Hellbender Press Editorials

Sample Letter for OSM stream buffer DEIS

2007-10-10T19:58:00.000-07:00

Comment period extended through November 23, public meeting October 24 at Pellissippi State Technical Community College, Goins Auditorium, 10915 Hardin Valley Road, Knoxville, Tennessee.

Mr. David Hartos
Office of Surface Mining Reclamation & Enforcement
3 Parkway Center
Pittsburgh, PA 15220

The Draft Environmental Impact Statement issued by the Office of Surface Mining on enforcement of the stream buffer-zone rule is unacceptable. The analysis is incomplete and imbalanced. Viable alternatives were dismissed without adequate justification, leaving only minor variations of a single approach from which to choose the preferred alternative.
It is apparent that considerable biological and technical analysis went into preparing the statement, yet most of it was squandered. Much of the ecological information was discarded in deference to economic considerations, yet the economic analysis was limited only to the value of coal, disregarding the value of water for health, recreation and fisheries and disregarding the value of natural contours for flood control, tourism and forestry.
The report also makes clear the low and declining value of the relatively inaccessible, high sulfur Appalachian coal. The low quality, high cost Appalachian supply is simply not critical to our nation’s current coal reserves. A full economic analysis balancing the value of this coal against the value of the land and water must be done before a fair decision can be made on which alternatives to consider.
Because alternatives that better address the full economic picture were eliminated, it is not possible to register a different preference. Instead, I must ask that the decision be rescinded and reconsidered. A complete economic analysis will restore some of the discarded alternatives, and from there a balanced decision can be made. If that is not possible, the “no action” alternative is preferable to codifying this flawed decision.

Your name
Your address

Take a moment to share with the Office of Surface Mining your thoughts on the proposed stream buffer rule change and draft Enivornmental Impact Statement.

Phone: 412-937-2909
E-mail: dhartos@osmre.gov
Mail:
David Hartos, OSMRE
3 Parkway Center
Pittsburgh, PA 15220

Mining interests want to spoil our streams

2007-09-01T12:07:00.000-07:00

If terrorists tried to poison our water supply, our President would quickly seek revenge. If they started blowing up mountains and choking streams, he would find some excuse to invade another country and claim their mountains.
Unfortunately, terrorists are not destroying our mountains and rivers and streams. Coal companies are, and they have been very generous in sharing the spoils with politicians. Instead of inventing excuses to halt the destruction of the Cumberlands, Bush has accelerated their obliteration. After taking nearly $3 million in campaign donations from coal and electric interests during the 2000 election cycle, Bush appointed coal lobbyists to federal offices that oversee mining regulations. In 2002, these appointees changed the definition of “fill” so debris from surface mining could be dumped in streams without violating the Clean Water Act.
Last month, the Office of Surface Mining (OSM) issued a draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) exempting such fill from a 1983 rule that restricted mining activity within 100 feet of streams. The buffer was never consistently enforced and is itself a compromise of a stricter 1979 law that required mine operators to restore any stream channel disturbed by their activity. In recent years, federal courts ruled against OSM and state agencies, demanding they enforce the buffer zone and do more to protect streams. Now the coal industry is fighting back through their paid-for appointees. According to OSM’s latest statement, dumping rock blown up to get at coal seams is not “mining activity.” It is easy to understand their logic: cleaning up plastic cups full of stale beer and cigarette butts the day after a kegger is not “partying.”
J. Steven Griles knows about both subjects. While Griles and his wife worked for the Department of the Interior, lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave $100,000 to a charity run by Griles’ girlfriend. In a pattern common among Bush appointees, Griles worked in the Reagan administration, then spent years lobbying for coal interests before Bush brought him back to public service. Under Interior Secretary James Watt, Griles helped erode strip-mining regulations. Under Bush, he has weakened enforcement of mountaintop-removal controls. In June, Griles was sentenced to 10 months in prison for obstructing the investigation into Abramoff’s crimes. His efforts at destroying rural Kentucky and West Virginia remain unpunished.
While the DEIS contains good information about the impacts of mountaintop removal on water quality and ecology, the fingerprints of industry insiders are obvious. Repeatedly, the report invokes “the Nation’s need for coal as an essential source of energy,” language from the controlling federal legislation, as a reason to discard policies that would restrict coal yields, yet the report clearly explains that Appalachian coal is inferior due to high sulfur content and makes up a small and declining portion of the U.S. supply. OSM neglects the costs of surface mining on tourism, forestry and public health.
This weak economic rationale is used to dismiss several policy alternatives that would better protect forests and waters. In contrast, scientific justifications for restrictions on surface mining are painstakingly scrutinized then dismissed as inadequate. The 16 policy alternatives studied get winnowed down to four, one of which is the “no action” alternative. With the 12 better options removed from consideration, including alternatives that would widen buffers, remove exemptions and account for cumulative impacts, the preferred alternative is indeed “the most environmentally protective.” It allows rubble to be dumped directly and permanently into streams, but vaguely promises to minimize the amount of debris generated at each mine. Given OSM’s enforcement history, such promises mean little.
While conservation and energy efficiency are beyond the scope of the document, the emphasis on a high coal yield underscores the gross failure of the Bush administration to address energy independence and air pollution. Simple conservation measures could eliminate the need for surface mining in Appalachia. A comprehensive national energy policy could do far more. Instead, Bush can only see the short-term profits of crony firms doing long-term damage to our mountains.
The creeks and streams of Appalachia curl and tumble together like pen strokes forming words, eventually becoming rivers like the Clinch and Cumberland that feed the Tennessee and the mighty Mississippi. Our handwritten Constitution and Bill of Rights, mere ink on paper, gave rise to a great nation that eventually stretched to an ocean unknown to our founding fathers. George Bush respects none of it. He wants to bury the headwaters of our great rivers like he has buried the separation of powers.
His administration has ignored court oversight. First a Republican Congress and now, appallingly, a Democratic Congress has abdicated its responsibility to check Presidential power and even enabled transfers of power to the executive branch. The wellspring of our freedoms, the checks and balances designed to constrain government power, are being poisoned by lobbyists and campaign donors while they bury our streams under blown-apart mountains.
All that is left of America is people power, and you can exercise your power in this case. OSM is accepting public comments on their draft statement until October 23. For your convenience, on the next page is a comment. Use it as a template for your own comments, or just tear out the page and send it in! Be nice; the people who open the mail and process the comments, in fact most of the people who work for OSM, are decent folks. Speak up so they can do the right thing.

Litter of the runts

2007-07-01T17:23:00.000-07:00

Mother Nature. Gaia. Mother Earth. Earth Goddess. For centuries, humans have regarded Earth as a living, life-giving creature and, therefore, as a mother. This is only natural. Only in the core text of the patriarchy, The Bible, could a man give life. In nature, nothing is born from a rib, and everything has a mother. Not everything has a father. Numerous creatures, including some types of insects, salamanders, fish and plants, can reproduce by parthenogenesis, without any male involvement. Recently, Komodo dragons and hammerhead sharks have been added to this list. Even in single-celled organisms, where gender has no meaning, we speak of ‘mother cells’ and ‘daughter cells.’
Because it is so natural to think of the Earth as a mother, feminists and environmentalists have been allies during the history of both movements. Back when Hellbender Press was run by four white guys, we knew this was not as it should be. Amid our squabbles, boyish jockeying and drinking contests, we often bemoaned the lack of diversity among us, and the inclusion of women in editorial meetings brought welcome changes when it finally happened. More women in more prominent roles would serve us well elsewhere in environmental circles and in society as a whole.
In Seneca Falls, N.Y. in 1898, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and Jane Hut stood before the Women’s Rights Convention and declared independence from the patriarchy. In 1920, their women’s suffrage movement succeeded in securing the vote for women when the 19th Amendment was added to the Constitution. Just half a century later, women were back on the streets demanding equality. In 1972, Congress adopted the Equal Rights Amendment, but only 35 of the needed 38 states ratified it. It has now expired. The U.S. Supreme Court guaranteed reproductive freedom for women in 1973, but the landmark Roe v. Wade decision has never been treated as the final word. Who can blame women for feeling disregarded and denied respect?
Fortunately, the Women’s Liberation Movement gave women courage and tools for tackling such frustrations. At speak-outs and consciousness-raising meetings women shared intimate stories of rape and domestic violence, botched abortions and disrespect in business and academic worlds. Speak-outs became protests, which turned the tide of feminism forever.
Within the environmental movement, rooted in the pioneer spirit of men like Teddy Roosevelt, women felt treated like second-class citizens, jeered during conferences and expected to keep house rather than lead. Too often this still happens. Men talk over women, passively facilitate meetings, or take on “manly chores” like fire building or setting up tarps while women are left to cook and tidy the camp.
Betty Freidan’s “The Feminine Mystique” explored the inadequacy, helplessness and emptiness many women feel when doing laundry, ironing, washing dishes and keeping house. Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” was published around the same time. Women began to connect the subjugation and domination of women by men with the environmental pillaging of the planet, and a philosophy called ecofeminism emerged.
Ecofeminism brings feminist analysis to environmental issues. It draws parallels between a patriarchal culture that confines women to subservient roles and asks them to carry their rapist’s baby to term and imperialist domination of the continents. Just as a man in a patriarchy believes he owns his wife, explorers believed the riches of new worlds were theirs to claim, regardless of the people for whom those worlds were not new at all, but ancient homes. Such forced and uncompensated extraction of wealth persists today in places like Bolivia and Indonesia, and those who resist face the same kinds of threats and taunts feminists face in the struggle to keep abortion legal.
Because the struggle for equality never seems to be won, some feminists seek to eradicate sexism wherever it may be found, even in words. ‘Mother’ and ‘father’ make nice companions, unique, but poetically linked. We have ‘boy’ and ‘girl,’ ‘son’ and ‘daughter,’ but what of ‘female’ and ‘male’ and ‘woman’ and ‘man’? To some women, these words are insults, with men getting the root word, women a derivation. Sexism and patriarchy are plain in historical texts of the Christian and Muslim traditions, but not so clear in murky etymologies. Whether the history of these words supports this modern interpretation is a matter of dispute, but some women prefer alternate spellings like ‘womyn’ or ‘wimmin,’ or even ‘wom,’ which evokes the womb. Since the Y chromosome is just a runt molecule with very few functional genes, perhaps women can think of ‘man’ and ‘male’ not as roots, but runt words that need to be made whole. On the other hand, that might just reinforce the inadequacy that seems to drive men to dominate and destroy.
Women’s struggle for equality and respect is ongoing. Particularly in the environmental community, men should be cognizant of the ways they marginalize women, even unintentionally. Heroic urges to save the planet have their place, but what we really need is more regard for the life-giving qualities that created beautiful forests and rich seas in the first place. Destruction wrought by men is what put us in a circumstance where so much must be rescued and saved. Perhaps the would-be heroes need to step back and help women birth a new way forged from their perspective as mothers and daughters and sisters.