Deltachord

The Abuse Called Mountaintop Removal Mining2

The top of the mountain is blasted off, after the land to be mined is clear-cut, which is deforestation. The cleared land is used for “arable land, pasture, urban, logged area or wasteland,” according to the article Deforestation in Wikipedia. This article also explains that the amount of intact forests has more rapidly declined worldwide since the middle of the 18thc.

West Virginia, and eastern Kentucky in the U.S.A. have more extensively suffered the abuse of mountaintop removal mining, while central Tennessee and southwest Virginia mountaintops are quickly catching up.

The Clean Water Act has been violated because the mountaintop removal mining brings big bucks to the mining companies, while many miners lose their job. In seven years, 1990-1997 coal industry work declined by 10,000 jobs.

Mining companies have gotten permits on four occasions that allowed them to dump valley fill into streams, which violates The Clean Water Act.

The EPA says that about 724 miles of streams in the Appalachian mountains were loaded to the brim with so called valley fills from 1985-2001.

Also, the biodiversity of the land area is destroyed because of the destruction of the environment.

The EPA says that, by 2010 MTR mining will claim more than 1.4 million acres– a larger land mass than the state of Delaware.

The Civil Society conducted a survey recently and found that 65% of Americans are against the Bush Administrations push to allow more MTR mining, 74% are against MTR mining period, and 90% think that MTR mining should be stopped until the U.S. government has determined for itself what the effects of MTR mining are on the damaged mountain, surrounding land, and rivers. The problem that these American citizens face is that the Bush Administration has rewritten little parts of the environmental laws, which allow huge abuses to legally occur.

An example is given by Joby Warrick of The Washington Post:

Today, mountaintop removal is booming again, and the practice of dumping mining debris into stream beds is explicitly protected, thanks to a small wording change to federal environmental regulations. U.S. officials simply reclassified the debris from objectionable “waste” to legally acceptable “fill.”
Look At This: It Will BreaK Your Heart

Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition
Huntinton West Virginia
High Resolution Mountaintop Removal Pictures
http://www.ohvec.org/galleries/mountaintop_removal/007/

To be Continued
We will explore what the current administration has done to weaken enviromental laws and which muscians support the environment.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountaintop_removal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6462-2004Aug16.html
THE FINE PRINT: A Word Accelerates Mountaintop Mining
Appalachia Is Paying Price for White House Rule Change

By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 17, 2004; Page A01

Contemporary Artists Playing Historical American Music

I heard some great songs on Acoustic Cafe on 92zew last Sunday and I thought I’d share the music, so to speak. The ones that were most interesting from a 50-song, 3-CD set called Song of America.

This project was the brainchild of Janet Reno, which surprised me, but hey, the music is good and the historical songs are done by contemporary artists. It is a wonderful thing that these artists were interested in this music.

In the words of Janet Reno:

“The historical detail of the songs fascinated me and I suggested that Ed Pettersen record a whole album of songs focusing on key periods in American history, in order to tell our story to young people who might find joy in learning history through music.”

The Artists and Songs

Earl Bullhead - “Lakota Dream Song”
Julie Lee - “Once More Our God Vouchesafe To Shine”
Blind Boys of Alabama - “Let Us Break Bread Together”
John Wesley Harding - “God Save the King”
Elizabeth Foster - “Young Ladies in Town”
Malcolm Holcombe - “The Old Woman Taught Wisdom”
Ed Pettersen - “The Liberty Song”
Harper Simon - “Yankee Doodle”
The Wilders - “Jefferson & Liberty”
Steven Kowalczyk-Santoro - “Hail Columbia”
Take 6 - “Star Spangled Banner”
Beth Nielsen Chapman - “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child”
Freedy Johnston - “Peg and Awl”
BR549 - “Sweet Betsy From Pike”
Will Hill and Jehnean Day Washington - “Trail of Tears”
Minton Sparks and Pat Flynn - “Declaration of Sentiments”
Fisk Jubilee Singers - “Go Down Moses”
Mavericks [ft. Thad Cockrell] - “Dixie’s Land”
Marah - “John Brown’s Body”
Joanna Smith - “Battle Hymn of the Republic”
Janis Ian - “Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye”
Tim O’Brien - “Thousands Are Sailing to Amerikay”
Otis Gibbs - “The Farmer Is the Man”
Joni Harms - “Home on the Range”
Jake Shimabukuro - “Stars & Stripes Forever”
Jen Chapin - “Over There”
Andrew Bird - “How You Gonna Keep ‘Em Down on the Farm”
Karen Parks - “Lift Every Voice and Sing”
Danielson - “Happy Days Are Here Again”
Andy Bey - “Brother Can You Spare a Dime?”
Jim Lauderdale - “Seven Cent Cotton and Forty Cent Meat”
Old Crow Medicine Show - “Deportee”
Suzy Bogguss - “Rosie the Riveter”
Folk Family Robinson (Black Crowes with Stan Robinson) - “Reuben James”
Scott Kempner - “Apache Tears”
Elizabeth Cook and the Grascals - “The Great Atomic Power”
Devendra Banhart - “Little Boxes”
The Del McCoury Band - “The Times They Are A-Changin’”
Kim Richey - “Get Together”
The Dynamites / Charles Walker - “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud”
Ben Taylor - “Ohio”
Anthony David - “What’s Going On”
Martha Wainwright - “I Am Woman”
Matthew Ryan - “Youngstown”
Bettye LaVette - “Streets of Philadelphia”
Gary Heffern / Chris Eckman - “Wave”
Shortee - “The Message”
Judith Edelman / Neilson Hubbard - “Sleep, My Child (Schlof Mayn Kind)”
The Wrights - “Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning”
John Mellencamp - “This Land Is Your Land”

Song of America at MySpace

At Amazon

References:
http://www.myspace.com/songofamerica
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/
92zew

Music fans, you’ll enjoy looking into Tuneflow, where you can review and rate the current music entries. Thus, your contribution will help determine the winners that month.

Artists enter original songs each month. Four titles are chosen ahead of time and the bands/artists write a song about one of the titles.

You can discuss your favorite bands and artists and other musical ideas in the forum.

The styles you’ll find at TuneFlow range from rock, alternative, spirit, and techno, to r&b, hip-hop, folk, country, and world.

Look for yourself at:

http://www.tuneflow.com