Sighting the New Marsh Fork Elementary

We want to thank New York Senator Brad Hoylman, of Manhattan, for raising his voice and connecting the dots between fracking and mountaintop removal mining.

His March 14, 2013 op-ed in the Villager (Manhattan) not only addresses the assault on human health by hydrofracking, but also gives voice to how his Appalachian roots inform his perspective.

Here are key sections:

From flammable tap water to poisoned farm animals to ravaged rural communities to man-made earthquakes, the impacts of hydrofracking are becoming widely known....

The issue of hydrofracking particularly resonates with me because of my background. I’m originally from West Virginia, a state that permitted energy companies to use untested and unsafe methods to extract coal as an economic development tool.

The results, as many know, have been calamitous. Mountaintop-removal mines in West Virginia and surrounding states have demolished an estimated 1.4 million acres of forested hills, buried roughly 2,000 miles of streams, poisoned drinking water, and literally wiped entire towns from the map.

Parts of New York where hydrofracking would occur, just like West Virginia, are in dire economic circumstances and hydrofracking is seen as a way to address the high unemployment rate. But at what cost to our environment and the health and safety of our water supply in the long run?

For the full Op-Ed:

http://www.thevillager.com/2013/03/14/no-watering-it-down-we-have-to-beat-back-fracking/

On November 15, 2012, America learned the stunning news that Patriot Coal, Sierra Club, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, and Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition had reached a landmark agreement to phase out Patriot Coal’s mountaintop removal mining operations.

New York Loves Mountains, which has advocated since 2008 for cutting New York’s support of mountaintop removal, applauds this historic agreement and its authors.

For the first time ever, a coal company has publicly admitted to the involuntary, unacceptable harm caused by mountaintop removal to innocent families and communities.

Patriot Coal's executives have done what other executives of America's Appalachian coal industry need to do: own up to the tragic, devastating harm caused to innocent American citizens from mountaintop removal operations.

Mountaintop removal has cracked wells, poisoned the well water of rural mountain homes, and despoiled valuable land and property both adjacent to, and miles away from, the site of coal extraction.

New York, which has imported less and less mountaintop removal coal since 2005, is on the right track. We at New York Loves Mountains will continue to talk to fellow New Yorkers about choosing a path for future growth statewide that embraces our Appalachian neighbors and respects the land from which we all benefit.