COLUMBUS — Help stop the dumping of mining waste in our water. Please call the White House on March 15 and ask President Obama to restore the Clean Water Act’s prohibition on filling waters with waste.
The Problem: Taking advantage of a loophole that the Bush administration created in Clean Water Act rules, mining companies are using America’s streams and lakes as dumping grounds for unlimited amounts of solid mining wastes. Companies are burying streams with mountaintop removal coal mining waste in Appalachia and planning to fill in a lake in Alaska with waste from gold mining. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) has the authority to close the waste loophole in the Clean Water Act, and President Obama should instruct the agency to do so immediately.
Time is running out for the U.S. EPA to fix the Clean Water Act before the end of the Obama administration’s first term, given the time required to change regulations. The U.S. EPA needs a green light now from the White House to begin.
Please help end mountaintop removal mining and the dumping of other mining waste in streams and lakes across the nation.
Please call the White House on March 15 – 202-456-1414 (9AM-5PM Eastern Time).
Together, we can demonstrate to the White House the urgent need for action to restore the prohibition of dumping mining waste in our water.
Talking points:
- I’m calling to ask President Obama to end the dumping of mining waste in our water. Please restore the prohibition on filling waters with waste immediately.
- Mining companies are using the 2002 loophole in the Clean Water Act rule to bury streams and lakes with untreated mining wastes.
- From the mountaintop removal mines in Appalachia to the Kensington gold mine in Alaska, mining waste is destroying our streams and lakes.
- President Obama should direct the U.S. EPA to close the mine waste dumping loophole immediately.
Thank you for calling.
– Kate Russell, organizer, Ohio Citizen Action
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