The Dirty Lie

From the cradle to the grave the use of coal is having devastating impacts on environmental and human health.  Entire mountaintops and communities in the Appalachian range are being destroyed because of our insatiable consumption of coal. Mercury pours from the smoke stacks of coal-fired power plants across our nation’s landscape, poisoning our waterways and threatening the well-being of hundreds of thousands of unborn children each year. Mercury fish consumption advisories blanket significant portions of our fresh and coastal waterways, across all 50 states. Carbon emissions are warming the planet at an alarming rate.  And at the end of the destructive day, piles of coal combustion waste leech high levels of arsenic and selenium into nearby groundwater.  Scrub coal all you’d like, implement sorbent injection to capture the mercury, sequester carbon emissions – no matter what you do, coal will never be “clean.” 

The Dirty Lie exposes the coal industry’s dirty lies through an interactive website to support a shift in local, national and international energy policy and law.  The goals of The Dirty Lie are to:

·       Wage a public awareness campaign to debunk the clean coal con.

·       Force the installation of available technology into existing U.S. coal-fired power plants to reduce mercury air emissions by at least 90%.

·       Stop the construction of new coal-fired power plants in our movement’s watersheds.

·       Stop the development of all new coal mines in our movement’s watersheds.

·       Hold the coal industry accountable for restoring areas impacted by mining, slurry impoundments, ash disposal, mine drainage and countless other impacts from the coal life cycle.

·       Restore the integrity of the Clean Water Act in part by reinstating, strengthening and enforcing a stream buffer rule.

·       Promote renewable sources of energy.

·       Partner with other like-minded organizations to strengthen our collective impact on combating the coal industry and protecting communities and ecosystems.

The Dirty Lie is unique in that:

·       While many other groups focus on a single aspect of coal use (i.e., climate change from carbon emissions, mountaintop removal, etc.), Waterkeeper Alliance is targeting the entire coal cycle from cradle to grave.

·       Our message is delivered to a diverse online audience, reaching beyond traditional environmentalists to connect and empower web consumers worldwide. 

·       Our grassroots model for action relies on Waterkeepers as agents of change in their communities.  Their passion, motivation and expertise are the forces behind the campaign.

·       Our grassroots participation and public awareness efforts are leveraged at the international and national levels by Waterkeeper Alliance and at regional and local levels by Waterkeeper organizations to support changes in policy, litigation and rule challenges.