This news story originally provided by The Herald-Dispatch

Environmentalists challenge Blair Mountain mining permit

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) -- Three environmental groups have filed a federal lawsuit challenging a mountaintop removal mining permit granted to a Massey Energy subsidiary to extract 12.5 million tons of coal from the hills around historic Blair Mountain.

The Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy and Coal River Mountain Watch filed their lawsuit Thursday in U.S. District Court in Huntington.

The Aracoma Coal Co. project in Logan County is located near the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain, the site of a bloody struggle to unionize the state's southern coalfields that is being considered for the National Register of Historic Places.

"The vast wastelands left by mountaintop removal not only robs us of our economic future but this mine also infringes on our past by impacting the Blair Mountain historic site," Regina Hendrix of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition said in a news release.

In their lawsuit, the groups challenged the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers finding that Aracoma's plan "does not significantly affect the quality of the human environment." The environmentalists argue the effects warranted a detailed environmental impact study before Aracoma was granted its permit.

"It's painfully obvious that the corps is acting without regard to the law by ignoring the individual, let alone cumulative effects of valley fills on the natural resources and communities in the coalfields," Cindy Rank, mining chairwoman for the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, said in the release. "The corps isn't bothering to review and evaluate the destruction it is permitting."

The 25-page suit launched another major legal attack on mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia. If successful, the case could force federal regulators to perform detailed and time-consuming studies before issuing any new mining permits.

At the same time, it could require government agencies to more fully examine potential impacts on forests and streams, and consider those before deciding to allow mining.

The lawsuit follows oral arguments earlier this week before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., in a disputed decision to bar streamlined permitting for waste disposal at mountaintop-removal coal mines in West Virginia. U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin last year revoked 11 permits that had been issued by corps. He also ordered the agency to suspend previously authorized valley fills and surface impoundments on which construction had not yet begun.

Underground mining is still the predominant method used in the country's second-largest coal producing state, but companies in West Virginia have been turning to mountaintop removal mining to extract thinner seams.

The high-efficiency process involves blasting the mountaintop to uncover coal seams. Leftover rock and dirt is deposited into nearby valleys, burying streams. Over the next eight years, the Aracoma operation is expected to dump millions of tons of waste rock and dirt into Camp Branch and Dingess Run, burying nearly 3 miles of streams.

Corps of Engineers spokeswoman Candy Walters referred calls to a spokesman with the U.S. Department of Justice, who did not immediately return a telephone call. Calls to Massey also were not immediately returned.