WVEC Action Alert

July 5, 2007

Below:

Tuesday, July 10: Support Mingo Residents Organizing to Appeal Mining Permit

New Comment Period for the Blackwater Canyon Trail!! (Deadline July 23!)

Tuesday, July 10: Support Mingo Residents Organizing to Appeal Mining Permit
Come to the DEP in Kanawha City to support citizens working to protect their water, land, and cemetaries in Lenore, WV. 

JOIN US
9:00 am -- Press Conference at the DEP
9:30 am -- Surface Mine Board Hearing at the DEP

The 50 acre surface mine permit 500406 will fill in 2 streams and destroy the aquifer. Donna and her neighbors believe the DEP has failed to consider the full implications of this permit, as it has granted waivers for the company to ignore five laws, including mining within 100 feet of a stream, inadequately addressing subsidence, and discharging waste into the stream. This permit will open the area to underground mining first and then, once the two valley fills and the two run off slurry ponds are established, Consol, another company, is expected to strip the mountaintop above their community.

Residents of Laurel Creek still drink their well water.  It is good and clean and they want to keep it that way. They use the creek to stock their fish ponds and water their gardens. You can't keep the kids out of the creek in the summer time from catching salamanders and tadpoles.

The residents are appealing the permit because they believe they have a right to clean water and safe homes. They want to stop the destruction before it starts.

Residents organized ten years ago when Consol came in with a strip mine permit and then the company pulled back. People believe it was because they stood up and spoke out, and so they are standing up again.  Donna Branham, who was born and raised in Mingo County, says she feels like she is fighting for her life.  Join us and fight with her. 

How to get there:

WV DEP Office
601 - 57th Street  (Off of MacCorkle Ave SE)
Charleston, WV  25304

From Beckley:
Get on I-64 West toward Charleston
Merge onto Exit 95, MacCorkle Ave SE/  WV 61-N
Turn Left onto 57th St SE

From Huntington:
I-64 East toward Charleston
35th St. Bridge Exit 98 -- Becomes 35th St. SE
Turn Left onto WV-61/ MacCorkle Ave SE
Turn Right onto 57th St. SE

From Williamson:
North on 119, Turn Right onto MacCorkle Ave SE/ WV 61
Turn Right onto 57th St SE

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New Comment Period for the Blackwater Canyon Trail!! (Deadline July 23!)

The United States Forest Service has announced its intent to hold an additional comment period regarding Allegheny Wood Products request for an easement to make the Blackwater Canyon Rail Trail a logging haul road. (We are asking for an extension)

To send a letter to the US Forest Service challenging their mistaken proposal to ruin the famous Blackwater Canyon Trail, our public land, CLICK HERE!

Background information:

To see the letter from the Forest Service stating that the logging haul road easement is unnecessary and a biological opinion that leaves endangered species unprotected, CLICK HERE