Already filled with waste

From Daily Grist, an environmental newsletter from Grist Magazine:

A PLAN FIENDISHLY CLEVER IN ITS INTRICACIES

Bush's Small Tweaks to Regulations Carry Large Consequences

In the third installment of its in-depth three-article series on Bush administration regulatory changes, The Washington Post today focuses on the way the administration circumvents public debate and legislation in favor of making small changes in regulatory wording that carry huge consequences -- removing the word "hazardous" from mercury emission regs, reclassifying nuclear waste from "high-level" to "incidental," and perhaps most portentously, changing the name of debris from mountaintop-removal coal mines from "waste" to "fill." The latter change -- the "fill rule" of 2002 -- has led to a boom in a practice that is loathed not only by enviros but by a growing majority of rural Appalachians, who object to the irremediable destruction of landscapes where their families have lived for generations. Some 700 miles of headwater streams have been buried in "fill" and more than 240 species of fish adversely affected. As it happens, the coal industry has raised $9 million for Republicans since 1998.

straight to the source: The Washington Post, Joby Warrick, 17 Aug 2004

Well I know something about coal mining. I grew up in the coal region of PA. My grandfather started 'picking' coal (sorting the smaller pieces of coal from rock) as a young boy. Friends and family earned their living and started their dying (black lung, emphysema) in the mines. My hometown of Shamokin has huge culm banks, mountains really, made from discarded coal waste.

Glen Burn Coal Mine Breaker, Shamokin, PA

And not far is the famous burning town, Centralia, where underground mine fire made the entire town unfit to live in. I think it is very clear, we don't need less environmental protections we need more! Let's not go back to the 'good old days'.

Smoldering hillside near Centralia, PA