Ken Hechler fighting mountaintop removal

by: Carnacki

Sat Jun 06, 2009 at 16:20:20 PM EDT

Last month, as protestors from around the country converged in the Coal River Valley in West Virginia to protest Massey Energy's reckless mountaintop removal blasting operations within a short distance of a 7-billion gallon coal sludge impoundment, their ranks included 94-year-old former US Representative Ken Hechler.

It was not the legendary West Virginia congressman's first march for justice: In 1965, Hechler was the only member of the US Congress to join Martin Luther King, Jr. on his march for civil rights in Selma, Alabama.

Nearly 45 years after that historic moment, Hechler has a message for President Barack Obama: It's time for President Obama to have a Harry S. Truman moment, and issue an executive order to abolish the destructive practice of mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia.

Standing in defiance at the Massey property line of a mountaintop removal mining operation that could jeopardize the lives of thousands of valley residents-Massey's own evacuation plan determined that if the Brushy Fork coal sludge impoundment broke, nearly 1,000 nearby residents would have less than 4 minutes to flee-Hechler called on Washington, DC to recognize the urgent crisis at hand.

Entire post well worth reading.