EPA Turns the Lights on Mountaintop Removal

The Environmental Protection Agency made good on its promise today to
assert greater scrutiny and "use the best science and follow the
letter of the law" with regard to controversial mountaintop removal
mining permits in the Appalachian coalfields. In a highly anticipated
announcement, the agency declared that all seventy-nine pending
permits in four states would "likely cause water quality impacts" and
sent them on for additional review under the Clean Water Act.

Does today's big announcement end the practice of mountaintop
removal--which has clear-cut more than 1.2 million acres of deciduous
forests, employed billions of pounds of ammonium nitrate/fuel oil
explosives to blow up 500 mountains, packed and sullied an estimated
2,000 miles of streams with mining waste, and left coalfield
communities in economic ruin?

The short answer from the EPA: no.

But while the agency has gone out of its way to make clear that this
announcement does not "constitute a change" in policy or usurp the
Army Corps of Engineers's authority over such permits, today's news
comes as a telling harbinger that the rule of science, law and
interagency cooperation just might be returning to the Appalachian
coalfields.

"The administration pledged earlier this year to improve review of
mining projects that risked harming water quality," EPA administrator
Lisa Jackson announced in a statement. "Release of this preliminary
list is the first step in a process to assure that the environmental
concerns raised by the seventy-nine permit applications are addressed
and that permits issued are protective of water quality and affected
ecosystems."

According to the EPA, this preliminary list of projects will be
evaluated over the next 15 days, at which time "issues of concern
regarding particular permit applications will be addressed during a
60-day review process triggered when the Corps informs EPA that a
particular permit is ready for discussion."

For many in Appalachia, the announcement is a watershed of sorts, a
strong signal that the Obama administration intends to consider
scientific data in its decision-making rather than simply to succumb
to century-old pressure by the Big Coal lobby and entrenched coalfield
politicians. It is also, as Stephanie Pistello, national field director
of Appalachian Voices and legislative associate at the Alliance for
Appalachia, points out, "a testament to the spadework of coalfield
residents" who have struggled to document and protest the Clean Water
Act violations that have done such harm to their communities. "By
coming to Washington, DC, to meet with EPA officials, among others,
affected coalfield residents have played an important role in bringing
the truth out of the darkness of Big Coal public relations," she
said.

Pistello added, "We applaud the new leadership at the Army Corps of
Engineers, assistant secretary Jo-Ellen Darcy and principal deputy
assistant secretary Terrence 'Rock' Salt, for working with EPA and
bringing a community and environmental focus to their work."

The news came as a bit of a surprise to some coalfield activists.
"Since January we've been skeptical about how serious the new
administration would be about addressing mountaintop removal," said
Teri Blanton of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, a citizens'
organization in the state where more than half of the designated
permits are located. "It looks like EPA is prepared to do everything
it can, within the existing regulatory framework, to protect the
mountains and people of Appalachia. This is great news, but it will
take more than regulations to end the destruction. Mountaintop removal
and valley fills should be banned."

Many activists welcomed the announcement but, like Blanton, pledged
to keep pushing legislators until the practice is abolished. Judy Bonds,
co-director of Coal River Mountain Watch, said, "We will continue our
fight for a total, complete reprieve for our children and for our
beloved mountains and streams."

Thankfully, long-stalled efforts to consider the issue in Congress are
moving forward. On June 22, at the first US Senate hearing on
mountaintop removal in a generation, University of Maryland scientist
Dr. Margaret Palmer concluded, "The impacts of mountaintop removal
with valley fills are immense and irreversible, and there are no
scientifically credible plans for mitigating these impacts."

A blockbuster internal memo that same month by West Virginia
Department of Environmental Protection biologist Doug Wood concurred:
"We now have clear evidence that in some streams that drain
mountaintop coal quarry valley fills, the entire order Ephemeroptera
(mayflies) has been extirpated, not just certain genera of this
order." Wood added, "The loss of an order of insects from a stream is
taxonomically equivalent to the loss of all primates (including
humans) from a given area. The loss of two insect orders is
taxonomically equivalent to killing all primates and all rodents
through toxic chemicals."

More than 150 members of the House of Representatives have signed on
as co-sponsors of the Clean Water Protection Act, a proposed bill that
would end the creation of valley fills and polluted waterways from mine
waste, and effectively end mountaintop removal. "I fully support EPA's
decision to halt these permits and applaud the agency for recognizing
the importance of protecting clean water. Clean and healthy water is a
requirement for healthy people, especially growing children. Congress
should follow through on this momentum and pass the Clean Water Protection Act to completely shut
down the devastating practice of mountaintop removal and to preserve
clean water," said New Jersey Democrat Frank Pallone Jr., who introduced the bill.

Eight years ago this week, US District Judge Charles Haden II issued a
stunning ruling on the Office of Surface Mining's oversight on mining
reclamation projects in West Virginia. Beyond the standing violations
of "unreclaimed strip-mined land, untreated polluted water, and
millions (potentially billions) of dollars of state liabilities,"
Haden wrote about his concern of a "a climate of lawlessness, which
creates a pervasive impression that continued disregard for federal
law and statutory requirements goes unpunished, or possibly
unnoticed."

For coalfield residents, today will be held up as a critical step by
the Obama administration to end that climate of lawlessness.