In Rare Move, EPA Proposes Blocking Massive Mountaintop Mine

The Environmental Protection Agency raised the bar for mountaintop mining today with a proposal to stop or at least significantly restrict one of Appalachia’s largest and most disputed mining operations, the Spruce No. 1 mine in Logan County, W.Va.

In the view of environmental groups, it was a sign that the Obama administration is taking its promise to follow the science seriously.

Earlier this year, a dozen scientists issued a comprehensive study of the data on mountaintop mining’s impact on water, land and human and animal health. They were so concerned by what they found, they took the unusual step of recommending that mountaintop mining be halted. Many of the same concerns the scientists expressed then about fish health, toxins in water and impacts on ecology well downstream of the mines also appeared in the EPA's proposed action today. The proposed determination faces a 60-day comment period before it can be finalized.

"We see this as confirmation that they’re taking their responsibility to prevent water deterioration very, very seriously," said Appalachian Voices Program Director Matthew Wasson, an ecologist. "That certainly doesn’t mean they’ll be detailing every permit that comes before them — it’s very clear they won’t. But they do seem to be to taking this father than before.

"With a permit of that scope that permanently destroys that amount of stream area, it just confirms what we have long held and long believed that it’s just not compatible with the Clean Water Act in any way."

The sprawling Spruce No. 1 mine site, already in operation, has been a point of contention and lawsuits from environmental groups for over a decade. EPA has gone back and forth with the Army Corps of Engineers over whether the owner, an Arch Coal subsidiary, would cause too much damage to the state’s waterways with its mining plan. In 2007, however, the Corps and the state of West Virginia moved ahead, authorizing mining to begin.

While the Corps has the authority to approve mining permits, EPA has veto power when it reviews environmental impact statements, and that’s what it is proposing to use now. It has used that authority only 12 times and never before for an already permitted mine like Spruce No. 1.

EPA Regional Administrator for the Mid-Atlantic, Shawn Garvin, said his agency tried to work with the mining company to decrease the environmental and health risks from the project but the talks failed.

“Coal, and coal mining, is part of our nation’s energy future, and for that reason EPA has made repeated efforts to foster dialogue and find a responsible path forward. But we must prevent the significant and irreversible damage that comes from mining pollution — and the damage from this project would be irreversible,” Garvin said. “EPA has a duty under the law to protect water quality and safeguard the people who rely on these waters for drinking, fishing and swimming.”

In the proposed determination released today, Garvin wrote: “EPA believes that the predicted impacts from the Spruce No. 1 mine, if constructed as currently authorized, could have unacceptable effects on wildlife and fisheries." He talked about the degradation of water from mining debris that is dumped into streams with unearthed metals and elements, such as selenium, which can cause birth defects in fish. The dumping of mining debris in streams also destroys habitat relied upon by the region's salamanders, fish and smaller creatures, such as insects that are key elements in the food chain for birds, bats and other animals, he wrote. And pollutions would become a problem downstream from the valley fills and could contribute to conditions that support golden algae blooms, which release more toxins dangerous to aquatic life. There is a cumulative impact that needs to be considered, he said.