Mountaintop Removal Clearinghouse

The Lexington Herald Leader carried an AP piece on the myriad ways that Governor Ernie Fletcher has been good for Appalachia:

* crackdown on (coal) truckers hauling overweight loads resulting in a significant decline in traffic fatalities
* pushing for more stringent laws to protect coal miners
* secured state funding to open drug treatment centers to help eastern Kentucky deal with widespread prescription drug addiction
* pushed for the creation of “coal academies” to train miners
* donating about 1,000 discarded state computers to low-income families in the region

If these accomplishments are genuine and pure, that’s great, but what about the biggest threat, namely mountaintop removal, to his region?

Dave Cooper, a Lexington environmentalist who has crusaded against blasting away mountaintops to expose coal seams, said the governor has been mum on the issue.

“I’m not a Fletcher basher,” Cooper said. “I really think he’s a decent guy. … Yet, I have never heard Gov. Fletcher say the words ‘mountaintop removal.’”