger and as a non-timber forest products worker. We are sustaining ourselves while living with our natural world, rather than destroying it for short-term gain. Water is where life begins. The Stream Protection Rule should be a way of helping waters be healthy for drinking, watering gardens, fishing, or simply having the ability to play in the water with family and friends.
Carol Judy, Clearfork, Tenn.

I have watched the creek that flows past my grandmother’s home in Floyd County, Ky., become ruined by the strip mining above it. I used to catch crawdads in that creek, but now it smells and looks noxious. There is no life in the water and the terrible odor permeates the entire hollow. Citizens of the coalfields deserve the best possible Stream Protection Rule that the OSM can provide. A strong SPR would greatly improve and protect the quality of life and bodily health of all humans living downstream.
— David Wasilko, Kingston, Tenn.

There’s already been far too much damage done to our streams by the coal mining industry, and without strictly enforced regulation, we can only anticipate more destruction. We need water. We may like coal, and some people are friends of coal, but we need water. These are some of our nation’s headwaters and their pollution goes all the way to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. This is truly a national issue and a national problem.
— Laura Miller, Wise Va.

Southwest Virginia is increasingly and now very rapidly realizing that it cannot depend on coal for its economic future. We’ve got to find a diverse number of economic alternatives. One of those alternatives is recreation. In order for our waterways to be this economic resource, they must be protected against the irreversible impacts of mountaintop removal coal mining, valley fills and other associated impacts of the mining industry. — David Rouse, Wise, Va.

My husband and I are lifelong residents of Mingo County, W.Va. Both of our fathers were coal miners, and my husband followed in their footsteps. In the 70’s, the coal company started strip mining above our home. It was very destructive to the community. The water was contaminated and finally went dry. The coal companies need to monitor their impacts to the water more closely. These companies that come out and do water sampling for the mines are not truthful. Please ensure with clear wording in the Stream Protection Rule that citizens are permitted to monitor mining impacts to streams, and that citizens are granted access to coal company and land company properties as needed to do this monitoring. — Donna Branham, Lenore, W.Va.

Protecting the Central and Southern Appalachian Mountain Region