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Archived Coal Issues:
August 2005
April 2004
Nov 2003
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| Large valley fills like the one pictured are created when mining companies dump waste rock and dirt from mountaintop removal mining operations in headwater streams. Over 1200 miles of streams have been buried in central Appalachia. Nearly all of these fills have been illegally authorized by the Army Corps of Engineers using a lenient nationwide general permit. The Center is currently challenging the Army Corps over this practice in federal court. |
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Mountaintop Removal/Valley Fill Court Victory
In July the Center won an important federal Clean Water Act case against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the mining industry. In response to hundreds of pages of briefs and several days of hearings, the federal District Court struck down the General Nationwide Permit 21 (issued under § 404 of the Clean Water Act) that the Corps had used for over twenty years to authorize all mountaintop removal mines in Central Appalachia. Because of this ruling, permitting of mountaintop removal operations has come to a virtual standstill.
This national precedent-setting ruling forces coal companies to seek individual permits that require public participation and additional detailed scientific scrutiny, rather than using the "streamlined" general permit process. Coal operators have begun flooding the Corps office with voluminous (and misleading) applications for these individual permits. In response, the Center has begun the enormous task of working with scientific experts and engineers to formulate and submit extensive comments on virtually every application.
We expect the Corps to begin issuing new permits in early 2005, and we intend to file litigation on behalf of local residents to stop the issuance of permits that violate the Clean Water Act or the National Environmental Policy Act. This long and expensive battle will largely determine the extent of future mountaintop removal devastation in the region.
Responding to our victory, James L. Connaughton, chairman of the Bush administration's White House Council on Environmental Quality, in a high-profile campaign speech at the annual West Virginia Business Summit in September 2004, announced that the federal government would appeal the decision. The appeal will be heard in the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Virginia, sometime in 2005. The Center, along with Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, has already begun a vigorous defense of our victory.
Buffer Zone Rule
West Virginia's Surface Mine Board of Appeals rejected our defense of a 1999 federal court ruling that the buffer zone rule, a regulation promulgated pursuant to the federal Surface Mining Act, prohibited the dumping of mine waste into stream valleys. The Board upheld a permit issued by the W.V. Department of Environmental Protection in defiance of the buffer zone regulation. That permit also fails to address important reforestation requirements. Although we have appealed the decision, recent election results will make it very difficult to sustain our original victory.
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| The stream buffer zone rule prohibiting mining within 100 feet of streams has not been enforced in West Virginia or other Appalachian states. This has allowed hundreds of miles of streams to be buried by millions of tons of coal waste. The wedge shaped structure in the center of the picture is a valley fill, a headwater stream now being filled with mining waste. |
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Stream Buffer Zone Rule Change
In reaction to our earlier litigation, the Bush administration has proposed to rewrite and eviscerate the stream buffer zone rule, part of federal surface mining regulations and a crucial law that protects the region's larger streams. As you know, we filed substantial comments on Bush Administration's proposed changes and believe that they would violate federal law. We are not only pursuing a court action based on the rule, but we are also working with local, state and national groups to stop the U.S. Department of Interior from finalizing its proposed illegal changes to the law.
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| Coal mining has left a legacy of pollution in central Appalachia. Acid mine drainage destroys aquatic life and makes water unfit for human consumption and many industrial uses. For the first time, counter to law and with support of the Department of the Interior’s Office of Surface Mining, West Virginia has issued a permit that it knows will create perpetual acid mine drainage. The Center is currently appealing this permit before the West Virginia State Surface Mining Board. Photo is of acid mine drainage in Preston County. |
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Acid Mine Drainage
For two and a half decades citizens have fought long and hard through comment, litigation and negotiation for full enforcement of provisions of the federal Surface Mine Act that prohibit the permitting of mining operations where acid mine drainage is anticipated. This long and successful struggle resulted in a policy forbidding the DEP to issue mining permits likely to create acid mine drainage. In an act that will undermine this important victory and in bold defiance of the law, the DEP recently permitted a Mettiki Mining Company longwall mine that will discharge acid mine drainage into the Potomac watershed. The Mettiki permit represents a return to the irresponsible permitting practices of the past that allowed thousands of miles of streams throughout the region to be killed by acid mine drainage. The Center has filed an appeal of the DEP's authorization of Mettiki's mine, and hearings are ongoing. These hearings will involve the testimony of many DEP officials, expert witnesses and coal company officials.
The importance of this challenge cannot be overstated. Defeating this permit is crucial to protecting our streams. It is the test case for upholding the prohibition on authorizing permits that will lead to acid mine drainage. If we lose, we are certain the Bush administration will not comply with its duty to rein in the DEP. And so, unless we win this case, the issuance of the Mettiki permit will be the first domino in a reaction that may lead to the issuance of scores of new permits and the creation of significant new sources of acid mine drainage for the first time in many years.
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