This is from the Ohio Valley Environmental Council's webpage.

Only Fools Bury Streams!
Protesting Valley Fills at the Huntington District Headquarters for the Army
Corps of Engineers
April 1, 2002

Janet Fout's Speech
I would like to thank everyone for being here today and would ask that we
stand briefly for a moment of silence to honor, Laura Forman, OVEC's
beloved, feisty organizer who collapsed and died here at a protest she
organized in December and is undoubtedly with us today in spirit.

Illegal valley fills and the process of mountaintop removal are destroying
forested mountain ecosystems, streams, and communities in southern West
Virginia. The illegal permitting of these projects is the direct result of a
national and state campaign finance system that is rotten to the core. And
the rubber-stamping of coal company permits for this destruction is rotten
at this Huntington District Corps-pun intended.

Our current system of financing political campaigns allows big special
interests like the coal industry to contribute vast sums of money to top
decision-makers like President Bush who received millions of dollars from
the energy sector and our own Senator Robert Byrd in return for political
favors. These two words come to mind: legalized bribery.

Here's how it works: Coal and energy companies gave Bush more than $4
million for his 2000 election campaign (not to mention the additional vast
amounts of cash contributed by these same powerful people and corporations,
like Enron, to his inaugural). These same energy moguls also grease the
political campaigns of other powerful people in Congress-the same Congress
that approves the Corps' operating budget. And if the Corps or other
regulatory agencies don't dance to the Administration's tune, they are
likely to see deep budget cuts. One sure way to make sure laws and
regulations are not enforced is to starve the agency in charge.

As long as vast sums of money flow into the political campaigns of top
decision-makers who set budgets for the U.S Army Corps of Engineers, the
Huntington Division of the Corps is likely to continue to illegally permit
coal companies to stop the flow of our precious, life-giving waters.

We stand here in protest of a singular, prime example of how money is
polluting our political system. For years, the U.S. Army Corps has been
illegally permitting valley fills that smother our precious headwater
streams and degrade water downstream-in direct violation of the Clean Water
Act. For starters, the Huntington Corps issues Nationwide 21 permits, which
are supposed to be issued ONLY when the environmental impact is minimal.

Do you call this MINIMAL environmental impact? I sure don't. Entire aquatic
and forested mountain ecosystems are being annihilated. Hardly what any
reasonable person would call this-minimal environmental impact.

Dr. Ben Stout, an aquatic biologist from Wheeling Jesuit University said:

"I can tell you with a straight face, that if you put 200 feet of fill on
top of a headwater stream, you are going to destroy it. If you take
headwater streams away from the matrix of streams that feed our large river
systems, we are going to end up with highly polluted major systems. This is
a very significant ecosystem. These stream ecosystems are not to be thrown
away.This battle (to save headwater streams) is the battle that you throw
every thing at. It is so critical that we not allow this (coal) industry to
run rampant over our ecosystems. The most vital of all our natural resources
is water, and it's more vital than coal."

If ignoring the current environmental law were not bad enough, and because
it appears that at least one Federal judge believes that the federal Clean
Water Act should be enforced, the Bush Administration is trying to change
the rules of the game to help the coal industry to keep burying our streams
without public input.

Current law allows the Corps to issue permits for filling streams, BUT NOT
FOR FILLING STREAMS WITH WASTE MATERIALS! The current law was clearly meant
to limit their authority to protect our precious, vital water resources.
What this proposed rule change would include is changing the definition of
fill to include coal mining waste. The only way the coal industry can
continue their destructive valley fills, which increases their profit
margins but destroys our streams, is by sealing the deal with fat wads of
campaign cash.

But this is no game-it's a deadly serious ploy-and I do mean deadly. A rule
change such as this could endanger all of our nation's water-allowing the
Corps to issue permits for the dumping of all kinds of industrial waste into
our nation's precious waters.

We, who are defending our very landscape, waterways, homes, and communities
from destruction from within- from outlaw coal companies and the regulatory
agencies they control- must unite and commit ourselves to stopping the flow
of special interests campaign dollars into 'our' politicians' political
campaigns. This tainted campaign cash is not only obliterating West
Virginia's landscape, but also contributing to an abuse of power, throwing
political accountability out the window, and destroying democracy in our
state and nation.

I'll close with a quote from a true American patriot and hero of mine Doris
Haddock, fondly known to us as "Granny D", who remarkably at the age of 90
walked across this great nation to carry the message of campaign finance
reform to our nation's Capitol. She said:

We have a duty to look after each other, and we invent governments for this
purpose. If we lose control of our government, then we lose our ability to
dispense justice and human kindness. Our first priority today, then, is to
defeat utterly those forces of greed and corruption that have come between
us and our self-governance.

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