AML Coalition Tells Congress: Your Job's Not Done - Reauthorize, This Year, Legislation to Clean Up Dangerous Abandoned Mine Land.ALEXANDRIA, Pa. -- Pennsylvania community and environmental leaders are urging members of Pennsylvania's Congressional delegation to make certain that when Congress returns to a post-election "lame duck An elected official, who is to be followed by another, during the period of time between the election and the date that the successor will fill the post. The term lame duck generally describes one who holds power when that power is certain to end in the near future. " session, a pending bill crucial to Pennsylvania's environmental and economic future is, finally, enacted. "The Pennsylvania AML AML - A Manufacturing Language Campaign is seeking meetings with delegation members to assure action on AML reauthorization," said R. John Dawes Sidney John Dawes (born 29 June 1940 in Chapel of Ease), part of Abercarn, was a Welsh rugby union player, playing at centre, and later coach. He captained Wales and the British and Irish Lions. , Co-Chair of the Campaign. The AML program collects fees from coal companies to pay to clean up damage from abandoned coal mines in Pennsylvania and other states where, before the federal strip mine reclamation Mine reclamation is the process of creating useful landscapes that meet a variety of goals, typically creating productive ecosystems (or sometimes industrial or municipal land) from mined land. law (SMCRA SMCRA Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 ) passed in 1977, coal companies abandoned thousands of dangerous and polluted pol·lute tr.v. pol·lut·ed, pol·lut·ing, pol·lutes 1. To make unfit for or harmful to living things, especially by the addition of waste matter. See Synonyms at contaminate. 2. mine sites. In Pennsylvania alone, more than 4,600 miles of streams and rivers are biologically dead as pollution continues to spread from abandoned mines, and many communities are trapped in poverty because their water supplies are so badly contaminated contaminated, v 1. made radioactive by the addition of small quantities of radioactive material. 2. made contaminated by adding infective or radiographic materials. 3. an infective surface or object. . The AML cleanup program was scheduled to expire in 2004, but leadership from the Pennsylvania Congressional delegation persuaded Congress to temporarily extend the program, through next September. An unprecedented coalition of mining companies, citizen leaders, hunting and fishing groups, environmentalists and mine workers, from Pennsylvania and other coal producing states, has worked for AML reauthorization in this Congress. There is strong bi-partisan Congressional support this year for guaranteeing, for the first time, that all AML fees collected from coal companies will actually be spent to repair damage from abandoned mines, instead of being diverted di·vert v. di·vert·ed, di·vert·ing, di·verts v.tr. 1. To turn aside from a course or direction: Traffic was diverted around the scene of the accident. 2. by Congress for other purposes. "Pennsylvania community leaders are deeply disappointed that US Senate and House leadership may allow AML legislation to die in this Congress. Earlier this year, the bill was set for passage, but was then attached to unrelated and controversial legislation that doomed AML reauthorization in the regular session," Dawes added. Cynthia Carrow, Co-Chair of the PA AML Campaign, said today, "Pennsylvania has more abandoned mine sites than any other state in America. We are telling Congressional delegation members that they must use their influence with House and Senate leadership to make sure that S.2616, the AML reauthorization bill, is enacted when Congress gets back to work in the lame duck session." "There is no other federal legislation more important to Pennsylvania's environment and economy," Carrow added. "1.4 million Pennsylvanians live within a mile of an AML site. Their families face the threat of more children dying in abandoned mines, more poison poison, any agent that may produce chemically an injurious or deadly effect when introduced into the body in sufficient quantity. Some poisons can be deadly in minute quantities, others only if relatively large amounts are involved. continuing to spread through streams and groundwater, more communities unable to recover economically because they have no drinkable water. This crisis can't be allowed to continue simply because Congress couldn't get around to passing a bill that has so much national bi-partisan support." |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion