By Teri Blanton

Today marks the 33rd anniversary of the signing of the surface mining control and reclamation act (SMCRA). This law was supposed to have brought some peace to Appalachia which had been mercilessly strip mined for decades. Unfortunately when the final deal was made, Appalachia wasn’t at the table. SMCRA represents not an effective law to protect the land but rather the best political compromise that could be reached in the heat of the moment.

You don’t have to spend much time in Eastern Kentucky to realize that the law has been a failure. Our mountains continue to be lost, streams buried and communities devastated. President Jimmy Carter almost prophesied this outcome when he expressed his disappointment in SMCRA to supporters at the Rose Garden signing ceremony. Carter knew, and we now realize, that the battle was not yet won. We carry the same signs, make the same arguments, and visit with the same parade of politicians, bureaucrats, and agencies that confronted our elders 40 to 50 years ago.

All things run in cycles, and we are now closer to ending mountaintop removal than we’ve been at any time since SMCRA was signed.  We have the attention of Congress and the Obama Administration. In the months ahead we need to commit ourselves to closing the deal that should have been made on August 3, 1977, and ending radical strip mining and mountaintop removal forever.