EPA Takes on Mountaintop Mining

The EPA put the coal industry on notice today: Mountaintop mining won't be getting a free pass from the federal government any more.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced that her agency has serious concerns about the damage mountaintop mining is causing in the streams of Appalachia, and she said the EPA will be carefully reviewing mountaintop mining permit requests.

The move sends a strong signal that the new EPA will be steering the federal government back to the original intent of the Clean Water Act.

“It certainly doesn’t resolve the issue of mountaintop removal permanently, but it’s an enormous first step,” said Matt Wasson, executive director of Appalachian Voices.

“It restores hope that we can get past the legacy of the last eight years and really start working toward building a new green jobs economy in the region – that’s what we’re hoping is the next step the Obama administration will be taking.”

In king coal's search for a cheaper way to mine, the industry has flattened more than 1 million acres of Appalachian mountaintops. The coal companies strip their targeted mountaintops bare, then blow off the tops to get directly at the coal seams. They push the leftover rock and mining debris into the valleys below, often not far from homes and private property.

That “overburden,” as they call the former mountaintop, is laden with newly unearthed heavy metals that leach into streams and wells, where they can poison fish and contaminate drinking water.

So far, mountaintop mining operations have buried more than 700 miles of streams under mining waste, and degraded hundreds of miles more with traces of nickel, lead, cadmium, iron and selenium. Some homes that were once on safe ground now flood because of the changed terrain; others look onto now-devastated scenes.

Rick Handshoe, a member of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, has been praying that the administration would take action on mountaintop mining quickly. His eastern Kentucky community is already facing nine existing valley fill permits from mountaintop mining operations, and three more have been proposed.

“It's a victory that they are even looking at the impacts of these valley fills," Handshoe said. “If they look at it, they will see what's going on.”

The responsibility for issuing Clean Water Act permits for these surface mining operations rests with the Army Corps of Engineers. It’s own web site prominently lists environmental sustainability as “a guiding principle.”

However, the EPA, which has the power to reject those permits, made it clear today that the water in Appalachia's streams is not being protected as well as it should be.

The agency sent two letters to the Corps about specific mining operations – Highland Mining Company's plans to dump mining waste in the Reylas Fork near Ethel, W.Va., and Central Appalachian Mining's Big Branch site in Pike County, Ky.

The EPA said the mining operations' proposals would significantly degrade nearby streams and permanently damage the ecosystems, and it found that the companies’ proposed steps to offset the damage were inadequate.

The EPA also requested “meetings with the Corps and the mining companies seeking the new permits to discuss alternatives that would better protect streams, wetlands and rivers.” Jackson promised that her agency "will use the best science and follow the letter of the law in ensuring we are protecting our environment.”

Untangling Bush-Era Policies

The Bush Administration threw open the doors for mountaintop mining in 2002 when it changed the definition of “fill material” allowed in streams under the Clean Water Act to include mining waste. It also snuck in a last minute gift for the coal industry in December by repealing the stream buffer zone rule that prohibited mining with 100 feet of streams.