| Ask your representative to co-sponsor the Clean Water Protection Act
This year’s annual Mountaintop Removal Lobby Week in Washington D.C. was a wonderful opportunity to stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters of the mountains of Appalachia. The event was a great success! Over 100 volunteers from 16 different states met to conduct lobby visits with their Congressmen to advance the Clean Water Protection Act. This Act will protect our nation’s waterways from being used as waste disposal sites, and it will make the practice of mountaintop removal coal mining illegal. Nine new co-sponsors were signed up as a direct result of the lobby efforts that took place on May 14 th - 16 th! Now we are asking for your help to obtain more co-sponsors for the Clean Water Protection Act.
Ask your representative to co-sponsor the Clean Water Protection Act (H.R. 2169)
For 25 years, the Clean Water Act (CWA) allowed for the granting of permits to place “fill material” into waters of the United States, provided that the primary purpose of the “filling” was not for waste disposal. As such, the CWA prohibited mountaintop removal operations from using the nation’s waterways as waste disposal sites. That changed in 2002, when the Army Corps of Engineers, under the direction of the Bush administration and without congressional approval, altered its longstanding definition of “fill material” to include mining waste. This change accelerated the devastating practice of mountaintop removal coal mining and the destruction of more than 1,000 miles of Appalachian streams.
How You Can Help
Write your representative today and ask him/her to be a co-sponsor of the Clean Water Protection Act, H.R. 2169, introduced by Congressman Frank Pallone of New Jersey and Congressman Christopher Shays of Connecticut.
If your representative is already a cosponsor, please take a moment to send them a thank-you note. The following Illinois Congressman have already signed on as co-sponsors:
Rep. Bobby Rush, 1 st District
Rep. Luis Gutierrez, 4 th District
Rep. Danny K. Davis, 7 th District
Rep. Janice Schakowsky, 9 th District
Rep. Phil Hare, 17 th District
If your representative is not yet a co-sponsor, points to make in your letter include:
- The Clean Water Act is meant to protect, not bury, our rivers and streams.
- More than 400,000 acres in West Virginia alone have been leveled, and estimates are that a total of a million acres of Appalachia’s mountains have been destroyed by mountaintop removal mining.
- Across the Appalachian coalfields, more than 1200 miles of streams are now buried and destroyed by mountaintop removal.
- The Clean Water Protection Act is necessary to protect clean drinking water for many of our nation's cities.
- The Clean Water Protection Act is also necessary to protect the quality of life for Appalachian coalfield residents who face frequent catastrophic flooding and pollution or loss of drinking water as a result of mountaintop removal.
Sample Letter:
I am writing to ask you to become a co-sponsor of the Clean Water Protection Act, H.R. 2169. This bill is critical for protecting the nation’s waters from being polluted and buried by waste created during mountaintop removal coal mining. Mountaintop removal mining involves clear-cutting native hardwood forests, blowing up entire mountaintops, and dumping millions of tons of debris into nearby streams in order to get at coal seams that lie deep beneath the surface. Already, more than 1,000 miles of Appalachian streams have been destroyed by mountaintop removal mining operations.
For 25 years, the Clean Water Act (CWA) allowed for the granting of permits to place “fill material” into waters of the United States, provided that the primary purpose of the “filling” was not for waste disposal. As such, the CWA prohibited mountaintop removal operations from using the nation’s waterways as waste disposal sites. That changed in 2002, when the Army Corps of Engineers, under the direction of the Bush administration and without congressional approval, altered its longstanding definition of “fill material” to include mining waste. This change accelerated the devastating practice of mountaintop removal coal mining and the destruction of more than 1,000 miles of Appalachian streams.
To stop this devastation of the nation’s waterways, Representatives Frank Pallone and Christopher Shays have introduced the Clean Water Protection Act—a simple piece of legislation that restores the original intent of the Clean Water Act to clarify that fill material cannot be comprised of mining waste.
Passing this legislation would protect all the nation’s rivers, streams, and lakes from being used as garbage dumps for mining waste. It would also help end the destruction of the Appalachian Mountains, home to our nation’s most diverse forests and streams, the headwaters of the drinking water supply of many eastern cities, and a unique and valuable American culture that has endured for generations. Please join the 72 other representatives, including 5 from Illinois, who have sponsored the Clean Water Protection Act. Thank you for your attention to this important issue.
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