Mountaintop removal, which provides approximately 7 percent of the nation's coal, is a devastating form of coal mining that involves clear-cutting forests, blowing the tops off of mountains, and then dumping the debris into streambeds. In the process, mountaintop removal poisons essential drinking water supplies and pollutes the air with coal and rock dust. People who live in the vicinity of the mining face increased risks of flooding, polluted water out of their taps, coal dust coating their homes and lungs and schools, daily explosions that rock their foundations. They are losing their forests, their mountains, their peace of mind, and their homesteads and communities.
RAN believes that it is an abomination to destroy a mountain, much less a mountain range, in pursuit of a polluting source of energy -- especially now, at a time when alternatives are readily available and there is a new emphasis on building a green energy economy that can be designed to bring prosperity to low-income communities and sanity to our consumption patterns.
It is time to end the American tragedy of mountaintop removal. RAN is working with activists and allies to demand that political leaders and powerful banks take action - this year!
