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MOUNTAIN TOP REMOVAL RESOLUTION
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WHEREAS, mountain top removal coal mining is extremely
profitable to the coal companies who practice it, and WHEREAS, a large part of its profitability is that many
fewer miners are required than in the usual traditional
methods of coal mining, and WHEREAS, entire tops of mountains have been removed in
the Appalachian areas of the states of West Virginia, Virginia,
Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Ohio, and WHEREAS, the removal of mountaintops has resulted in severe
and unlawful damage to the homes of persons living in the
nearby communities, along with damage to wells, the bombarding
of their homes with “blast rock,” and massive
amounts of dust, and WHEREAS, the millions and millions of tons of earth and
rock removed from the tops of mountains are dumped into
the valleys next to these mountains totally destroying
the springs and the headwaters of streams in these valleys,
along with all animal and plant life in them, and WHEREAS, mountain top removal mining, by destroying home
places, is also destroying ancestral ground, sacred ground
where generations after generations have lived, worshiped
as their God has led them, married, made and birthed babies,
taken family meals, slept in peace, died and been buried,
and WHEREAS, Environmental Protection Agency staff has stated
that the long-term effects of mountain top removal mining
is unstudied and unknown and that increasing the acreage
of these valley fills prior to studying the long-term effects
on the environment is ill-advised, and WHEREAS, the Appalachian region has a long history of
outside corporations profiting from the extraction of the
region’s resources in such a way that the prosperity
is not equitably shared with the residents of the region,
and that the environment has been damaged by such outside
resource extraction, and that this damage harms the region’s
current economy and future economic potential, and WHEREAS, the sanctity and sacredness of all life and the
natural environment created by God should not be destroyed
in the name of corporation profit,
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