The Obama Administration is in the process of reviewing many pending mountaintop removal permits. The Administration reviews should be based on the best science available and comply with both the Clean Water Act and the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act. In the past this simply hasn't happened. We have new opportunities to convince the administration to put an end to the most destructive environmental practice in the country and to do it now.

Look at the list of pending permits below. See if an area you want to protect is threatened by mountain top removal. Write the EPA, the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and the Army Corps of Engineers and tell them you want to bring an end to mountain top removal.

Please see the sample letter below:

Dear [Decision Maker],

We are pleased that the Obama administration is beginning to take steps to increase oversight of pending mountaintop removal coal mining permit requests and to more strictly enforce existing laws and regulations.  The administration must now, however, move more swiftly and forcefully to end mountaintop removal.

EPA's own scientists have found that filling streams with mining waste have significant impacts downstream, including impacts to aquatic life.  Scientists have even found deformed fish in reservoirs downstream from mountaintop removal mines.  Over 2000 miles of streams in central Appalachia have either been permanently filled with mining waste or directly impacted by the mines and 1.4 million acres of forest will be impacted.  The extreme impacts to the communities, mountains, streams and forests of central Appalachia mandate an end to this destructive practice. 

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