The Bush administration continues issuing midnight regulations that will help destroy the earth as we know it. This past week they issued a new rule that loosens restrictions on how mountaintop removal is regulated by reducing the required buffer zones from streams and making it easier for mining companies to dump tailings into rivers and creeks. Mine safety & health and environmental specialist Jack Spadaro will be the guest for this discussion on what is mountaintop removal mining, why it threatens both human and wildlife in the appalachians and what is being done to try to stop it.
Mountaintop removal is a radical form of coal mining in which entire mountains are literally blown up -- and it is happening here in America on a scale that is almost unimaginable.
Mountaintop removal is devastating hundreds of square miles of Appalachia; polluting the headwaters of rivers that provide drinking water to millions of Americans; and destroying a distinctly American culture that has endured for generations.
Mine safety & health and environmental expert Jack Spadaro has dedicated his life to preventing environmental damage from coal mining activities and is among the nation's leading experts on coal waste disposal. Jack was a young engineer and instructor at West Virginia University's School of Mines, one of the world's top institutions for training mining engineers, when the 1972 Buffalo Creek WV disaster occurred. "Right then," he says, "I made a pledge to dedicate my life to doing whatever I could to prevent this type of thing from happening again." He has since spent nearly 38 years in public service, safe-guarding coal miners and their communities from life-threatening environmental and health and safety hazards caused by mining operations.
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