BLOGGER INDEX
Tuesday, March 17th, 2015 | Posted by Eric Chance | 1 Comment
After we revealed thousands of water pollution violations at Frasure Creek Mining’s mountaintop removal coal mines in eastern Kentucky, state regulators (finally) took administrative action. Appalachian Voices and our partners are seeking to intervene in that process to ensure environmental protections are enforced, and we have filed our own lawsuit in federal court.
[ Read More ]Monday, February 23rd, 2015 | Posted by Eric Chance | 1 Comment
Friday, Appalachian Voices and our partners filed a motion to intervene in a case between the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet and Frasure Creek Mining to ensure clean water laws are being enforced in Kentucky. To anyone following our lawsuits in Kentucky, these recent developments will sound familiar. [ Read More ]Tuesday, January 20th, 2015 | Posted by Eric Chance | No Comments
Kentucky regulators recently filed an administrative complaint against Frasure Creek Mining for hundreds of violations of the Clean Water Act. As we wait to see if the state is going to take its responsibility to protect the people and water of Kentucky from pollution seriously, Appalachian Voices will continue to do whatever we can to ensure that Frasure Creek and other polluters are held accountable. [ Read More ]Friday, December 5th, 2014 | Posted by Eric Chance | 1 Comment
The Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet's dismissive attitude toward the severity of mining pollution in the state is unsurprising after citizen cases against one coal company exposed the agency’s utter failure to enforce the Clean Water Act. But the jig is up. The Cabinet should stop trying to cover up its incompetence and actually do its job. [ Read More ]Tuesday, December 2nd, 2014 | Posted by Eric Chance | No Comments
Last week, Appalachian Voices and our partners won a major victory in the Kentucky courts when a judge overturned two slap-on-the-wrist settlements that the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet had reached with Frasure Creek Mining a few years ago. [ Read More ]Monday, November 17th, 2014 | Posted by Eric Chance | No Comments
They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. That certainly seems to be the case with Frasure Creek Mining. Four years ago we took legal action against them for submitting false water monitoring reports, and now they are at it again, but this time the false reporting is even more extensive. [ Read More ]Wednesday, July 30th, 2014 | Posted by Eric Chance | No Comments
Over 2,000 miles of streams have been buried by Mountain Top Removal mining, and many more have been degraded. This seems like it should be illegal, but the destructive practice continues. That's why Appalachian Voices has been working to keep the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and industry from opening up new loopholes in our environmental laws that would make it easier to poison streams. [ Read More ]Friday, July 18th, 2014 | Posted by Eric Chance | No Comments
Last week a federal judge upheld a previous decision requiring a Virginia coal company to get a permit for their discharges of toxic selenium. [ Read More ]Wednesday, June 11th, 2014 | Posted by Eric Chance | 15 Comments
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is poised to loosen national recommended water quality standards for selenium, a toxic pollutant commonly released from mountaintop removal coal mines. You can stand up for streams in Appalachia by submitting comments urging the EPA to protect aquatic life and strengthen selenium standards. [ Read More ]Wednesday, February 19th, 2014 | Posted by Eric Chance | 4 Comments
Yesterday there was a hearing in Franklin Circuit Court for our ongoing challenge of a weak settlement that the state of Kentucky reached with Frasure Creek Mining. The settlement is a slap on the wrist that lets them off the hook for thousands of violations of the Clean Water Act, and it bears a striking resemblance to the settlement between North Carolina and Duke Energy that has come under scrutiny after their recent coal ash spill into the Dan River. [ Read More ]Tuesday, January 28th, 2014 | Posted by Eric Chance | 2 Comments
Today, Appalachian Voices along with our allies in Virginia filed a lawsuit against Penn Virginia, for water polluted by selenium coming from abandoned mines on their land. This lawsuit is one in a series of suits aimed at cleaning up selenium pollution in Callahan Creek. [ Read More ]Friday, December 13th, 2013 | Posted by Eric Chance | No Comments
This two headed trout was deformed by selenium pollution. Today, we have taken action to keep EPA and Kentucky from allowing pollution like this to get worse.
Earlier today Appalachian Voices and a number of partner organizations sued the EPA over their approval of Kentucky’s new, weaker standard for selenium pollution.
Selenium is extremely toxic to fish, and causes deformities and reproductive failure at extremely low levels. The pollutant is commonly discharged from coal mines and coal ash ponds, but currently Kentucky does not regulate its discharge from these facilities.
These new standards were proposed at the behest of coal industry groups, likely motivated by citizen groups’ success at requiring companies in other states to clean up their selenium pollution. We have also seen the state governments of Virginia and West Virginia take steps towards making similar rollbacks to their own standards, making the EPA’s approval of Kentucky’s weakened standards even more alarming.
(more…)
