Another One Gone . . .

Remember this view from my house? This picture was taken November 2007. (The post was a year ago today. I would like to say that was deliberate on my part, but that would be a big lie.)
Here is what it looks like now. (Actually, I was wrong in my prediction. I thought you wouldn't be able to see any of it by now. But it's still a lot shorter!) I wanted to do this in November for the 1-year mark, but I couldn't remember to take the camera down the hill until yesterday. (And can I say how much I hate Kodak EasyShare? Half the pictures I took won't download to the program, and after I did it manually, they aren't showing up in the album, even though they're perfectly fine on the camera. We NEVER had this much trouble with the Nikon software.)

(It really is the same view - the Mountain Man took the first picture somewhere in the driveway. Apparently I wasn't in the same spot in the driveway. It's also more colorful in November than March.)

However, my procrastination proved timely, because the Clean Water Protection Act was introduced on the House floor on Wednesday. The following info is from ilovemountains.org.

'Reps. Frank Pallone (D-NJ-06), Dave Reichert (R-WA-08), and John Yarmouth (D-KY-03) introduced the bill [Wednesday] morning with 117 bi-partisan co-sponsors, more than double the number of original co-sponsors from the 110th Congress! [Blogger's note: A Kentucky representative is a co-sponsor!]

'The Clean Water Protection Act restores the integrity of the landmark 1977 legislation, The Clean Water Act, which was enacted by Congress to "restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation's waters." For 25 years, the Clean Water Act (CWA) allowed for the granting of permits to place "fill material" into waters of the United States, provided that the primary purpose of the "filling" was not for waste disposal. As such, the CWA prohibited mountaintop removal operations from using the nation's waterways as waste disposal sites.

'That changed in 2002, when the Army Corps of Engineers, under the direction of the Bush administration and without congressional approval, altered its longstanding definition of "fill material" to include mining waste. This change, which the CWPA would reverse, accelerated the devastating practice of mountaintop removal coal mining and the destruction of more than 1,200 miles of Appalachian streams.

'For more information on the CWPA including a current list of co-sponsors and links to other online coverage of this issue go to:

http://www.iLoveMountains.org/news

http://www.ilovemountains.org/action/write_your_rep/

Thank you.
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Here are some spring flowers from our mountain, because we need something cheerful.
And no day is complete without a bit of tree fungus that looks like a dragon.