| By Dave Harding, ProgressOhio - Mar 25th, 2009 at 4:28 pm EDT |
Yesterday, the EPA announced plans today to review permitting for mountaintop mining to assess the impacts of those projects on water quality and aquatic life.
Exerting its authority under the Clean Water Act, EPA notified the lead federal permitting agency, the Army Corps of Engineers, yesterday that it planned to review permitting for two coal mining operations in West Virginia and Kentucky.
In a statement, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said her agency "will use the best science and follow the letter of the law in ensuring we are protecting our environment."
Ed Hopkins, the environmental quality program director for the Sierra Club, hailed EPA's intervention as a sign of a new day at the agency. "This is an extremely significant action to put a stop to the devastating practice of mountaintop removal," he said. "This isn't just one permit that the EPA is looking at; this is an entire industry practice."
Today, Bipartisan legislation was introduced today in the U.S. Senate to ban mountaintop removal mining. The “Appalachian Restoration Act” was introduced by Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., and Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.
The legislation — a mere two pages long — would remove “excess spoil” (the stuff that used to be the mountains) from surface coal mines from the definition of “fill material” that can be approved for dumping into streams under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act.
Cardin said:
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.
Alexander said:
Coal is an essential part of our energy future, but it is not necessary to destroy our mountaintops in order to have enough coal.
Comments are closed for this post.
The Environmental Protection Agency is not halting, holding or placing a moratorium on any of the mining permit applications. Plain and simple. EPA has issued comments on two pending permit applications to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers expressing serious concerns about the need to reduce the potential harmful impacts on water quality.
EPA also clarified that it "will take a close look at other permits" that have been the subject of lawsuits brought by environmental groups. But those environmentalists might not want to hold their breath for the Obama administration to side with them over the fate of mountain streams.
We fully anticipate that the bulk of these pending permit applications will not raise environmental concerns. In cases where a permit does raise environmental concerns, we will work expeditiously with the Army Corps of Engineers to determine how these concerns can be addressed.
The EPA's first statement announced that the Kentucky and West Virginia 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."
Link