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This news story originally provided by
The Charleston Gazette
By Ken Ward Jr. kward@wvgazette.com
Environmental groups and coalfield citizens are continuing their legal battles over mountaintop removal, and the fights are expected to continue through the year.
The latest skirmish will focus on a lawsuit filed last year in federal court in Huntington to force the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct more detailed environmental studies before it approves valley fill permits for new mining operations.
The case was a follow-up to a ruling by U.S. District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin to block the corps from reviewing valley fill proposals through a streamlined "general permit" process.
Goodwin's ruling has been overturned by a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but environmental groups have asked the full appeals court to reconsider that decision.
In the new case, the environmentalists argue that the corps was wrong to approve mining operations through more detailed "individual permit" reviews because those reviews did not include a study called an Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS.
Originally, the lawsuit targeted just one new Massey Energy surface mine in Logan County. It later added another Massey mine in Boone County, and, in early February, lawyers targeted a third Massey operation near the intersection of Kanawha, Fayette and Raleigh counties.
"The mining and valley fills at these three mines collectively will destroy over 2,000 acres of land and smother over seven miles of streams," the lawyers said in court papers. "Yet, the corps has neglected to examine in a meaningful way the inevitable damage that will be caused by these mines, or to develop any realistic plan for mitigating that damage."
Margaret Palmer, director of the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory at the University of Maryland and an expert on stream ecosystems, said, "The mining activities and valley fills will fundamentally and permanently alter the hydrological and sediment regimes which are master variables controlling ecological functioning in impacted streams.
"Further, since watersheds act as a unit and a considerable amount of land in the watershed is to be cleared, the impacts are expected to extend far beyond the buried headwater streams," Palmer said.
According to the Bush administration's own estimates, mountaintop removal mining in the region already has destroyed or damaged more than 1,200 miles of Appalachian streams. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that at least 2,400 miles of streams will be wiped out or harmed by 2013, if additional restrictions are not put in place.
"The blame for this environmental destruction really rests on the Corps of Engineers, for its failure to follow the law," said Cindy Rank, mining chairwoman of the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy. "The corps is dodging its responsibility to scrutinize these permits that blatantly violated the Clean Water Act."
In mountaintop removal, coal operators blast off entire hilltops to uncover valuable, low-sulfur coal reserves. Leftover rock and dirt is shoved into nearby valleys, burying streams.
A draft federal study, published in May 2003, confirmed that mountaintop removal is destroying forests and streams in West Virginia and other coal states in the region. Among other things, the draft reported that coal operators had buried more than 72 miles of Appalachian streams between 1985 and 2001. Without additional restrictions, the draft projected, a total of 2,200 square miles of Appalachian forests - an area twice the size of Kanawha County - would be eliminated.
Over the past four years, three federal court rulings to limit mountaintop removal have been overturned by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va.
In October 2005, federal officials released the final version of their mountaintop removal study. Rather than proposing efforts to reduce mining's impacts, the study focused on efforts to streamline permit reviews for coal operators.
"This is just a rehash of what the federal agencies have been doing for the last five years, which is ignoring the clear scientific evidence of irreparable harm to West Virginia's environment," said Joe Lovett, director of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment. "After discovering that West Virginia's environment is being seriously harmed by these huge mountaintop removal operations, they stopped doing research and made getting permits easier."
To contact staff writer Ken Ward Jr., use e-mail or call 348-1702.
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