The Front Porch Blog, with Updates from AppalachiaThe Front Porch Blog, with Updates from Appalachia

BLOGGER INDEX

EPA Sets Public Hearing Dates on Proposed Greenhouse Gas Tailoring Rule

Saturday, November 14th, 2009 | Posted by Jeff Deal | No Comments


EPA will hold two public hearings to accept public comment on the agency’s proposed greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions thresholds defining when Clean Air Act permitting requirements would apply to new or existing industrial facilities. The proposed thresholds would “tailor” the permit programs to limit which facilities would be required to obtain NSR and title V permits and would cover nearly 70 percent of the national GHG emissions that come from stationary sources, including those from the nation’s largest emitters-power plants, refineries, and cement production facilities.

The hearings will be November 18 in Arlington, Va. and November 19 in Rosemont, IL. Both hearings will begin at 10:00 a.m. and end at 7:00 p.m. local time at the following locations:

November 18: Arlington, Va.
Hyatt Regency Crystal City at Reagan National Airport
2799 Jefferson Davis Highway
Arlington, VA 22202

November 19: Rosemont, Il.
Donald E Stephens Convention Center
5555 North River Road
Rosemont, IL 60018

Members of the public who want to speak at the hearings may pre-register for a specific speaking time by contacting Pamela Long at long.pam@epa.gov or (919) 541-0641 by November 13, 2009. People also may register in person on the day of the hearing; however, they may not be given a specific time to speak.

EPA also will accept written comments on the proposed rule until December 28, 2009.

More information on the proposed rule and instructions for submitting written comments: https://www.epa.gov/nsr/actions.html.


The fight to save Coal River Mountain heats up

Thursday, November 12th, 2009 | Posted by Jeff Deal | No Comments

The following email was sent to the 38,000+ supporters of iLoveMountains.org. To sign up to receive free email alerts, click here.

Two weeks ago, we wrote to tell you that Massey Energy had begun blasting on Coal River Mountain — ground zero in the fight to end mountaintop removal coal mining.

We asked you to tell the Obama administration to intervene — and your response was incredible! You sent more than 15,000 letters to the Obama Administration, and in partnership with other organizations, more than 64,000 citizens took action to save Coal River Mountain.

The blasting at Coal River Mountain represents an escalation in the fight for the future of Appalachia. Massey Energy has already been cited with using stronger explosives than is allowable near a gas line, and local residents are worried about the impacts of the blasting on a nearby coal sludge impoundment.

That’s why we need to ensure that we’re ready to meet Big Coal’s efforts to destroy the mountains we love across the region.

Can you make a contribution to iLoveMountains today, to help us grow the campaign to end mountaintop removal coal mining and support the activists on the ground at Coal River Mountain?

Click here to make a contribution today.

Whether you’re able to contribute $25, $50, or $200, any amount you can afford to give makes a tremendous difference in the effort to end mountaintop removal coal mining once and for all.

You contribution goes directly to helping iLoveMountains.org raise national awareness and keep the pressure on decision makers to end mountaintop removal coal mining. Your contribution also helps the Alliance for Appalachia build regional support for ending mountaintop removal coal mining, and lends support for the activists at Coal River Mountain Watch, who are on the ground every day working to save Coal River Mountain.

You can also help grow the movement by taking just a moment today to invite 5 friends or colleagues to join you at iLoveMountains.org. To date, more than 38,800 people have joined you in supporting a clean energy future for Appalachia. Can you help us reach 40,000 people in a week’s time by inviting 5 friends to join you at iLoveMountains.org today?

Invite 5 friends to join us today.

Thank you for everything you do to contribute to the end of mountaintop removal coal mining. Your efforts form the backbone of our campaign.

Matt Wasson
iLoveMountains.org


Coal Country the Movie – Tuesday Nov. 17 at the Dragonfly Theater in Boone, NC!

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 | Posted by Jeff Deal | No Comments

The Appalachian Institute for Renewable Energy (AIRE) and Appalachian Voices cordially invite you to a screening of the documentary Coal Country at Boone’s Dragonfly Theater, Tuesday Nov. 17 at 6:00 p.m. – with a second screening of the film at 8 p.m. The film explores the dramatic struggle and tension around the mining and use of coal for electricity production in the Appalachian Region.

Individuals from AIRE and Appalachian Voices will be present to discuss the grave environmental impacts of coal mining and consumption in our region and the promise and economic affluence offered by the responsible development of Appalachia’s renewable energy resources. Tickets can be purchased for $10 at the offices of Appalachian Voices at 191 West Howard St. or AIRE at 164 South Depot St in downtown Boone. Proceeds from ticket sales will benefit AIRE and their continuing mission to encourage and advance community driven environmentally sensitive renewable energy development
throughout our Appalachian Region.


The Coal Country website offers this description of the feature:

“COAL COUNTRY is a dramatic look at modern coal mining. We get to know working miners along with activists who are battling coal companies in Appalachia. We hear from miners and coal company officials, who are concerned about jobs and the economy and believe they are acting responsibly in bringing power to the American people. Both sides in this conflict claim that history is on their side. Families have lived in the region for generations, and most have ancestors who worked in the mines. Everyone shares a deep love for the land, but MTR (Mountain Top Removal mining which has leveled over 500 Appalachian mountains) is tearing them apart. We need to understand the meaning behind promises of “cheap energy” and “clean coal.” Are they achievable? At what cost? Are there alternatives to our energy future?”

The production features music by Kathy Mattea, Natalie Merchant, John Prine, Willie Nelson, and many other artists.

We hope you will join us for an evening of community fellowship and dialogue concerning the continued livelihood and well-being of our beautiful Appalachia!


App Voices’ Matt Wasson Finds Major Flaws in the Nature Conservancy’s “Energy Sprawl” Report

Friday, October 9th, 2009 | Posted by Jeff Deal | No Comments

As Congress was returning from the August recess, there wasn’t much news about the climate bill. The only energy-related news breaking through the coverage of the rancorous health care debates and town-hall tea parties was a study on “energy sprawl” published by five staff members of the Nature Conservancy.

“Renewable Energy Needs Land, Lots Of Land” was the headline of an August 28th story on NPR about the study.

“Renewable technologies increase energy sprawl,” was the headline summary on the journal Nature’s website.

Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, in an Op/Ed published in the Wall Street Journal, summed up the message that was heard by legislators and the public from the news coverage of the study:

“we’re about to destroy the environment in the name of saving it.”

The interesting thing about the news coverage is that none of it addressed the actual analysis. The study didn’t actually measure the impacts of different energy technologies, but rather compiled estimates from a smattering of reports, fact sheets and brochures from government and industry sources in order to arrive at an acre-per-unit of energy figure for each energy technology. Those figures were then applied to the Energy Information Administration’s modeling of four climate policy scenarios under consideration by Congress.

So the coverage was generated not by the study’s results, but entirely by the assumptions that went into it about the relative impacts of renewable versus conventional energy technologies. Looking at the counter-intuitive findings (wind is 8 times as destructive as coal), it’s no wonder that the media took such an interest.

To put those assumptions in perspective, the habitat impact of the Mount Storm Wind Farm in the first image is assumed to be 25% greater than the impact of the 12,000 acre Hobet mountaintop removal mine in the second image (images are taken from the same altitude and perspective; the bright connect-the-dots feature in the windfarm image is the actual area disturbed):

MtStorm2  Mount Mine Site from 9 miles

“Garbage in, garbage out” is a concept most people are familiar with, but the problems with the “energy sprawl” study go farther than that.

When I taught a course in ecological modeling, we used a hypothetical study on acts of violence in industrialized countries to examine how you could generate any result you desire simply by choosing how to define an “act of violence.” For instance, if you wanted to show that the French are the most violent industrialized society, you might define rude treatment by waiters as an act of violence. The study does something very similar, but worse – it fails to define a consistent measure of land-use impact across the various energy technologies it purports to compare. It’s as though we defined “acts of violence” to include rude treatment only by French waiters, but not by German, English or American waiters.

While I won’t get into detail of the math and science (a full analysis and response is in preparation), here are just a few of the jaw-dropping errors and assumptions that went into the study:

  • A 2 megawatt wind turbine is assumed to disturb between 100 and 120 acres of wildlife habitat (smell test: does it really make sense that one of those wind turbines you always see on television is disturbing more than 100 football fields worth of land?). These estimates were not from published studies, but from portions of brochures discussing the area required for ideal placement of a windfarm. Instead of using additional estimates from those same brochures that only 3-5% of that area is directly impacted, the study used vaguely-worded, unreferenced and unsupportable biological justifications to include the other 95-97% in their analysis.
  • The acreage impacts of coal mining, from Wyoming to Alabama, were extrapolated from one mine in Illinois, and apparently one other mine, though no location, details or references were provided. In the case of Appalachian mining, a casual examination of available data reveals that many – probably most – Appalachian mines exhibit a “landuse intensity” 5 to 10 times higher than either estimate used in the study.
  • The impacts of blowing up a mountain and dumping resulting toxic-laden waste into nearby valleys and streams is treated as a comparable disturbance to, say, being located several hundred yards away from a wind turbine. Worse, fragmentation of habitat (the category that increased wind’s alleged impacts by 95-97%), was only considered for renewable technologies but not for nuclear and coal, despite a wealth of published studies showing fragmentation effects as much as five times greater than the footprint of a strip mine.

It’s obvious that the authors of this study don’t spend a lot of time thinking about coal mining (the fact that they refer to underground or deep mines as “pit” mines is revealing). That could partly explain the distorted picture the study gives of the impacts of coal mining, but the assumptions are so consistently weighted against renewable energy that it gets hard to ignore. If the pattern of assumptions so consistently tilted against renewables and in favor of coal and nuclear doesn’t raise a red flag, consider the language used in the study. The EIA’s “No International Offsets/Limited Alternatives” scenario, which would emphasize rapid expansion of renewable energy technologies (and which purportedly creates the most “energy sprawl”), was renamed the “Few Options” scenario by the authors. A real gem of a PR strategy from the group that came up with “energy sprawl.”

As for the policy options that the study’s results (and assumptions) favor, the “Core” scenario from the EIA’s analysis of the Warner-Lieberman climate bill was renamed the “CCS” scenario – shorthand for carbon capture and storage. This could also represent a real tipping of the hand as to the policy priorities at the Nature Conservancy. That, in turn, would go a long way toward explaining the blind spot the Nature Conservancy possesses regarding the wholesale destruction of the most biologically diverse forests and streams on the continent through mountaintop removal coal mining. The fact that plants installing CCS will need to consume at least 15-30% more coal to produce the same amount of electricity (if and when CCS becomes available), would cause a little cognitive dissonance in anyone concerned about the environment but supportive of widespread CCS deployment.

What the study didn’t look at

From the perspective of communities impacted by coal mining, a study on energy impacts that looked no further than the land area affected by mining was never going to carry much weight anyway. EPA biologist Gregory Pond, who published a study in 2008 showing the loss of entire orders of insects downstream from mountaintop removal mines, told the news media when the study was released:

“While habitat degradation from mountaintop mining is what one sees on the surface, we found that chemical effects are quite pronounced and limit much of the expected biodiversity from what were once naturally rich, diverse Appalachian stream systems.”

The most important factors in the “what the study doesn’t look at” category, however, are the impacts of energy on people and communities. The thousands of people in Appalachia without access to clean and safe drinking water do not show up in the “energy sprawl” study’s land impact estimates. The photo on the right of a child in Prenter, West Virginia, is the lead photo of a remarkable piece of reporting from the New York Times that provides a lot of insight into the awful tragedies faced daily by families in Appalachia who are forced to drink and bathe in water polluted with coal waste.

The authors of the “energy sprawl” study stated explicitly that aquatic and health issues are not what the study was about, and it wouldn’t be fair to blame them for any failure to address those problems. It’s the inevitable distortions of the study that do the most violence to those fighting for safe homes and clean drinking water in coal and uranium-bearing regions. The lead author addressed some of those distortions directly, shortly after Senator Alexander’s “We’re destroying the environment in the name of saving it” op-ed. Here are a few excerpts from his post on the Nature Conservancy’s blog:

First, climate change is the big threat to America’s wildlife (and to our communities). Severe climate change has the potential to imperil many more species than energy sprawl.

Moreover, we show in our paper that most of the energy sprawl from now to 2030 will happen regardless of whether or not there is a comprehensive climate bill. By far the largest amount of energy sprawl will come from biofuel production, driven by the renewable fuel standard and other laws already in place.

So I say to everyone writing or blogging about energy sprawl: If you are concerned about energy sprawl, then fight for energy efficiency!

The Nature Conservancy’s tireless efforts to support energy efficiency, build awareness of climate change, and bring climate policy to the table deserve both thanks and respect. But the concept of “energy sprawl,” now that it has been associated with such a distorted picture of the impacts of wind, solar, coal and nuclear technologies, adds nothing but confusion and false impressions to the debate over climate.

The study also does a lot of harm to those working to reduce the impacts of mining and to promote green jobs in their communities. “Nature Conservancy says wind and solar are more harmful than coal” is a talking point that will be repeated in mine permit hearings, utilities commission proceedings, letters to the editor and at coal rallies across the country for years into the future.

There is no way to repair the concept of “energy sprawl” at this point. Environmental and climate advocates would do well to strike that buzzword from their lexicons and literature entirely.

Burn this blog post after reading.

cross-posted with Huffington Post and iLoveMountains.org


WCHS-TV Eyewitness New: Boone County (West Virginia) Residents Sue Coal Companies, Parts 1 – 3

Friday, October 9th, 2009 | Posted by Jeff Deal | No Comments

Watch this insightful piece from WCHS-TV Eyewitness New. From the WCHS-TV Website:

“More than 200 people living in Prenter Hollow in Boone County are suing nine coal companies, claiming toxic coal slurry has seeped into their private water wells making some of them sick, even killing some of their neighbors. The coal companies adamantly deny the charges. ”

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


60 Minutes TVA Coal Ash Disaster Story

Friday, October 2nd, 2009 | Posted by Jeff Deal | No Comments

Over the summer, the Appalachian Voices Watauga Riverkeeper crew has been working with 60 Minutes to do an investigative story about coal ash waste. We are happy to report that the show will air this Sunday on October 4, 2009. The 60 Minutes crew will provide the public with an overview or a “coal ash 101″ report. It comes in the wake of the 1 billion gallon TVA coal ash spill that occurred in December of 2008 in Harriman, Tennessee.

Shortly after the show airs we will be releasing a special report about groundwater contamination from coal ash ponds in North Carolina. We think both the 60 Minutes show and our upcoming report on NC Coal Ash Ponds will be a stunning revelation for anybody that cares about water. Be sure to tune in to 60 Minutes on Sunday night and keep an eye on our Appalachian Voices and Watauga Riverkeeper Blogs next week for some breaking news. We think the toxicity and hazards of coal ash waste ponds will be a big topic of conversation next week and we want you to be a part of it!


Watch CBS News Videos Online

You can view the story on CBS’s site HERE.


SAVING OUR KIDS AND RIVERS FROM DRUGS: OPERATION MEDICINE CABINET WILL LAUNCH FOR THE FIRST TIME IN

Friday, October 2nd, 2009 | Posted by Jeff Deal | No Comments

Boone, NC-A broad coalition of community partners proudly announces the first ever prescription drug take back day. Dubbed “Operation Medicine Cabinet” by Captain Kelly Redmon of the Watauga County Sheriff’s Depart, the event is designed to safely dispose of drugs and keep them out of the hands of children and out of our water.

Anyone with outdated or unused prescription drugs, over the counter medications, syringes or other medical supplies are invited to drop these off at the take-back centers on Saturday October 3, 2009. It is an amnesty day, so no questions will be asked. Take-back locations will be available at the Seven Devils Town Hall and the three Food Lion stores in Watauga County: the Hwy 321 store in Boone, the Hwy 421 Deep Gap store, and the Blowing Rock store. The event will be held in conjunction with the county’s annual Hazardous Household Waste day from 9a.m. to 12 noon. For more info see the full Operation Medicine Cabinet Press Release here.


Great News!! EPA grants temporary reprieve for 79 mountains

Friday, September 11th, 2009 | Posted by Jeff Deal | No Comments

The following email was sent to the 37,000+ supporters of iLoveMountains.org. To sign up to receive free email alerts, click here.

Dear mountain lover,

EPA permit list logoWe have great news!

The Obama Administration has heard you! Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency placed all 79 mountaintop removal permits they were reviewing on temporary reprieve. This represents the biggest step ever taken toward reining in the destruction of the Appalachian Mountains by mountaintop removal coal mining.

The release of a list of 79 permits begins a 14-day countdown in which the EPA regional offices must respond to the EPA headquarters' recommendations. While we applaud the current decision by the EPA, these permits could still be approved.

The EPA's announcement is part of a coordination procedure outlined in a "memorandum of understanding" between the Environmental Protection Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Department of Interior to deal with a backlog of permits held up by litigation over the past few years. The EPA has promised a more stringent and transparent review of all mountaintop removal valley fill permit applications, and as of today they have delivered.

The EPA is requesting public comment during these 14 days and we need to send them the message loud and clear to stand firm. No more mountains or communities should be blasted off the map.

However, the EPA is not currently set up to receive these comments, so we will be sending you an alert early next week, providing the tools you need to thank the EPA and to make sure the regional offices keep these mountains and communities safe from mountaintop removal coal mining.

In the mean time, we have set up a new page on iLoveMountains.org where you can see the location and track of the status of the permits pending before the EPA. You can view the permit map and see videos of nearby communities threatened by mountaintop removal at:

https://ilovemountains.org/epa-permit-list/

Just wanted to share the good news – we'll be back in touch next week.

Have a great weekend!

Matt Wasson
iLoveMountains.org


Obama seeks to block record mountaintop removal permit

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009 | Posted by Jeff Deal | No Comments

From Ken Ward Jr. and his Coal Tattoo blog:

Late last week — just before the Labor Day holiday — the Obama administration EPA issued a mountaintop removal bombshell: A major letter that blasts a whole host of problems with the largest strip-mining permit ever issued in the state of West Virginia.

EPA experts have concluded that the mine, as currently designed and permitted, would violate the federal Clean Water Act. They’ve urged the Army Corps of Engineers to suspend, revoke or modify the permit. In response, Corps lawyers have asked U.S. District Judge Robert C. Chambers for a 30-day stay in legal proceedings over this permit, to give Corps staffers time to re-examine the project.

read the entire post on Coal Tattoo


Temporary Reprieve for Virginia Residents, Mountains

Monday, September 7th, 2009 | Posted by Jeff Deal | No Comments

For Immediate Release: August 27th, 2009

Contacts: Adam Wells, Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, 276.523.4380, 804 240 4372

Oliver Bernstein, Sierra Club, 512.477.2152

Temporary Reprieve for Virginia Residents, Mountains

Amid Growing Community and Environmental Concerns, DMME to Request More Information on Ison Rock Ridge While Scrutiny on Federal Level Continues.

Big Stone Gap, Virginia – The Virginia Department of Mines Minerals and Energy (DMME) issued a letter late Wednesday once again requesting more information from A&G Coal Company on their controversial Ison Rock Ridge mountaintop removal mine proposed for Wise County, Virginia. The move is a reprieve for the communities, mountains and streams nearby.

Among the concerns outlined in the letter were questions about how the mine plans to proceed in the absence of a required approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and about how the mine will deal with the proposed discharge of pollutants into already polluted streams.

Despite overwhelming local opposition, a growing national movement opposing mountaintop removal mining, and heightened scrutiny from the Obama Administration, A&G has continued to seek to destroy Ison Rock Ridge via mountaintop removal coal mining. The permit, if approved, would decimate over 1200 acres of lush Appalachian hardwood forest and imperil hundreds of people living directly adjacent to the permit boundary.

Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards (SAMS) along with the Sierra Club have been fighting the permit application for more than two years. “This is encouraging,” said SAMS board member and retired underground miner Bob Mullins, whose back yard abuts the permit boundary. “People living in the shadow of this mine understand just how dangerous things could get. My whole community’s future is at stake here.”

DMME’s action yesterday is further indication that the mine application is in an excessively dangerous and irresponsible location. In addition to being literally in the backyards of residents, the proposed mine would also drain waste-water into the already impaired Callahan Creek. DMME had most recently requested more information from the permit applicant in a letter dated May 8, 2009. The permit application is currently on its ninth revision.

“This is a welcome temporary reprieve for the people of Wise County, but the threat of this enormous mine requires permanent protection for the communities, streams and mountains,” said Pete Ramey, President of SAMS.

###


Army Corps of Engineers Approves Permit for Controversial WV Mountaintop Removal Coal Mine

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 | Posted by Jeff Deal | No Comments

Decision opens the door for more destruction in Appalachia

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – August 11, 2009

Contacts:
Janet Keating, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, 304.360.4201
Oliver Bernstein, Sierra Club, 512-289-8618
Joe Lovett, Appalachian Center for the Economy & the Environment, 304-645-9006

Charleston, West Virginia – Today the public learned that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a Clean Water Act permit last week for Consol Energy’s Peg Fork mountaintop removal coal mine in Mingo County, West Virginia. This controversial decision marks the first time during the Obama administration that the Army Corps approved a mine permit to which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had previously objected, opening the door for many new mountaintop removal coal mines in Appalachia. The decision to allow this operation to proceed also demonstrates the Department of Interior’s lack of will to enforce the clear mandates of a critical Surface Mining Act regulation.

“We are disappointed that the administration has approved a new mountaintop removal mine without making any commitment to adopt new regulations or policies that would end this destructive practice,” said Ed Hopkins, Director of Sierra Club’s Environmental Quality Program. “While we appreciate that the Obama administration is taking a harder look at mountaintop removal coal mining, unless that results in decisions that end the irreversible destruction of streams, the harder look isn’t going to do the job.”

“We are not willing to sacrifice our homes to the potential of flooding from a mountaintop removal coal mine,” said Mingo County resident Wilma Steele. “The Army Corps should protect our homes from being washed away.”

The permit would violate the Surface Mining Act as well as the Clean Water Act. This mining operation would be impermissible under the Surface Mining Act’s buffer zone rule, which protects intermittent and perennial streams. The Department of Interior, therefore, has the duty to use the buffer zone rule to prevent giant stream destruction projects like those at the Peg Fork mine from going forward.

“The Department of Interior’s continuing failure to force the mining industry to comply with the buffer zone rule is a reminder that it is business as usual at Interior,” said Joe Lovett, of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment. Lovett called for Secretary Ken Salazar to “reverse the Bush Administration’s refusal to enforce the Surface Mining Act and to protect our irreplaceable streams.”

Earlier this year, the EPA conducted a review of 48 applications then pending before the Army Corps for Clean Water Act permits to fill streams. At the end of its review, the EPA identified the Peg Fork mine and five other mines as projects of high concern, and instructed the Army Corps to not issue those permits.

Following the EPA’s review, the Army Corps revised Consol Energy’s permit for this mountaintop removal mine and issued the permit on Friday, August 7. But the revised permit still fails to satisfy the requirements for permits issued under the Clean Water Act. The original permit application proposed mining over 800 acres of mountainous terrain and dumping mining waste into eight valley fills and over 3 miles of streams. The revised permit that received EPA approval still allows two valley fills immediately, with the potential for up to six additional valley fills if EPA is satisfied with the results of downstream water quality monitoring from the initial fills. Even with these alterations, the Peg Fork mine would still have unacceptable adverse impacts on local waterways and therefore violates the Clean Water Act.

The Peg Fork permit decision comes just as the EPA begins the process of reviewing more than 80 applications for Clean Water Act permits for mountaintop removal mining under the coordinated review process announced by the Obama administration in June. Mining companies have already buried close to 2,000 miles of Appalachian streams beneath piles of toxic waste and debris. Entire communities have been permanently displaced by mines the size of Manhattan.

“The Obama administration needs to commit to ending the devastation caused to our communities by mountaintop removal. The time to make that commitment is now,” said Judy Bonds of Coal River Mountain Watch. “We can not live through another generation of permits that will bury hundreds more miles of streams and blast apart our mountains.”

“Science and the law are at odds with this permit decision,” said Janet Keating of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition. “In my opinion, the Corps’ decision to issue this and other permits boils down to political pressure from coal-friendly legislators.”

“A big part of the problem is that the Obama administration is still operating under the failed and broken regulations adopted during the Bush administration,” said Joan Mulhern of the environmental law firm Earthjustice. “The White House and the agencies can and should immediately initiate the process for changing those regulations and restoring the environmental protections that existed prior to 2001.”

“This week, newly appointed Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works) Jo-Ellen Darcy begins to oversee the Army Corps’ permitting divisions, and she has the opportunity to take bold action on mountaintop removal coal mining,” said Cindy Rank of the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy. “The Corps has shown an inexplicable eagerness to permit new mountaintop removal mining, but we hope that Assistant Secretary Darcy’s leadership will mean more protections for the communities, streams and mountains of Appalachia.”

###


African American Environmentalist Association – Supports The Clean Water Protection Act, H.R. 1310

Thursday, July 30th, 2009 | Posted by Jeff Deal | No Comments

Announced yesterday on their blog: https://aaenvironment.blogspot.com/

mountaintop removal coal miningAAEA opposes mountaintop removal.

The Clean Water Protection Act, H.R. 1310 was introduced by Congressman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) on March 4, 2009 and amends the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (commonly known as the Clean Water Act) to define “fill material” to mean any pollutant that replaces portions of waters of the United States with dry land or that changes the bottom elevation of a water body for any purpose and to exclude any pollutant discharged into the water primarily to dispose of waste.

For years, the Clean Water Act allowed for the granting of permits to place ‘fill material’ into waters of the United States, provided that the primary purpose of the ‘filling’ was not for waste disposal. The intention was to prevent industries such as coal mining from using the nation’s waterways as waste disposal sites. That changed in 2002, when the Army Corps of Engineers, without Congressional approval, altered its longstanding definition of ‘fill material’ to include mining waste. This change accelerated the devastating practice of mountaintop removal coal mining and the destruction of more than 1,200 miles of Appalachian streams.

H.R. 1310 restores the original intent of the Clean Water Act to clarify that fill material cannot be comprised of mining waste. The legislation has 154 cosponsors and has bipartisan support.



 

 


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