Earth Protect Blog

  Republicans pushed a bill through the House Thursday that allows the government to exempt gold, copper, silver and uranium mining on federal land from formal environmental reviews. The bill makes it harder for opponents to mount legal challenges against new ventures. The legislation, appro...

Last month, when coal execs read the report linking birth defects to mountaintop removal mining, they weren't exactly thrilled. One rebuttal, penned by four attorneys with the firm Crowell & Moring, which represents the National Mining Association, accused the study's authors of using cherry-pic...

New study on the association between mountaintop mining and birth defects among live births in central Appalachia, 1996–2003 AbstractBirth defects are examined in mountaintop coal mining areas compared to other coal mining areas and non-mining areas of central Appalachia. The study hypothesis is th...

By IAN AUSTENQuebec province, anticipating continued strong growth for its natural resources, has rolled out an ambitious 25-year plan to develop its vast but sparsely settled northern and Arctic regions. The region is well endowed with mineral resources, woodlands and potential hydroelectric devel...

The Corporate Doomsday Machine’s (aka the fossil fuel industry) latest scheme to plunder and ruin the earth for profit involves transforming the highways, waterways and railways of the Northwest into a transport corridor for coal. King Coal’s domestic options are soon going to be limited after Obam...

"Anglo American promised it would not touch the pristine habitat of Bristol Bay without our blessing. It must honour its word" Thousands of pink salmon swimming upstream in an Alaskan river.  Photograph: Lucas Jackson/Reuters Among our Alaskan native tribes, a promise made is a promi...

  Tougher federal air pollution rules coming next year could prompt electricity companies to close as many as 1 in every 5 coal-burning power plants in America, primarily facilities more than 40 years old that lack emissions controls, according to a recent Wall Street analysis. The regul...

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency asked nine natural gas companies Thursday to voluntarily disclose the chemical components used in a drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing. The agency said the information is important to its study of the controversial drilling practice, also...

Cross posted from the RAN Understory, By Nell Greenberg  On July 8th, activists with the Rainforest Action Network have staged a super creative and gutsy sit-in at the EPA headquarters to demand stronger protection for Appalachia’s drinking water and an end to the devastating practice of ...

In the April/May 2008 issue of National Wildlife magazine senior editor Roger Di Silvestro tells us how, because an antiquated 1872 law, hard rock mining companies are able to obtain leases on public lands at ridiculously low cost and extract minerals from those lands at huge profits, and leave behi...

Examples of Modern Mines that Damaged Rivers & Fisheries (Compiled by Mara Bacsujlaky for the Bristol Bay Alliance) The mines that are featured here are all mining operations whose main components were developed within the last 30 years, using “state-of-the-art”, modern hardrock mining technol...