By DINA CAPPIELLO – 7 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is taking steps to reverse a last-minute Bush-era rule that allows mountaintop mining waste to be dumped near streams.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Monday the administration will ask a federal court to abandon the rule that made it easier for coal mining companies to dump waste near streams. If the court agrees, the Obama administration could start drafting a new regulation that better protects waterways and communities sooner than if it sought to rewrite the measure itself.
Salazar said the rule, finalized with a little more than a month before President George W. Bush left office, was bad policy. Two lawsuits pending in federal court sought to block or overturn the rule. The Obama administration's decision puts the federal government in the rare position of siding with the parties that filed the lawsuits.
"The responsible development of our coal supplies is important to America's energy security," Salazar said in a conference call with reporters. "But as we develop these reserves we must also protect our treasured landscapes, our land, our water and our wildlife."
Earthjustice, which represents the plaintiffs in one of the lawsuits, accused Salazar of attempting to spike the litigation.
"This came out of the blue," spokeswoman Joan Mulhern said, adding that no one in the administration talked with Earthjustice before Monday's announcement.
Mulhern also complained that reverting to the status quo is not enough because it won't prevent coal companies from filling valleys with mine waste. "That's not helping the communities concerned with mountaintop removal."
Prior to the change, regulations in place since 1983 have barred mining companies from dumping waste within 100 feet of streams if the disposal would diminish water quality or quantity.
"The Secretary of the Interior's move to undo a seven year rulemaking process is precipitous and will only add to the uncertainty that is delaying mining operations and jeopardizing jobs," National Mining Association Chief Executive Hal Quinn said in a statement. "We trust the Secretary of the Interior does not plan on engaging in a de facto rulemaking, thereby avoiding the transparency integral to a fair and legal regulation."
The action is the latest by the Obama administration to address mountaintop removal for coal, a process in which mining companies remove vast areas to expose coal. While they are required to restore much of the land, the removal creates many tons of rocks, debris and other waste that are trucked away and then dumped into valley areas, where streams flow.
Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it was cracking down on mountaintop removal by taking a closer look at 150 to 200 permits.
Kentucky Coal Association President Bill Caylor says it's unclear what the administration's action will mean for the industry. A primary reason for the Bush administration's changes was to clarify whether the 1983 rules covered ephemeral streams that occasionally carry water.
"The original rule was clear that it did not apply to these little, small, dry ditches," Caylor said. "It helped by clarifying it because there was starting to be litigation."
Salazar said he talked to West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin before Monday's announcement. Manchin spokesman Matt Turner said the governor invited Salazar to the state to visit a mountaintop removal mine.
"There has to be a balance and that is what he (Manchin) is looking for," Turner said. "There has to be a realistic understanding of how much energy comes from coal. We just can't instantly wean ourselves from this energy source."
Manchin complained to the administration after the EPA announced it wanted to review permits the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was considering for mountaintop removal mines in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia.
Associated Press Writer Brian Farkas and AP Business Writer Tim Huber contributed to this report from Charleston, W.Va.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5giHtT8Pyma73d73FFOJx-evlk65QD97R0FDG4
Showing posts with label MountainTopRemoval. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MountainTopRemoval. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Future Grows More Hazy For Mountaintop Mining
EPA's Fluctuating Messages Concern W.Va. Residents
ETHEL, W.Va. -- In one of the deepest, steepest corners of Appalachia, where the most important industry is shearing mountains down to flat-top stumps, everybody wants the same answer.
What did Washington just do?
About two weeks ago, the Environmental Protection Agency seemed poised to crack down on the "mountaintop" coal mines that are common in this region, which industry officials say would threaten thousands of jobs.
The EPA said it had "significant concerns" about the mines -- in which peaks are legally blasted off to get at coal seams inside -- because neighboring streams are buried under displaced rock.
But later that day, the EPA suddenly seemed to play down its own worries, saying it thought the bulk of the projects would "not raise environmental concerns."
The episode has been seen as an early unsteady attempt by a White House with environmental ambitions to confront one of its most vexing problems: polluting, carbon-heavy, economically vital coal.
This week, EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson -- making her first public comments about the letters -- said her agency did not intend to send a mixed message.
She said that the EPA was not trying to stop all mountaintop removal but that it "is going to do its job" in checking 150 to 200 projects for environmental impact.
"This was not about making any kind of value judgment on a practice of mining," Jackson said in an interview.
"This is about science. And what the law tells us to do is review these permits."
But here in southern West Virginia, the EPA's moves have left a powerful sense of uncertainty about the future of mountaintop mining.
People also see this issue as a microcosm of the nation's ambivalence about coal.
"We don't have a clue" what the federal government is planning, said Roger Horton, a truck driver at a West Virginia mine who heads the group Citizens for Coal.
"We want clarity. To do this, to me, is inhumane."
As Washington has become more focused on climate change, coal has become something like the new tobacco: publicly reviled, at least by some, but still deeply embedded in the economy.
Coal produces dirty water when it is mined and greenhouse gases when it is burned, but it also accounts for about half of U.S. electric power, and coal mining provides about 82,000 jobs.
What happens here, in the heart of mountaintop-mining country, might be considered coal's unfiltered version.
"You know 'Almost heaven, West Virginia'? Well, now it's 'Almost level, West Virginia,' " said Teresa Perdue, 50, a resident of Ashford, W.Va., who has spoken out against mountaintop removal.
Perdue was looking down at a vista that once included a rounded mountain and a valley, Bull Creek Hollow.
But the peak was blasted and scooped away by heavy machinery to get at thin seams of coal near the surface. Excess rock was dumped into the valley. The resulting landscape was flatter and browner, with plenty of bare rock.
"Who said it's okay to bury streams, it's okay to cut the tops off mountains to get coal?" Perdue said.
She still takes senior photos for local high-schoolers there, but now she has to crop the photos tighter: The background has an unnatural amount of sky, at least for West Virginia.
Some environmentalists think the science is overwhelming that mountaintop mining is harmful.
Pro-coal people think the economy trumps everything: "There's nothing to replace [coal] right now," said Jim Taylor, a 73-year-old with long, white George Jones sideburns who manages a hydraulic and machine repair shop in Logan, W.Va.
Sitting in front of a former service station in Blair, W.Va., Carlos Gore, 57, a mountaintop mining opponent, said previous experience shows that mining companies usually win: "They take the rules, and they bend it and twist it like a pig's tail."
Mountaintop mining is also called "mountaintop removal," although in most cases, rock is piled up to re-create the mountain's contours and replanted with grass and trees. The practice is centered in eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia, although there are some mines in Tennessee, southeast Ohio and southwest Virginia.
At the EPA's last count, in 2001, the mines' "valley fills" had buried 724 miles of stream valleys, about 1.2 percent of the region's total.
The industry says the mines produce about 10 percent of the country's coal. Last year, a Washington Post analysis found that the area's coal-burning power plants purchased 32 percent of their fuel from surface mines in this region, which often involve mountaintop mining.
Lately, mountaintop mining's opponents had been on a losing streak.
In December, the Bush administration approved a rule that environmentalists said would make it easier to dump waste rock near streams. And in February, a U.S. appeals court rejected environmental groups' challenges to certain mining permits.
Then, on March 24, EPA officials released two letters that had been sent to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which handles permits for valley fills. The letters said that two mines -- one here near Ethel and the other in Pike County, Ky. -- could harm aquatic life in the buried valleys and downstream. It sent three more letters this week, expressing concerns about valley fills at a mine in southwest Virginia and two in West Virginia.
To the coal-industry, it looked like a torpedo, aimed at mountaintop mining.
"EPA: End Production in America," said Chris Hamilton, a vice president at the West Virginia Coal Association.
He said it is wrong that in a worldwide economic crisis, "here we're almost trying to find a way to force these, you know, mining jobs to go elsewhere."
In her interview with The Post, Jackson said that the EPA had just begun to review these permit applications and that although "the sense right now is that the vast majority of them are not significant" concerns, she could not predict the final outcome.
She said that the White House Council on Environmental Quality has convened officials from the EPA, the Army Corps of Engineers and other federal agencies to talk about the future of mountaintop mining more generally.
In Logan County, W.Va., County Commission President Art Kirkendoll said he was worried that the EPA will eventually turn against coal mining in general, which would remove his area's economic bedrock. He said each mining job supports six or seven jobs in other sectors -- and provides another valuable service in a highly vertical area.
"We need this flat land" to build new factories and stores on, Kirkendoll said. "For our county, it's everything."
A few miles away, though, the town of Ethel -- nearest the mine that the EPA singled out -- shows that, although coal mines have long made this area work, they have never made it rich. (uranium mining will be the same, only the uranium corp will get rich, the rest of us will live on worthless land!)
Ethel is a string of mobile homes along a narrow valley floor, with the most prominent building a decades-dead Methodist church, with tablecloths still on the tables and a loaf of bread turning to dust in a dark hall.
Across the street, a rock the diameter of a large pizza and six inches thick slammed into 81-year-old Madelena Hanshaw's bedroom while she slept. (remember, the uranium corp will be blowing up Coles Hill)
Hanshaw thought it might have been dislodged from a vast mining site just over the next hill.
"I don't sleep good of a night. I just take pills," Hanshaw said. "I moved into the living room. I sleep there now."
ETHEL, W.Va. -- In one of the deepest, steepest corners of Appalachia, where the most important industry is shearing mountains down to flat-top stumps, everybody wants the same answer.
What did Washington just do?
About two weeks ago, the Environmental Protection Agency seemed poised to crack down on the "mountaintop" coal mines that are common in this region, which industry officials say would threaten thousands of jobs.
The EPA said it had "significant concerns" about the mines -- in which peaks are legally blasted off to get at coal seams inside -- because neighboring streams are buried under displaced rock.
But later that day, the EPA suddenly seemed to play down its own worries, saying it thought the bulk of the projects would "not raise environmental concerns."
The episode has been seen as an early unsteady attempt by a White House with environmental ambitions to confront one of its most vexing problems: polluting, carbon-heavy, economically vital coal.
This week, EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson -- making her first public comments about the letters -- said her agency did not intend to send a mixed message.
She said that the EPA was not trying to stop all mountaintop removal but that it "is going to do its job" in checking 150 to 200 projects for environmental impact.
"This was not about making any kind of value judgment on a practice of mining," Jackson said in an interview.
"This is about science. And what the law tells us to do is review these permits."
But here in southern West Virginia, the EPA's moves have left a powerful sense of uncertainty about the future of mountaintop mining.
People also see this issue as a microcosm of the nation's ambivalence about coal.
"We don't have a clue" what the federal government is planning, said Roger Horton, a truck driver at a West Virginia mine who heads the group Citizens for Coal.
"We want clarity. To do this, to me, is inhumane."
As Washington has become more focused on climate change, coal has become something like the new tobacco: publicly reviled, at least by some, but still deeply embedded in the economy.
Coal produces dirty water when it is mined and greenhouse gases when it is burned, but it also accounts for about half of U.S. electric power, and coal mining provides about 82,000 jobs.
What happens here, in the heart of mountaintop-mining country, might be considered coal's unfiltered version.
"You know 'Almost heaven, West Virginia'? Well, now it's 'Almost level, West Virginia,' " said Teresa Perdue, 50, a resident of Ashford, W.Va., who has spoken out against mountaintop removal.
Perdue was looking down at a vista that once included a rounded mountain and a valley, Bull Creek Hollow.
But the peak was blasted and scooped away by heavy machinery to get at thin seams of coal near the surface. Excess rock was dumped into the valley. The resulting landscape was flatter and browner, with plenty of bare rock.
"Who said it's okay to bury streams, it's okay to cut the tops off mountains to get coal?" Perdue said.
She still takes senior photos for local high-schoolers there, but now she has to crop the photos tighter: The background has an unnatural amount of sky, at least for West Virginia.
Some environmentalists think the science is overwhelming that mountaintop mining is harmful.
Pro-coal people think the economy trumps everything: "There's nothing to replace [coal] right now," said Jim Taylor, a 73-year-old with long, white George Jones sideburns who manages a hydraulic and machine repair shop in Logan, W.Va.
Sitting in front of a former service station in Blair, W.Va., Carlos Gore, 57, a mountaintop mining opponent, said previous experience shows that mining companies usually win: "They take the rules, and they bend it and twist it like a pig's tail."
Mountaintop mining is also called "mountaintop removal," although in most cases, rock is piled up to re-create the mountain's contours and replanted with grass and trees. The practice is centered in eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia, although there are some mines in Tennessee, southeast Ohio and southwest Virginia.
At the EPA's last count, in 2001, the mines' "valley fills" had buried 724 miles of stream valleys, about 1.2 percent of the region's total.
The industry says the mines produce about 10 percent of the country's coal. Last year, a Washington Post analysis found that the area's coal-burning power plants purchased 32 percent of their fuel from surface mines in this region, which often involve mountaintop mining.
Lately, mountaintop mining's opponents had been on a losing streak.
In December, the Bush administration approved a rule that environmentalists said would make it easier to dump waste rock near streams. And in February, a U.S. appeals court rejected environmental groups' challenges to certain mining permits.
Then, on March 24, EPA officials released two letters that had been sent to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which handles permits for valley fills. The letters said that two mines -- one here near Ethel and the other in Pike County, Ky. -- could harm aquatic life in the buried valleys and downstream. It sent three more letters this week, expressing concerns about valley fills at a mine in southwest Virginia and two in West Virginia.
To the coal-industry, it looked like a torpedo, aimed at mountaintop mining.
"EPA: End Production in America," said Chris Hamilton, a vice president at the West Virginia Coal Association.
He said it is wrong that in a worldwide economic crisis, "here we're almost trying to find a way to force these, you know, mining jobs to go elsewhere."
In her interview with The Post, Jackson said that the EPA had just begun to review these permit applications and that although "the sense right now is that the vast majority of them are not significant" concerns, she could not predict the final outcome.
She said that the White House Council on Environmental Quality has convened officials from the EPA, the Army Corps of Engineers and other federal agencies to talk about the future of mountaintop mining more generally.
In Logan County, W.Va., County Commission President Art Kirkendoll said he was worried that the EPA will eventually turn against coal mining in general, which would remove his area's economic bedrock. He said each mining job supports six or seven jobs in other sectors -- and provides another valuable service in a highly vertical area.
"We need this flat land" to build new factories and stores on, Kirkendoll said. "For our county, it's everything."
A few miles away, though, the town of Ethel -- nearest the mine that the EPA singled out -- shows that, although coal mines have long made this area work, they have never made it rich. (uranium mining will be the same, only the uranium corp will get rich, the rest of us will live on worthless land!)
Ethel is a string of mobile homes along a narrow valley floor, with the most prominent building a decades-dead Methodist church, with tablecloths still on the tables and a loaf of bread turning to dust in a dark hall.
Across the street, a rock the diameter of a large pizza and six inches thick slammed into 81-year-old Madelena Hanshaw's bedroom while she slept. (remember, the uranium corp will be blowing up Coles Hill)
Hanshaw thought it might have been dislodged from a vast mining site just over the next hill.
"I don't sleep good of a night. I just take pills," Hanshaw said. "I moved into the living room. I sleep there now."
Monday, April 13, 2009
EPA puts brakes on 3 more mountaintop mining permits
By ERIC BONTRAGER, Greenwire
Published: April 9, 2009
U.S. EPA is objecting to three more federal permits for mountaintop-removal coal mining.
EPA asked the lead federal permitting agency, the Army Corps of Engineers, last week to temporarily hold up two permits for mountaintop-removal operations in West Virginia and another in Virginia.
The permits are for A&G Coal Corp.'s Ison Rock Ridge Surface Mine in Wise County, Va., a Massey Energy mine in Kanawha County, W.Va., and a Frasure Creek Mining operation in Mingo County, W.Va.
EPA expressed concern that the permits would threaten water quality, saying they failed to adequately account for the effects of dumping rock from blasted mountaintops into valley streams and rivers.
Collectively, the three permits would allow the burial of about 8 miles of streams under blasted rock, blocking downstream water supplies and damaging ecosystems.
"Even though ephemeral and intermittent streams may go dry during a portion of the year, they continue to provide habitat for macroinvertebrates and amphibians that utilize the interstitial water flows in the substance below the stream," EPA said in its letter about the Frasure Creek mine, which would fill almost 3 miles of stream.
"Such aquatic resources have been significantly impacted by mining in Southern West Virginia."
The letters come in the wake of EPA's announcement last month that it would review permitting for two coal mining operations in West Virginia and Kentucky (E&ENews PM, March 24).
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said then that her agency "will use the best science and follow the letter of the law in ensuring we are protecting our environment."
EPA's announcement followed a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision allowing the corps to issue mountaintop permits without requiring more extensive environmental reviews. The Richmond court's decision overturned a lower court ruling that found the Army Corps failed to require adequate environmental analyses.
The Clean Water Act requires EPA to review Army Corps permits to ensure water-quality protection. The corps slowed its permitting as the litigation was under way, and now must tackle as many as 250 permit proposals.
EPA spokeswoman Enesta Jones said she could not rule out that more permits would soon be reviewed.
The National Mining Association's senior vice president, Carol Raulston, said additional permitting delays could affect the more than 60,000 mining jobs. "This is a continuing concern throughout Appalachia because of the potential job impacts," she said. "You have to have these permits to operate."
Nationwide permit at issue
In its letter on the A&G operation in Virginia, EPA asked the corps to revoke the permit because it was authorized under a streamlined "nationwide permit" and to instead process the application under the Clean Water Act's individual permit process.
Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Goodwin of the Southern District of West Virginia ruled that the corps had erred in letting coal mining companies dispose of wastes under the streamlined permitting process (Greenwire, April 1).
Goodwin's decision affected nationwide permits for operations in his court district.
Jones said the agency's letter for the A&G operation is unrelated to the ruling. "There is no correlation," she said. "This is part of EPA's normal enforcement of the Clean Water Act."
The Virginia mining operation was of particular concern to environmental groups, which noted that the permit would have filled 3 miles of streams and nine valleys with more than 11 million cubic yards of rock and dirt.
"The days of reckless, unchecked destruction of Appalachian mountains are numbered," said Mary Anne Hitt, deputy director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign, in a statement.
"There is much more work to do, but President Obama's EPA has taken bold action on mountaintop removal coal mining, and we applaud their intervention."
Mark Haviland, chief spokesman for the corps' Norfolk, Va., district, which issued the A&G permit, said the corps was still reviewing EPA's request.
"Obviously our folks in regulatory are going to take a hard look at the permitting and with the regulatory process in general and make a decision then," Haviland said.
Calls to the Army Corps' Huntington, W.Va., district office, which handled the two other permits, were not returned.
Published: April 9, 2009
U.S. EPA is objecting to three more federal permits for mountaintop-removal coal mining.
EPA asked the lead federal permitting agency, the Army Corps of Engineers, last week to temporarily hold up two permits for mountaintop-removal operations in West Virginia and another in Virginia.
The permits are for A&G Coal Corp.'s Ison Rock Ridge Surface Mine in Wise County, Va., a Massey Energy mine in Kanawha County, W.Va., and a Frasure Creek Mining operation in Mingo County, W.Va.
EPA expressed concern that the permits would threaten water quality, saying they failed to adequately account for the effects of dumping rock from blasted mountaintops into valley streams and rivers.
Collectively, the three permits would allow the burial of about 8 miles of streams under blasted rock, blocking downstream water supplies and damaging ecosystems.
"Even though ephemeral and intermittent streams may go dry during a portion of the year, they continue to provide habitat for macroinvertebrates and amphibians that utilize the interstitial water flows in the substance below the stream," EPA said in its letter about the Frasure Creek mine, which would fill almost 3 miles of stream.
"Such aquatic resources have been significantly impacted by mining in Southern West Virginia."
The letters come in the wake of EPA's announcement last month that it would review permitting for two coal mining operations in West Virginia and Kentucky (E&ENews PM, March 24).
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said then that her agency "will use the best science and follow the letter of the law in ensuring we are protecting our environment."
EPA's announcement followed a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision allowing the corps to issue mountaintop permits without requiring more extensive environmental reviews. The Richmond court's decision overturned a lower court ruling that found the Army Corps failed to require adequate environmental analyses.
The Clean Water Act requires EPA to review Army Corps permits to ensure water-quality protection. The corps slowed its permitting as the litigation was under way, and now must tackle as many as 250 permit proposals.
EPA spokeswoman Enesta Jones said she could not rule out that more permits would soon be reviewed.
The National Mining Association's senior vice president, Carol Raulston, said additional permitting delays could affect the more than 60,000 mining jobs. "This is a continuing concern throughout Appalachia because of the potential job impacts," she said. "You have to have these permits to operate."
Nationwide permit at issue
In its letter on the A&G operation in Virginia, EPA asked the corps to revoke the permit because it was authorized under a streamlined "nationwide permit" and to instead process the application under the Clean Water Act's individual permit process.
Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Goodwin of the Southern District of West Virginia ruled that the corps had erred in letting coal mining companies dispose of wastes under the streamlined permitting process (Greenwire, April 1).
Goodwin's decision affected nationwide permits for operations in his court district.
Jones said the agency's letter for the A&G operation is unrelated to the ruling. "There is no correlation," she said. "This is part of EPA's normal enforcement of the Clean Water Act."
The Virginia mining operation was of particular concern to environmental groups, which noted that the permit would have filled 3 miles of streams and nine valleys with more than 11 million cubic yards of rock and dirt.
"The days of reckless, unchecked destruction of Appalachian mountains are numbered," said Mary Anne Hitt, deputy director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign, in a statement.
"There is much more work to do, but President Obama's EPA has taken bold action on mountaintop removal coal mining, and we applaud their intervention."
Mark Haviland, chief spokesman for the corps' Norfolk, Va., district, which issued the A&G permit, said the corps was still reviewing EPA's request.
"Obviously our folks in regulatory are going to take a hard look at the permitting and with the regulatory process in general and make a decision then," Haviland said.
Calls to the Army Corps' Huntington, W.Va., district office, which handled the two other permits, were not returned.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Senators Alexander and Cardin introduce bill to end the dumping of mining waste into streams
Comment: We need strict laws to protect our water!!!
March 27, 8:52 PM
WASHINGTON - U.S. Senators Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) today (March 25) introduced bipartisan legislation that would prohibit the dumping of mining waste into streams, effectively ending the practice known as mountaintop mining.
The Appalachia Restoration Act would amend the Clean Water Act to prevent the dumping of what is known as “excess spoil” from mountaintop mining into streams and rivers.
Mountaintop mining is a method of coal mining in which the summit of a mountain is removed to expose the coal beneath, and the resulting millions of tons of waste rock, dirt and vegetation are dumped into nearby stream and river valleys.
More than 1 million acres of Appalachia have already been affected.
An estimated 1,200 miles of headwater streams have been buried under tons of mining wastes.
More than 500 mountains have been impacted, and homes have been ruined and drinking water supplies contaminated.
“My goal is to put a stop to one of the most destructive mining practices that has already destroyed some of America’s most beautiful and ecologically significant regions,” said Senator Cardin, Chairman of the Water and Wildlife Subcommittee of the Committee on Environment and Public Works.
“This legislation will put a stop to the smothering of our nation’s streams and water systems and will restore the Clean Water Act to its original intent.”
Coal is an essential part of our energy future, but it is not necessary to destroy our mountaintops in order to have enough coal,” said Senator Alexander, a member of the Water and Wildlife
Subcommittee of the Committee on Environment and Public Works which has jurisdiction over this issue.
“Millions of tourists spend tens of millions of dollars in Tennessee every year to enjoy the natural beauty of our mountains -- a beauty that, for me, and I believe for most Tennesseans, makes us proud to live here.”
Mountaintop mining produces less than five percent of the coal mined in the United States. This bill does not ban other methods of coal mining, but instead would prevent this particular type of coal mining.
Contact Wendy Jacksonat SmokiesExaminer@yahoo.com
March 27, 8:52 PM
WASHINGTON - U.S. Senators Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) today (March 25) introduced bipartisan legislation that would prohibit the dumping of mining waste into streams, effectively ending the practice known as mountaintop mining.
The Appalachia Restoration Act would amend the Clean Water Act to prevent the dumping of what is known as “excess spoil” from mountaintop mining into streams and rivers.
Mountaintop mining is a method of coal mining in which the summit of a mountain is removed to expose the coal beneath, and the resulting millions of tons of waste rock, dirt and vegetation are dumped into nearby stream and river valleys.
More than 1 million acres of Appalachia have already been affected.
An estimated 1,200 miles of headwater streams have been buried under tons of mining wastes.
More than 500 mountains have been impacted, and homes have been ruined and drinking water supplies contaminated.
“My goal is to put a stop to one of the most destructive mining practices that has already destroyed some of America’s most beautiful and ecologically significant regions,” said Senator Cardin, Chairman of the Water and Wildlife Subcommittee of the Committee on Environment and Public Works.
“This legislation will put a stop to the smothering of our nation’s streams and water systems and will restore the Clean Water Act to its original intent.”
Coal is an essential part of our energy future, but it is not necessary to destroy our mountaintops in order to have enough coal,” said Senator Alexander, a member of the Water and Wildlife
Subcommittee of the Committee on Environment and Public Works which has jurisdiction over this issue.
“Millions of tourists spend tens of millions of dollars in Tennessee every year to enjoy the natural beauty of our mountains -- a beauty that, for me, and I believe for most Tennesseans, makes us proud to live here.”
Mountaintop mining produces less than five percent of the coal mined in the United States. This bill does not ban other methods of coal mining, but instead would prevent this particular type of coal mining.
Contact Wendy Jacksonat SmokiesExaminer@yahoo.com
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
BREAKING NEWS: Obama keeps hope alive in Appalachia - EPA puts a hold on hundreds of mountaintop removal mine permits...
Comments: Couple of articles about the lates EPA New about Mountain Top Removal and the effects it has our our Streams!! Remember, Open Pit Uranium Mining is the same as Mountain Top Removal, they will blow up Coles Hills!
A mountaintop removal coal mining site at Kayford Mountain, W.Va. In the controversial practice, forests are clear-cut and holes are drilled to blast apart rock, as massive machines scoop coal from the exposed seams. The rock and dirt left behind is dumped into adjacent valleys, affecting streams and waterways. (AP Photo/Jeff Gentner)
This is from http://www.ilovemountains.org/news/491BREAKING
NEWS: Obama keeps hope alive in Appalachia - EPA puts a hold on hundreds of mountaintop removal mine permits...
We've got great news to report!
This afternoon, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it was suspend and review permits for two mountaintop removal coal mining operations -- and putting hundreds more mountaintop coal-mining permits on hold until it can evaluate their impact on our nation's streams and wetlands.
This is a major victory for our movement.
And make no mistake, it is a result of your efforts to raise the alarm about the devastating effects of mountaintop removal coal mining to our mountains, our waters, and our communities.CBS News has the details:
The decision was announced Tuesday by EPA administrator Lisa Jackson....It could delay 150-250 permits being sought by companies wanting to begin blasting mountaintops to access coal.
Those permits are issued by the Army Corps of Engineers, an agency that has been criticized by environmental groups.
The Corps has been sued for failing to thoroughly evaluate the environmental impact of mountaintop removal, during which forests are clear-cut and mountaintops are blasted apart to expose coal seams; the rock and dirt left behind is dumped into adjacent valleys, affecting the course and health of waterways.
In a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers denying the two permits, the EPA wrote:
[T]hat the coal mines would likely cause water quality problems in streams below the mines, would cause significant degradation to streams buried by mining activities, and that proposed steps to offset these impacts are inadequate.
[T]hat the coal mines would likely cause water quality problems in streams below the mines, would cause significant degradation to streams buried by mining activities, and that proposed steps to offset these impacts are inadequate.
EPA has recommended specific actions be taken to further avoid and reduce these harmful impacts and to improve mitigation.
In other words, filling valleys with mountaintop removal coal waste and healthy ecosystems don't mix.
The EPA's decision is a powerful statement for good science and common sense, and it's an amazing first step towards ending mountaintop removal and creating a new, green and just economy in Appalachia.
This is a big victory for our effort to end mountaintop removal coal mining
EPA Halts Mountaintop Mining Permits
Hundreds Of Applications Canceled For Operations That Would Dump Coal Mining Waste Into Waterways
WASHINGTON, March 24, 2009
WASHINGTON, March 24, 2009
(CBS/AP) The Environmental Protection Agency is putting on hold hundreds of mountaintop coal-mining permits until it can evaluate the projects' impacts on streams and wetlands.
The decision was announced Tuesday by EPA administrator Lisa Jackson. It targets a controversial practice by coal mining companies that dump waste from mountaintop mining into streams and wetlands.
It could delay 150-250 permits being sought by companies wanting to begin blasting mountaintops to access coal.
Those permits are issued by the Army Corps of Engineers, an agency that has been criticized by environmental groups.
The Corps has been sued for failing to thoroughly evaluate the environmental impact of mountaintop removal, during which forests are clear-cut and mountaintops are blasted apart to expose coal seams; the rock and dirt left behind is dumped into adjacent valleys, affecting the course and health of waterways.
Under the Clean Water Act, companies cannot discharge rock, dirt and other debris into streams unless they can show that it will not cause permanent damage to waterways or the fish and other wildlife that live in it.
Last December environmental groups sued to stop the EPA from changing a rule which they said kept mining waste from entering mountain streams, when the Bush administration announced it was revising federal prohibitions against mining activity within 100 feet of a stream.
Last month, a three-judge appeals panel in Richmond, Va., overturned a lower court's ruling that would have required the Corps to conduct more extensive reviews. The appeals court decision cleared the way for a backlog of permits that had been delayed until the lawsuit was resolved.
The EPA's action on Tuesday leaves those permit requests in limbo a little longer.
"If the EPA didn't step in and do something now, all those permits would go forward," said Joe Lovett, executive director for the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment.
"There are permits that will bury 200 miles of streams pending before the Corps.
"Carol Raulston, a spokeswoman for the National Mining Association, said further delays in the permits would cost the region high-paying jobs.
"This is very troubling, not only for jobs in the region, but production of coal generally," said Raulston.
The EPA also denied two permits the Army Corps of Engineers was planning to issue that would allow companies to fill thousands of feet of streams with mining waste in West Virginia and Kentucky.
The agency said the projects could damage aquatic resources, and that "the direct and cumulative impacts from this and future mines will be persistent and permanent and can not be sufficiently or effectively compensated through the proposed mitigation.
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