Sat
May 3 2008
07:26 pm
$40 Million Sundquist State Wildlife Area Being Mined by National Coal - Your Tax Dollars at Work
By: Lisa Starbuck

An investigative report by Channel 5 in Nashville has revealed that the 74,000 acre Sundquist state wildlife area, which cost Tennessee taxpayers $40 million dollars to purchase, is now being mined by Knoxville-based National Coal.

All Tennessee taxpayers should watch this 5 minute investigative report (15 second commercial first) and then take action below to put an end to the destruction.

NC5 Investigates Strip Mining In Tennessee

According to the report, mountaintop removal is just now really getting cranked up in Tennessee. Now that 2,000 acres of Zeb Mountain have been pretty much reduced to just a big pile of rubble, the coal companies are moving on to assault other mountaintops in Tennessee. There are several pending mining permits just north of Knoxville, especially in Grainger County.

We can still stop it - if you will take just 5 minutes to contact the representatives below to keep the Tennessee Scenic Vistas Act alive!

The Tennessee Scenic Vistas Protection Act recently passed a Senate committee vote but the bill was killed in committee in the House. However, if we can revive the House version, we might still have a chance to pass this legislation that will protect our mountains from being destroyed.

There are far better ways to extract coal than this terrible process that reduces the mountain tops to rubble and pollutes the valley and the streams below with the debris.

Please take 5 minutes to email or call the following people and ask them to revive the House version of the Tennessee Scenic Vistas Act.

Tennessee Governor, Phil Bredesen, Phone 615 741-2001 fax 615 532-9711 or e-mail phil.bredesen@state.tn.us . Ask him to use his influence to help move the bill this year.

John C. Tidwell (615) 741-7098 john.tidwell@legislature.state.tn.us

Joe McCord (615) 741-5481 joe.mccord@legislature.state.tn.us

Frank Niceley (615) 741-4419 frank.niceley@legislature.state.tn.us

George Fraley (615) 741-8695 george.fraley@legislature.state.tn.us

William Baird (615) 741-3335 william.baird@legislature.state.tn.us

David Hawk (615) 741-7482 david.hawk@legislature.state.tn.us

And don't forget to visit www.tnleaf.org and www.ilovemountains.org for more information.

Topics:
Jeff's picture

Sundquist

Submitted by Jeff (not verified) on Sat, 2008/05/03 - 9:58pm.

Sundquist probably hsd a hand in the coal bucket.

When Champion/International Paper gave land in Cocke County to the state the first real action he took on the land was name it after his wife. The people who lived in that area left it should have been named "The Gulf State Park", the area went under the moniker of "The Gulf" for decades.

Jeff's picture

Sundquist

Submitted by Jeff (not verified) on Sat, 2008/05/03 - 9:59pm.

Sundquist probably hsd a hand in the coal bucket.

When Champion/International Paper gave land in Cocke County to the state the first real action he took on the land was name it after his wife. The people who lived in that area left it should have been named "The Gulf State Park", the area went under the moniker of "The Gulf" for decades.

ColtCCO's picture

Not a big fan of coal myself -

Submitted by ColtCCO (not verified) on Sun, 2008/05/04 - 9:09pm.

I'd far rather see installation of clean, safe nuclear power plants here in East TN - no ugly strip mining, somewhere on the order of less than 1% of the pollution, and by anyone's statistics, cause far less cancer than stack waste from burning coal.

Can't get here soon enough, but as long as politicians have a vested interest in coal companies, coal will continue to take center stage. Refusing to mine it 'here' is not the answer, moving to a truly sustainable system is.

jbr's picture

Maybe we can find out to

Submitted by jbr on Sun, 2008/05/04 - 9:31pm.

Maybe we can find out to which who National Coal has made campaign contributions.

(link...)

JaHu's picture

I'd far rather see

Submitted by JaHu on Mon, 2008/05/05 - 10:40am.

I'd far rather see installation of clean, safe nuclear power plants here in East TN - no ugly strip mining,

But that might just be the reason they are mining that particular range of mountains. Are they mining for coal, or are they mining for Chattanooga Shale? Chattanooga Shale contains uranium. From what I hear, Coal isn't even in that section of mountains.

Even nuclear energy requires mining!

R. Neal's picture

One report I saw (don't know

Submitted by R. Neal on Mon, 2008/05/05 - 3:56pm.

One report I saw (don't know how reliable it is) says there is WAY more coal than uranium in terms of gigawatt hours. We need that garbage-fueled mini fusion reactor from Back to the Future!

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