Environmentalists on Friday called on the Obama administration to intervene in the permitting process of 42 new mountaintop removal coal mining sites in Appalachia.
Representative Nick Rahall (D-WV) announced that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has given the green light to the Army Corps of Engineers to approve as many as 42 new permits for destructive mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia. If true, and if these permits–more than were even approved during recent years by the Bush Administration–were to proceed, this could mean certain destruction of hundreds of miles of Appalachian streams and hundreds of acres of America’s oldest mountains.
"Because it appears that the EPA is unwilling to intervene, it is now imperative that the White House Council on Environmental Quality take immediate action to stop the bulldozers," Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope said in a statement. "The Obama administration should take swift action to fix the flawed “fill rule” that enables this type of devastating mining and should act decisively to save the mountains, rivers and communities of Appalachia."
In recent months a series of decisions by the EPA and the Interior Department led many environmentalists to believe that the Obama administration might put an end to the destructive coal mining practice. But this latest announcement suggests otherwise.
"It is unfortunate that, when EPA once again began reviewing proposed coal mining permits earlier this year, alarmists claimed that a moratorium on permit issuance was being proposed," Rahall, who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, said in a telephone news conference. "That was not that case then, and it is not the case now."
Rahall said the EPA so far has objected to only six of the 48 Clean Water Act permits the Corps of Engineers had proposed to issue to mountaintop removal coal mining sites.
"Today’s reported approval of a wave of new mountaintop removal coal mines would represent a leap in the wrong direction. With the bulldozers and explosives standing by in Appalachia, the Obama administration should take bold action to protect communities, streams and mountains before it’s too late," Pope said.
The EPA issued a short statement early Friday evening, in which it said, "Twenty-eight of the projects have two or fewer valley fills. Eleven have no valley fills at all. None have more than six."
It continues: "EPA’s understanding is that none of the projects would permanently impact high value streams that flow year-round. By contrast, EPA has opposed six permits because they would all result in significant adverse impacts to high value streams, involve large numbers of valley fills, and impact watersheds with extensive previous mining impacts."
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