Thank our reps for killing this bill!!!

Eastern KY needs these jobs!!!

Thanks to all the coal miners that risk their lives to provide for their families as well as keep the light on for all of us.

“valley fills associated with mountaintop removal coal mining have already buried — under thousands of tons of mining wastes — and permanently destroyed more than 420 miles of Kentucky’s headwater streams.”

Yes...thank them for contaminating the water. Mountaintop coal removal uses LESS workers...that equals LESS jobs...

The price of keeping the light on keeps going up...while even more become unemployed...

So I see you fell for the industry line if we have to follow the law and be responsible for your homeland and your future then you can't have a job. You would think that after over 100 years of these lies the people would soon be able to see thru them. Oh that is right the industry doesn't have to follow the law they just threaten to take your job and you follow along with what ever they say.
Come on wake up it is not as if they can move their buisness some where else the coal is here. But you were used as their puppet one more time.

Thank you REPS. We have some of the finest Reps there are in Eastern KY they saw the ignorance in your bill and stoped it. If you are so concerned about clean water why dont you do something about the straight pipes (sewer pipes) going into the rivers and streams. Seems to me that is more dangerous that coal mines. If you want coal mines to stop hallow fills how about Road projects like on Rt 7 just outside of Hazard. And lets dont forget the shopping center developments like behind Moberlies house that like the pot calling the kettle black. I thank GOD for compaines like ICG, James River, and Black Star for letting there men go to Frankfort. People like Brain Patton are Heros to Eastern Ky. By the way whats the deal with the tax break for Camels. I dont see no Camels. OUR MOUNTAINS, OUR KIDS, OUR COAL, OUR FUTURE.

Fact: The percent of the workforce in agriculture and mining in Kentucky - 3.3% (2000 Census) Total population of Kentucky in July 2003 - 4,117,827 (2000 Census)

Fact: Kentucky is the 7th highest coal consuming state (www.eredux.com)

Our mountains? I would like to see "our mountains" stay they way they are, not being blown to bits and pieces so a small few can get rich from it.

Our kids? Coal alone releases sulfur dioxide, which not only produces acid rain, but also combines with other pollution (like nitrogen oxide) that forms particulate matter, which our children breathe into their lungs. (www.sierraclub.org)

Our kids? Coal fired power plants are the SINGLE LARGEST man made source of mercury pollution. Mercury IS A KNOWN developmental toxin affecting fetal development, brain damage, and mental retardation. However...it does not only affect women and children. All you have to do is eat fish caught in a stream with mercury contamination and yes, you too could suffer. (www.sierraclub.org)

Our coal? My energy bill is going up. I have yet to benefit from "our coal".

Our future? Its pretty damn bleak, especially when some of us are too blind to see the facts slapping us in the face.

What should I care though? I live in Northern Kentucky, have clean water and I am not dodging fly rock from the mountain blasts. Oh wait...that's right...I have kids, that I am hoping will not have to clean up the mess that the Stream Savers Bill would have stopped.

Like you said you live in Northern Kentucky. I dont come up there and stick my nose in your business. So keep yours out of OUR MOUNTAINS. If you are concerned about clean water why dont you work on getting the straight pipe issue fixed. For your info a straight pipe is a sewer pipe running straght from a home putting raw SEWER into the streams. Before trying to regulate coal mines why dont you look at road projects that are doing the same thing as you accuse use of doing (filling valleys with no regulations). And last but not least housing and shopping center developments. They fill streams everyday with no regulations. Remember on thing. OUR MOUNTAINS OUR KIDS OUR COAL OUR FUTURE. NOT YOURS

The coal industy is the most regulated industy that i know of.I agree something might need to be done about Mountain Top removal.the land in Eastern Ky just dont fit the bill for much to be done about it.we need level land for inpovement and so for.i dont se where hollow fills hurt.a lot of people come into our area and say i have never seen anything like this.they proabbly havnt being from away from here.Coal miners and the KFTC needs to work togather and see what can be done not a one side thoughts.So please when you show pictures and such of the mines show after the fact when all is reclamed and done with not jjust while it is going on and present the whole story not just part.for every bad deal i can show you 2 places that are better after mining.

I disagree with you that the coal industry is the most regulated.

"The inside of Coal Creek mine in southeastern Kentucky was videotaped by a miner who smuggled a camera into work in June 2004 to document what he said were dangerous conditions." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11029021/ He actually filmed his own death.

"The Martin County slurry spill, at over 300 million gallons, was the largest disaster of its kind ever in the southeastern United States. The spill released nearly 30 times more liquid than the Exxon Valdez." http://www.appalshop.org/cmi/sludgenew.html

I would love to see the places that you talk about. Along with EPA reports (not reposrts from the Army Corps) that says that the land is actually like/better than before.

you are talking about stuff thats already law that is not being enforced.as far as better if you already have you mind made up that original is always better it would be like unlikly to get you to change your mind.anytime you want to i can shw you places but you leave the politics negative mind and trying to change me out of it.i know it would be waste of time on my part try to change any of you but willing to try

Thank you both for your comments. F, I really appreciate your desire to have KFTC members and miners working side by side, I can say without hesitation this is our desire as well.

During last year's general assembly when the UMWA, miners and the widows of miners were all working in Frankfort to pass laws to make both deep mines and surface mines safer, KFTC members worked right along side of them. KFTC members were down in Frankfort every day lobbying for safer working conditions.

KFTC has over 5,000 members all across the state, and many of our members are your neighbors in eastern Kentucky. We have chapters in Knott, Letcher, Perry, Harlan, Pike and Floyd Counties. Some of these people join KFTC because from the beginning they believe that by organizing we can work to build a more fair and just community, but others seek us out because we are the only ones willing to help. These are the people who live next to a mountaintop or contour mine or above a deep mine and have to live with the problems that come with having a mine as a neighbor.

Cracked foundations, loss os drinking water, cracked windows, doors that will not shut, dust and mud, flooding, fly-rock and subsidence just to name a few of these problems. And yes there are a lot of surface and deep mining laws, if the goal of these laws is to protect people and the environment then these laws are not doing their job.

When you talk with older people about growing up in eastern Kentucky they will often talk about the amazing streams and wonderful swimming holes that use to exist. If you go to Bad Branch Falls and in parts of the Daniel Boone you can still see what they were talking about. Unfortunately most of the streams and creeks of eastern Kentucky have filled in with sediment and are nothing like what was there at one time.

Straight pipes are awful and we need make sewage treatment available to everyone, however, that type of sewage can be filtered out of water rather easily. Where as sediment clogs creeks and leaches heavy metals into our water that can not be filtered out easily. This sediment can also release chemicals that combine to form compounds that settle out covering the bottom of the creek beds with brown or orange or rusty slime that coats the bottom of the stream and chokes all the life out of the stream.

And the argument that we need more flat land in eastern Kentucky rings hollow when there are hundreds and hundreds of acres of flat land there already that is not being used. I would understand if the flat land was only being created near towns like Hazard, but most of this flat land is being create off in the more rural parts of the county. Where there will be no access to water lines and the reclamation leaves the land so compacted and full of shale and rock that nothing but scrub grasses will grow there for a very long time.

I know they say they have methods now that can grow trees on these sites, but the coal companies are only doing that in a few, I think eight, sites across eastern Kentucky and that is only when a university agrees to work with the coal company because the reclamation is more expensive.

Our members in eastern Kentucky want to see the economy grow, but that is hard when people don't want to live in a place where the water is polluted, the many of the smaller roads are full of dangerous coal trucks and you never know when the value of you home will be decreased because a mine decides to move in either next to you or below you.

People live in rural mountainous regions all across the US and in many of these area the land is valuable because people want to live in the mountains with clean streams and pure air.

We need to create a plan to grow the economy of eastern Kentucky in a way that protects the land and allows the people to prosper. But as a friend of mine in Letcher County once told me, "it's hard to heal when your still bleeding."

We all need to work together to solve these problems.

If the stream saver bill or aany other bill is ever passed it will wipe out the economi in Eastern KY. There wont be any Walmart or any other business because there wont be any money. As long as KFTC fights against coal mining (the way I make my living) I will be a thorn in you side. OUR MOUNTAINS OUR KIDS OUR COAL OUR FUTURE.

thank for answering.i ahve been around mining since i was 11 years old.i am now 53.i ahve seen the changes a lot of change since then.i have had to deal with cracked foundations and bad water and so forth.i agree we need to do something about our water and such but take a place like Lexington and so forthe they have city water and such.we are getting it in a lot of places here now.why not work towards getting the laws we have now enforced more with stiffer fines and such instead of getting someting passed to shut down jobs and maybe have a lot of people move out of the area to find work.everyone has to eat.make it less coatly for a coal company to do right than say just drill another well or fix a cracked foundation.i have seen chages like from just shoving dirt and rock over the hill to what we have now.Its hard for a company to come in here and start a new bussiness when we dont have a work force to work for them.My opion we need to work on our drug problem and get a lot of people off government aid tha dont need it.again thank you and i am willing to help in anyway but we all need to have a open mind on it all not tunnel vision on one thing

I think the KFTC should be dissolved and should not be allowed to walk on the streets in Eastern Kentucky. You ahve no idea what you are saying. The only kind of people that would ever join this organization is those lacking in education or those drawing welfare and has way too much time on their hands. My husband is a coal miner and he just recently accepted an award in Washington DC for safety. Every job is dangerous in its own way. Why are you not picking on the loggers. Go down and protest the people killing the Rain Forest and leave Eastern Kentucky alone. Find a hobby, or yet here is a better idea, get a job. Have something else to do except set around in your geeky meetings and whining about soemthing that you are not brave enough to do. I wish I had to power to find everyone of your members and disconnect your power. Maybe then you would have a different view of coal mining.

I agree with Shellie completely they need to be disolved.

If KFTC want war.They picked on the right bunch.Thank GOD for coal.And the hell with KFTC.You know not what you do.If you get what you are after ,to stop mountain removial,I will be at your front door for a payday every friday, and you dam well better have me one,And one for several thousand coal miners, truckers, inspectors, and all the other people that are associated with mining.Even the ones that wll not have any power to cool there ass,or heat there feet,When they get cold.This bill sucks, and is stupid,Have you considered the consequences of your actions KFTC,Well i have and you suck,You have woken a sleeping giant,And stirred up a hornets nest.LOVE MICHAEL A CORNETT.

There is nothing but good about an organization who would work to bring coal severance taxes back to the counties that pay them, or to work to preserve the unmined minerals tax that helps to fund health departments & libraries.
How about emergency action plans for the communities who live downstream from coal slurry impoundments like the Martin County slurry impoundment? Should not first responders know where these dangers lay?
There is nothing in the stream saver bill that would shut down coal mining. The industry has a right to take its coal but it does not have a right to destroy the water. So they can insight you to be angry and nasty but it still does not make it right. And it still is not the truth.
Why don't you just read the bill. Don't take my word.

First off I am a firefighter and a EMT. I know where the hazards are in my community. For your info every local fire dept has a emergency action plan. I guess your ignorance or arogance keeps you from knowing that. When I jump into a stream to cut someone out of a car I dont worry about the slurry pond or the water coming out of it. I worry about what is coming out of the straight pipe just up stream. Do you want to explain to the people what a straight pipe is. I would say you don't so I will It is a raw sewer pipe running from a house straight into the stream. That is the hazard Im worried about but you arent.
Read the bill? I have. Would you like to explain the legal definition of a stream ? I say you don't. So I will It is anywhere 2 raindrops come together. If you are so concerned about water what about the road project on rte 7 just outside out Hazard. They have no sediment control arent you worried about that? How about the runoff at the shopping center development behind your favorite senators house arent you worried about that. How about the sewer problems in Lexington arent you worried about that? No you are not because all you want to do is to pic on coal. Well you have awoken a sleeping gaint and we wont shut up.

I guess when you do hear the truth there is no reponse.