From: Patton@yabbs
To: Covenant@yabbs
Subject: Coal Mines
Date: Mon Jul 25 08:46:21 1994

Covenant--

I have seen SE Ohio and I agree that it is just a shell of what is was a 
few decades ago.  But I have a story that will make you even more upset.  
Remember all the talk about acid rain back in the mid-80s?  It was killing 
our forests, killing our lakes, and eating the paint off of your car at 
the same time.  The FED government spent a couple hundred million dollars 
on a study of the problem using the best minds in the US.  Essentially it 
was an effort to kill the coal industry in the US.  It was believed that 
the report would show coal as the "Anti-Christ" of fuel sources.  It 
showed nothing of the sort.  Sen John Glenn took the report to the floor 
of the Senate and testified that the report showed that emmissions from 
coal plants were not the cause of a majority of acid rain.  And that acid 
rain was not nearly as large a problem as the media and environmental 
groups had portrayed it as.  He testified that for whatever the cause, 
increased PH in northern lakes could be countered with miniscule amounts 
of lime.  Yet, Environmentalist groups refused to believe the report 
because their assumptions about coal were stronger than the burden
scientific proof.  The regulations on coal mining were not repealed and 
parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia look like Dresden after 
WWII.  

    -Patton
Live Free or Die!