DUers, Help! Comments and Research needed quickly for environmental law change

[demobabe]

Okay, here's the deal: The US Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement just released an Environmental Impact Study and Proposed Rule regarding Coal Mining and Stream Buffer Zones.

More simply put: People are blowing up and removing entire mountains in Appalachia. They take all the rocks that used to be mountain, and fill valleys with them, permanently altering where rainfall goes causing huge floods and killing streams and fish (and people, too).

So they've done a study and plan to implement changes to the law which are friendly to Big Coal companies (even though they claim they aren't).

There is a 60 day period for comments regarding the proposed changes in the law. At this link, you can find all the documents and process for commenting:

http://www.osmre.gov/

I'm hoping to start a discussion here about these documents and what can be done to protect the environment in the Appalachians.

What the coal companies are doing there is evil wicked. I witnessed the area first hand, and the destruction is unbelievable to see. They hide it well off the interstates, because if any of it was in view, there would be an incredible public outcry.

The dynamite blasts cause huge cracks in the earth, clear down to the aquifers causing them to be contaminated with nasty chemicals causing the local water supply to be unsafe to drink. I KNOW there has to be something illegal there, but that's the purpose of this thread: go through the documents and figure out what is going on and what kind of comments we can send them before the October deadline.

Thanks ahead of time!