Our blogs are written by the staff of the Center for Coalfield Justice, with an occasional guest post. The most recent post appears on top, and others show up below in order of publishing date. You can receive the blogs in your inbox by signing up for our mailing list. Once per month we publish a newsletter, which contains most of the blog posts.
Our Water Should Be Protected
The following is a guest post written by Gillian Graber and the Protect PT team:Water is life. We depend on water for so many aspects of our lives. Yet our waters are some of the least protected entities in our state. While oil and gas companies contaminate our waters with their irresponsible practices, our state…
Tour Reflection by Alexandra Cheek
An Afternoon in the Coalfields Over the course of the afternoon, we navigated through Greene and Washington counties, following well traffic all over rural southwestern Pennsylvania. Looking out the window were signs that directed the different energy corporations down the winding, crumbling, nearly single lane country roads to their respective well pads. If you weren’t…
Love is STRONG
There are two kinds of people on Valentine’s Day: the romantics, covered in red and pink and hearts, and the cynics, who avoid Hallmark stores like the plague. Rarely do these groups find common ground. Through our work, though, we all live the shared value of love. Love is strength. Love is resilience. Love is…
Meet Alex, CCJ’s Spring Intern
Alex is a Geology major attending California University of Pennsylvania, originally from Bunola, PA. Coming from rural Southwestern PA, she has seen both the positive and negative impacts of resource extraction in our area. Alex is excited to intern with CCJ to learn about community advocacy and educational outreach, but she’s most excited to spend…
Why the coalfields need a Green New Deal
This week, the Office of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez released the “Green New Deal Resolution.” The resolution outlines the goals, motivations, and responsibilities of the Green New Deal: a call for a collective effort to respond to climate change in a way that takes into account the economic, environmental, and social justice implications of changing climate…
Give us your feedback for a chance to win a prize!
The team at the Center for Coalfield Justice is excited to announce that we will be holding quarterly meetings for our members and supporters! (Our first one is March 21st) You are the center of our work; without you, we wouldn’t exist. This year we want to engage more directly in person with you. Please…
Can We Get to Zero Carbon? Panelists Weigh In
On January 29, StateImpact Pennsylvania and WESA sponsored an event at the Energy Innovation Center in Pittsburgh during which three panelists – Paulina Jaramillo, a professor of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University; Ivonne Pena, an energy analyst working with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory; and Greg Reed, a professor of electric power…
Permit to Use Beneficial Coal Ash to Reclaim Mine Waste Dump Under Review by DEP
The DEP is considering a permit application for the beneficial use of stabilized flue gas desulfurization material (stabilized FGD or coal ash) at the over 400-acre Champion coal waste pile, the largest coal refuse pile east of the Mississippi, containing over 37 million tons of coal waste. The Champion Coal Refuse Pile is the lingering…
Support Coal Miners, Urge Your Legislators to Reinstate the Black Lung Fund
Rates of Black Lung disease are on the rise in coal communities across Appalachia, but Congress allowed the excise tax that supports the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund to be automatically slashed at the end of 2018. The trust fund, already struggling to remain solvent, would need an increase from 2018 levels in order to…
Tour Reflection from Mimi Wahid
Mimi Wahid is an intern from MIT working with The Center for the month of January. Last week, she went on CCJ’s “Fracking and the Coalfields” tour with Executive Director Veronica Coptis. Below are her reflections on the experience. As an intern at the Center for Coalfield Justice, I’ve heard a lot about undermining these…