Instead of extracting coal from underground, mountaintop removal mining blasts away mountain peaks to access the coal underneath. The waste is dumped into adjoining valleys and often into streams, wiping out forests and the wildlife that depend on them. Greedy mining companies have flattened nearly 500 Appalachian mountains across hundreds of thousands of acres, destroying or polluting more than 1,200 miles of streams and rivers in the process.

Mining companies have been able to do this dirty work thanks to the Bush administration's weakening of Clean Water Act regulations, making it easier for mining waste to be dumped directly into Appalachian headwater streams, often burying them altogether. Now the House of Representatives is considering legislation that would strengthen the Clean Water Act by restricting that practice -- thereby curtailing mountaintop removal mining.

What to do:
Send a message urging your representative to support and cosponsor the Clean Water Protection Act (H.R. 1310) to help end mountaintop removal mining and protect the beautiful Appalachian Mountains.