(6/5/02, 6 p.m. ET) -- Backstreet Boy Kevin Richardson will testify before a U.S. Senate Subcommittee On Clean Air, Climate Change, And Wetlands of the Environment And Public Works Committee at 10 a.m. ET on Thursday (June 6). Richardson's appearance is to urge leaders to stop the destruction of Appalachian waterways by companies practicing mountaintop-removal mining.
The process of mountaintop-removal mining, which is done primarily in southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky, involves mining coal by blasting off the tops of forested mountains. The hundreds of millions of tons of rock and waste from those mountaintops are pushed into nearby valleys, burying streams and creating valley fills. The Army Corps Of Engineers has been permitting coal companies to dispose of removal waste into waterways for years, even though the agency has had no legal authority to do so, according to a statement from Richardson's Foundation. The singer also believes that the Clean Water Act was violated when the current administration recently redefined "fill" to include mining "waste."
Richardson will take part in a Waterkeeper Alliance (waterkeeper.org) press conference with fellow clean water advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other Appalachian environmental leaders following the hearing. Richardson is a Lexington, Kentucky, native, and the president and founder of his own environmental foundation, Just Within Reach(justwithinreach.org).
-- Jason Gelman, New York
Posted by Jen on Friday, June 7, 2002 @ 12:25 p.m.
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