Mountaintop mining is of particular concern to those in Appalachia, where surface mines now outnumber those underground.

Stephanie Pistello is from Appalachia and works with Appalachian Voices, a grassroots organization addressing health and political concerns of those in the region.

There is no nice way to say this. The people of the Appalachian Coalfields are victims of a human rights injustice of alarming proportions at the hands of the coal industry, sanctioned by their own government.

On Dec. 2, the Environmental Protection Agency approved a recommendation from the Bush Administration to eliminate the Stream Buffer Zone Rule, a 1983 Reagan-era regulation that requires coal companies to apply for a permit before mining within 100 feet of a stream. Without this rule, we can expect a rapid expansion of mountaintop removal mining and the disappearance of the primary source of drinking water for the southeast United States.

To date, the U.S. government has allowed the coal industry to flatten over 470 Appalachian mountain peaks, bury roughly 1,600 miles of headwater and intermittent streams and clear-cut over 400,000 acres of forest. In their place, literally billions and billions of gallons of toxic coal waste (including chemicals used to wash the coal so that it burns more cleanly) has been dammed up or injected underground in Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee.

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