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This news story originally provided by
The Charleston
Gazette
Here is a timeline of events surrounding the federal
government’s landmark study of mountaintop removal coal
mining:
December 1998 — In a legal settlement with citizen
groups, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency agrees to
lead a detailed study of mountaintop removal’s impacts in an
effort to come up with tougher regulation of the coal
industry. The study was to be completed within two years.
October 2000 — EPA backs off the release of a draft of
its study when then-Gov. Bob Wise and legislative leaders
complained that it did not contain enough information about
mining’s economic impacts on West Virginia.
May 2001 — In response to a public records request, EPA
releases thousands of pages concerning its review of
mountaintop removal. Among other things, the records showed
that Appalachian hills and streams might not recover from
mountaintop removal’s damaging effects for hundreds of
years. The documents showed that regulators could do much
more to limit these impacts, but had already dropped the
idea of concrete limits on the size of mining operations and
valley fills.
October 2001 — Deputy Interior Secretary Steven J.
Griles, a former mining industry lobbyist, orders federal
agencies to change the course of the mountaintop removal
study. Instead of looking for potential new regulations to
limit environmental impacts, Griles says that the study will
now focus on “centralizing and streamlining” the review of
new mining permits.
May 2002 — In response to another public records
request, EPA releases a copy of its early draft of the
mountaintop removal study. Among other things, the draft
concluded that, without tougher regulation and better
reclamation, future mountaintop removal would wide out
nearly 230,000 acres of ecologically diverse hills and
hollows.
September 2002 — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
complains to other agencies that the study wrongly avoids
any detailed analysis of tougher regulations to limit
mountaintop removal. Agency officials say that the study’s
proposed actions offer “only meager environmental benefits.”
January 2003 — Matthew Crum, who was then West
Virginia’s top strip mine regulator, wrote to EPA to
complain that current drafts of the study give state
agencies little guidance on how to limit mountaintop
removal’s impacts or improve permit reviews.
May 2003 — EPA and other agencies release their first
official draft of the study. The draft reports that, in the
next 10 years, another 1,000 miles of streams could be
damaged by mining.
Oct. 28, 2005 — Federal agencies and West Virginia
Department of Environmental Protection release final version
of the EIS — nearly five years behind schedule.
-- Compiled by Ken Ward Jr.
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