Mountaintop Removal Protests at EPA Offices in D.C. and Several States

Activists with Mountain Justice, Rainforest Action Network and other groups are organizing protests today at EPA headquarters in Washington and in cities across the country where the EPA has offices. They are demanding an end to mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia.

Mountaintop removal is a form of strip mining that blasts ridges off mountains to expose coal seams. Operators dump the rock and earth into neighboring valleys, often obliterating streams and forests.

More than two dozen events are taking place across the country, including at EPA offices in Atlanta, Dallas, Kansas City, and Boston and a New Jersey office of JPMorgan & Chase Co., a bank environmentalists say is the biggest financier of mountaintop removal.

This is the third demonstration since June; the EPA has put a hold on 79 permits in West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio.

-- Suzanne Bopp