Environmental activists are urging state lawmakers to stop supporting mountaintop removal coal mining and throw their weight behind renewable energy legislation. Today is I Love Mountains Day at the state capitol, and more than one thousand are expected to attend a rally. They’re supporting the Clean Energy Opportunity Act, which would mandate a certain percentage of energy in Kentucky come from renewable or efficient sources. Recent studies have linked mountaintop removal to birth defects, cancer and other diseases. The activists plan to hold pinwheels to represent the more than 60,000 people in Appalachia who they say are estimated to have cancer due to strip mining.
Erica Peterson is a reporter and Kentucky Public Radio correspondent based out of WFPL in Louisville, Kentucky.
