Dr. Margaret Palmer recently co-authored a major new study on the environmental and health effects from mountaintop removal mining and valley fills and she will appear on the hit show the Colbert Report Monday night January 18th.

The scientific evidence of the severe environmental and human impacts from mountaintop mining is strong and irrefutable," says lead author Dr. Margaret Palmer of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, College Park. "Its impacts are pervasive and long lasting and there is no evidence that any mitigation practices successfully reverse the damage it causes.

 The scientists involved in the study take the unusual political step of calling for an end to mountaintop removal and valley fills.

Mining permits are being issued despite the preponderance of scientific evidence that impacts are pervasive and irreversible and that mitigation cannot compensate for losses. Considering environmental impacts of MTM/VF, in combination with evidence that the health of people living in surface-mining regions of the central Appalachians may be compromised by mining activities, we conclude that MTM/VF permits should not be granted unless new methods can be subjected to rigorous peer-review and shown to remedy these problems.

To read more analysis of the study you can visit an earlier blog post here.