Mountaintop Removal Continues

Update:  A federal judge in Charleston, West Virginia has issued an injunction against new mountain top removal permits issued by the Army Corps of Engineers reports ENS.  Judge Joseph Goodwin's ruling only applies to the Southern District of West Virginia. He noted in his decision the loss of "thousands of miles of streams in Appalachia over the past twenty years" due to this extreme form of open cast mining.  The Court found that the Corps did not have an adequate plan to monitor mitigation efforts or require corrective action in deciding for the NRDC and other conservation organizations. The Corps' claim that it could mitigate stream destruction by creating new streams elsewhere was found to be an "unsupported belief" and a "mere promise".    Two Senators, Cardin (D-MD) and Alexander (R-TN) introduced legislation to stop the dumping of mining waste into streams on March 25. The Appalachia Restoration Act would amend the Clean Water Act to prevent dumping. Keep the faith, baby, and go here to help!  

{posted 2/20/09}The rape of the Appalachians will continue the US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decided on Wednesday.  The appeals court reversed a federal district court ruling that limited the destructive open cast mining practice called mountaintop removal. Explosives are used to remove an entire mountain peak to expose coal seams.  The blasted earth is then dumped into steam beds.  Since mountaintop removal began in the 70s an estimated 1.5 million acres of hardwood forest has been destroyed and 1200 miles of streams buried.  The lower court had ruled that the Corp of Engineers violated the Clean Water Act when it issued permits to remove four mountain peaks.  But the appeals court said that the district court judge did not properly defer to the Corps' interpretation of its own regulations.   The lone dissenter in the 2-1 decision said the Corp had offered no basis on which to conclude that mitigated impacts of valley filling will be insignificant thus making the mitigation inadequate under the Clean Water Act and National Environmental Policy Act.   In December 2008 the Charlatan repealed a rule requiring buffer zones around streams where waste could not be dumped.  Environmentalists opposing the destruction say that the ruling will allow 90 more peaks to be removed.  The mining technique poisons water sources, lays waste to wildlife habitat, increases the risk of floods and destroys human communities.  Wackydoodle sez:  "Mr. Peabody's coal train done carried it away."

[photo: U. of Maine]