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Verizon Wireless, which claims that "environmental stewardship is ingrained in [its] heritage," is among the corporate sponsors for a rally in favor of mountaintop removal mining, one of the most destructive forms of energy production. The rally is hosted by Massey Energy at the site of one of its mines in West Virginia. It will feature a parade of right-wing propagandists and climate change deniers.
I read about this via The Nation, which has more information about Massey Energy and its practices.
Massey Energy, the largest producer of Central Appalachian coal, holds out no pretense of pro-environmental sympathies. In a 2008 landmark settlement which it fought tooth-and-nail, Massey agreed to pay $20 million in fines to the EPA to resolve more than 4,500 violations of the Clean Water Act for polluting waterways in West Virginia and Kentucky with coal slurry and wastewater.There is contact information at the link if you're not happy about Verizon sponsoring this.
One of the country's foremost practitioners of mountaintop removal, a radical form of coal mining in which entire mountains are blown up, devastating hundreds of square miles of Appalachia and polluting the headwaters of rivers, the company has fiercely lobbied against Obama administration and EPA efforts to crack down on the practice.
