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Cleveland Climate Watch Launches the Cleveland Mountain Justice
Project to End Northeast Ohio's Complicity
by Randy Cunningham, Cleveland Climate
Watch, NEO Sierra Club member
Over 1.4 million acres of the most biologically diverse forest
habitat in North America has been destroyed and bulldozed into
valley fill. Over 500 mountains are no longer mountains. Over two
thousand miles of headwater streams buried. Water supplies ruined.
Communities ravaged. Residents subjected to a witches’ brew
of air and water pollution. These are the brutal facts of mountain
top removal coal mining in Appalachia, and there is a link between
all these injustices and energy providers and users in Northeast
Ohio.
The Cleveland Climate Watch believes that the environmental holocaust
that is mountain top removal coal mining is NOT someone
else’s
problem--it's OUR problem. For this reason, we are launching the
Cleveland
Mountain Justice Project to work in partnership with
the Northeast Ohio Sierra Club Coal Committee. Energy suppliers
and consumers in Northeast Ohio are complicit in the destruction
of whole regions of Appalachia. We burn mountain top removal coal
in our power plants, which is why we are starting a campaign to
declare Northeast Ohio a Mountain Top Removal Coal-Free
Zone.
We are starting with RRI Energy’s (formerly Reliant Energy)
Avon Lake power plant. According to the information that the Avon
Lake power plant is required to provide to the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission and to sources such as Appalachian Voices' ilovemountains.org
website, the plant uses mountain top removal (MTR) coal. What we
want is for RRI Energy 1) to pledge to not renew its contracts
with suppliers of MTR coal for this plant, and then 2) to pledge
to move away from MTR coal in its entire system. We plan to utilize
every method available to influence the behavior of corporations,
from letter writing to informational picket lines.
Join us! Go to our web site at www.clevelandclimatewatch.org,
e-mail us at info (at) clevelandclimatewatch.org, or call us at
(216)-631-3337, and let us know how you can help. |
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The City of Cleveland's 
Do you know of a local environmental issue in need
of attention? Do you have inside information on what's
going on in your city or township? With over 5,000
members in Northeast Ohio we count on you to be the
Club's eyes and ears of the region. While the Federal
government and large corporations continue to wreak
havoc on our environment, it is more important than
ever before to act as watchdogs in our own backyards.
For those new to
calling state or federal representatives, it's easier and
less confrontational than it sounds. You will never
speak directly with your rep or senator - an aide
will answer the phone, take brief notes plus your name and city (sometimes), and that's it.