WASHINGTON, D.C. – Taking offense at industry-destroying legislation, coal industry members from several counties filled four buses Thursday and headed toward Washington.

A caravan organized by Citizens for Coal Director Roger Horton, left from Fountain Place Mall in Logan in order to attend Thursday’s U.S. Senate sub-committee hearing on Senate Bill 696, better known as the “Appalachian Restoration Act.”

Bill 696, introduced by the sub-committee’s chair, Senator Benjamin L. Cardin (D- Maryland) and Senator Lamar Alexander (R- Tennessee), would amend the current Federal Water Pollution Control Act, would change the existing definition of “fill material” to “any pollutant that replaces a portion of the waters of the United States with dry land or modifies the bottom elevation of a body of water for any purpose”.

In short, the bill, if passed into law, would ban coal mining companies from practicing mountaintop removal mining because it would prevent the establishment of what is commonly known as “valley fills”.

The hearing was entitled “The Impacts of Mountain-top Removal Coal Mining on Water Quality in Appalachia.”

“We thought it would be beneficial for the members of the U. S. Senate, President Obama and the radicals who want to take away jobs from our families and our region to see the faces of the people they are hurting,” Citizens for Coal Director Roger Horton said Thursday. “Today is the start of a long fight…but it’s worth it.”

While the miners of the Coal Caravan traveled hours to let their voices be heard and their numbers to be seen by the committee, many of the coal supporters were not able to enter the sub-committee room due to it holding only 80 people. Of the over 500 in attendance at the meeting, just over three hundred were members of Horton’s group. Nearly 150 traveled on the buses and another 150 to 170 traveled by car or plane to the nation’s capital for the hearing.

While Horton and many of his fellow miners were able to get into the hearing room, a great number of them were forced to watch the hearing via closed circuit in “an over-flow room”. Those in the over-flow room were then forced to miss part of the hearing when they were required to move to yet another over-flow room when the first one had a scheduling conflict with another committee.”

“We anticipated a large number of attendees and we could not secure other chambers for the hearing and the first over-flow room belongs to another committee.” Sub-committee general counsel Allyson Cooke told the obviously frustrated coal supporters. “We apologize but we did the best we could with a larger than expected crowd.”

“I think it is a shame that we’ve traveled all this distance and then have been treated in such a fashion.” Williamson Middle School Principal and CEDAR Coal Study Unit Manager Helen Curry told Cooke. “There wasn’t more than 15 or 20 minutes left in the hearing and for them to make us move to another building for that small amount of time demonstrates how little we were wanted here.”

“They were told we were coming,” said Horton. “They knew how many were to be here and these people were given the run-around. Those of us in the hearing room weren’t aware the others were being run here and there. That’s just the way they try and discourage us. But we made an impact. They knew we were here. And they know we’re not going away and that we’ll be back.”

The Senate Subcom-mittee heard from two panels of witnesses. Panel One consisted of only one witness, John Pomponio, the Director of Environmental Assessment and Innovation Division (EAID) of Region Three of the United States Environ-mental Protection Agency.

Pomponio testified to the sub-committee that the third district of his agency had not done a very good job of determining the full effects of stream mitigation due to the mountaintop removal process.

“We need to do a better job in the third district on monitoring mitigation.” Pomponio stated.

He also testified that “despite regulatory reviews and the addition of measures in permits to minimize environmental im-pacts from surface coal mining, many unintended and well-documented environmental consequences continue to occur from mining operations.”

Panel Two consisted of Paul Sloan, the Deputy Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conse-rvation, Randy Huffman, the Cabinet Secretary of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protec-tion, Maria Gunnoe, Or-ganizer for the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and Dr. Margaret Palmer, the Laboratory Director of the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences.

Gunnoe, a Boone county native who the International Goldman Prize for her anti-mining organizing efforts, testified that coal was, in essence, not worth the destruction that it brings to the natural placement of the mountains.

“The energy is temporary energy. You only burn coal one time. The destruction of the land, air, communities and people is permanent,” Gunnoe testified. “We can live without energy. We can’t live without clean water.”

Gunnoe also told the committee that there were only 15,000 coal miners employed in West Virginia now as opposed to 150,000 in 1950.

“I’m talking about actual miners. I’m not talking about office staff and people who don’t actually mine the coal.”

Gunnoe said given those numbers, the economic impact on West Virginia and the industry would be minimal.

“The mountain summits that are removed to reach the coal may not have the same shape or height they previously did, the streams that are buried when rocks and dirt are dumped over the side of the mountain into the valleys below are gone forever, and there is no evidence to date that mitigation actions can compensate for the lost natural resources and ecological functions of the headwater streams that are buried,” Dr. Palmer told the sub-committee.” “Further, water quality impacts from the mining and valley fills permeate downstream such that many streams not directly touched by the mining activities are biologically impaired.”

Palmer also said that the valley fills were eliminating a species of flies from the Appalachian areas.

“A group of insects well known to those who love to fly fish are the mayflies – they are considered good indicators of water quality because they are not very tolerant to pollution,” said Palmer. “The number of species of mayflies you find in streams declines as mayflies you find in streams declines as pollution increases.”

Sloan testified that Tennessee already has state legislation in place consistent with the provisions of the Appalachian Resto-ration Act.

“We (Tennessee) already prohibit such filling of streams by coal mining” said Sloan. “We would welcome Congress bringing a nationwide consistency to this area by enacting such legislation.”

While Gunnoe, Palmer and Sloan were visibly in favor of SB 696, coal mining supporters did find one supporter testifying in the form of Huffman,

“The connection between protecting water quality and the practice of mountaintop mining is not a unique one” testified Huffman. “Nor is the assumption by many that valley fills, which have been the focal point of attention in recent months, are only associated with mountaintop mining.”

Huffman told Congress that the debate could not be limited to surface coal mining.

“Mining through streams, hard rock surface mining and development activities could warrant the same scrutiny that is being given to the use of valley fills. There are many surface mines requiring valley fills that are not mountaintop removal mines by definition.” Huffman also pointed out to the committee that “ the Clean Water Act and West Virginia’s Water enforcement program require the same levels of protection for all mining activity.”

Emotions ran high as the coal supporters realized the committee had invited mostly mountaintop removal opponents to testify.

“I think it’s a shame that they hear presentations from these radicals and can’t take the time to hear what we have to say.” said James Milum, a mining supply outlet manager in Logan. “Our families deserve better.”

“Obviously the panels today were rather one-sided” Cooke told the coal supporters. “If you let us know that you want to speak in future hearings, I’m sure the sub-committee and Chairman Cardin will try to accommodate your group.”

Chris Hamilton, Chair-man of the Coalition for Mountaintop Mining said that despite Gunnoe’s figures given to the sub - committee, surface mining accounts for tens of thousands of direct jobs and provides hundreds of millions of dollars in wages and taxes to the states and communities of the Appalachian region.

“The logic and basis behind this legislation is mean-spirited and is squarely aimed at eliminating mining jobs in West Virginia and throughout Appalachia.,” stated Hamilton after the hearing. “This legislation coupled with onerous cap-and-trade initiatives and increased EPA controls are cause for this united action (of coal supporters).”

“We got on the bus in Logan before daybreak this morning.” said Horton. Our families and our way of life is being threatened just as surely as if you had a gun to our heads. All we ask is to let us work. Let us do our jobs and feed our families. Here we are trying to dig our way out of the worst recession in sixty years and these people are trying to take our jobs. I say let us be America’s ticket to economic recovery and energy independence,”

Horton said that the members of the Citizens for Coal and the other groups represented Thursday on the caravan would meet within the next week to develop their next strategies for defeating SB696. He said that would include taking similar caravans to subsequent hearings on the bill.

“You made an impact today, so don’t get frustrated. They know they’ve got opposition now.” Horton told the miners after they returned to the buses. “It takes time. But we will succeed.”