Time-sensitive information
and calls to action.

The Cumberland Chapter of Sierra Club has expressed it's opposition to Dr. Scott Smith, Dean of UK's College of Agriculture and UK President Lee Todd regarding UK's proposal to clear-cut 800 acres of Robinson Forest in eastern Kentucky. The biodiversity, distinctive ecosystem and clear reference watershed of Robinson Forest deserve protection from UK's destructive agenda. For more information on what's happening with Robinson Forest, contact our Chapter Forest Issues Chair, Elizabeth Glass.

Take Action:
We encourage you to contact Dr. Scott Smith and President Lee Todd and express your concerns regarding their plans for Robinson Forest:

Dr. Scott Smith
S-123 Ag Science North
Lexington, KY 40546-0091
Phone: (859) 257-4772
Fax: (859) 323-2885

President Lee T. Todd, Jr.
Office of the President
101 Main Building
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY 40506-00320.

On August 24, 2007, the Office of Surface Mining proposed to repeal what is known as the "stream buffer zone rule" rather than enforce its protections. The proposal would allow Big Coal companies to mine next to or through streams, and would expressly allow the most dangerous and destructive mountaintop removal mining activities. This change would remove one of the few remaining protections for streams and make it easier for coal companies to continue mountaintop removal mining.

Take Action!

1. The Clean Water Protection Act will restore the original intent of the Clean Water Act by preventing disposal of waste material, such as mining waste, in streams. Please ask your Representative to co-sponsor H.R. 2169 to protect Appalachia's mountains, streams and communities. You can quickly do this by completing our on-line form that can be edited as much or as little as you like. Thank you for taking this action!

Learn more about this issue and why the Stream Buffer Zone Rule is so important.

Help us keep you informed about opportunities that fit with your unique environmental concerns and skills. Please share your outings, conservation and volunteer interests with us by completing our on-line Volunteer Interest Survey (Please note: the on-line survey will be temporarily down between May 6-19, 2008 - please consider completing and sending us a hard copy!), or click here to print a copy, fill it out, and return it to us at the address listed on the form. Thank You!!

Visit our Volunteer page for more opportunities to volunteer!

Please take time to sign this petition on the national website. This petition shows that you oppose the practice of mountaintop removal mining and other forms of steep-slope mining.

To learn more about this issue or to view Dave Cooper's Mountaintop Removal Roadshow calendar, visit our Mountaintop Removal page.

Sierra Club “Cool Cities” Campaign:
Solving Global Warming One City at a Time

Louisville Mayor Jerry E. Abramson, Lexington Mayor Teresa Isaac, and Villa Hills Mayor Mike Sadouskas have signed the "U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement," joining over 500 mayors across the nation in a pledge to reduce global warming carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution in their cities to 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012!

Go to our Cool Cities page to check out photos of the press conference in Lexington where the Cumberland Chapter recognized Lexington as a Cool City, and to find out how you can help your city become a Cool City.

Position papers and documents available
for viewing and download.

Highlights of a few of our upcoming chapter events. For a full list, visit our EVENTS page.

2008
Companion Organization Events
State wide

To view a list of fun & interesting events sponsored by other organizations, visit our Companion Organization Events page.

Ongoing - 2008
Mountain Top Removal Roadshow
Engagements nation wide

To help educate Americans about the tragedy of mountaintop removal, the Cumberland Chapter is sponsoring The Mountaintop Removal Roadshow. This travelling presentation, developed and led by Chapter member Dave Cooper, teaches people about the true costs of our nation's addiction to "cheap energy" from coal-fired power plants. Visit our Mountain Top Removal page to learn more about this issue, book a presentation in your community, or view Dave's roadshow calendar.

Saturday, May 10th
Off the Beaten Path
Exploratory Day Hike!
Vicco, KY

Join us for a dayhike in the mountains of eastern Kentucky as we explore a part of Kentucky not visited often enough by our members. We will be accompanied by a local citizen of the area who will show us firsthand the effects of mountaintop removal on his land. This hike will be the first of a series of four. To sign up, just contact the leaders of this trip. More information.

For more events, be sure to check our Events page.

General news and information.

April 22, 2008
Washington, D.C.--On December 19, 2007, President Bush signed into law the Energy Security and Independence Act, which, for the first time since 1975, raises fuel economy standards. The law directs the Department of Transportation to set fuel economy standards for new cars, minivans, SUVs, crossover vehicles, and trucks to achieve a fleet wide average fuel economy of at least 35 miles per gallon by 2020.

In response to the new law, Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters today proposed increasing the fleet wide fuel economy standard to 31.6 miles per gallon by 2015. This achieves more than half of the total progress mandated by Congress by the program's midpoint.

Read the full press release.

May 11,16, 17, 2008
Whitesburg, KY - Appalshop's documentary film "Sludge" will air four times in May across the Commonwealth on Kentucky Educational Television's (KET) Kentucky Channel.

Shortly after midnight on October 11, 2000, a coal sludge pond in Martin County, Kentucky, broke through an underground mine, propelling 306 million gallons of sludge down two tributaries of the Tug Fork River into the Big Sandy - a disaster thirty times larger than the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Filmed over four years, this documentary by Appalshop filmmaker Robert Salyer chronicles the aftermath of the disaster, the Mine Safety and Health Administration "whistleblower" case of Jack Spadaro, and the looming threat of coal sludge ponds throughout the Appalachian mountains. more.

April 18, 2008
Frankfort, KY--In an Earth Day Awards Ceremony on Friday, April 18, 2008, the Environmental Quality Commission (EQC) presented awards to individuals and organizations that have demonstrated outstanding commitment to the environment.

Betsy Bennett, the Conservation Chair for the Cumberland Chapter Sierra Club, received the Lifetime Achievement Award for her advocacy of clean air and clean water and for her tireless efforts in the preservation of Kentucky’s natural resources.

Others in the past who have won the Lifetime Achievement Award from EQC include Wendell Berry, Tom FitzGerald, Patty Wallace, Horace Brown and others.

Read the full article which will appear in the May edition of The Cumberland.

March 3, 2008
Three environmental organizations (Sierra Club, Kentucky Environmental Foundation, and the Center for Biological Diversity) today filed suit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) program, to force the agency to link their analyses of the impact of East Kentucky Power Cooperative’s (EKPC) proposed power plant and power transmission lines.

RUS is considering providing federal funding to EKPC for construction of two proposed power plant units at its Smith station in Clark County, Kentucky. Getting electricity from the Smith plants to customers would require 36 miles of new power transmission lines in Clark, Madison and Garrard counties, according to EKPC. Neither the state nor federal government has yet given a permit to EKPC for the new power plant units

“Kentucky needs to develop its economy with efficiency and diversified, clean renewable electricity in order to move into the 21st century. We do not need more dirty coal,” said Wallace McMullen, Energy Chair of the Kentucky Sierra Club.

Read the full press release.

The Fight for Clean Air in Kentucky

Some scientific data

The Cumberland Chapter is approaching the energy challenge from two angles: we are directly challenging proposed new coal fired power plants, and we are working to improve energy efficiency and clean power availability.

Currently, we have legal challenges in various phases against four proposed coal fired generation stations. These are located in Muhlenburg, Trimble, Mason and Clark counties.

On the innovation side, your fellow members are in talks with the state’s energy utilities on how to restructure the way they bill so that both the consumer and the utility benefit financially when the utility helps the consumer reduce energy consumption. Other members are pressuring the utilities to make clean, renewable energy available to you and their other customers.