EPA blocks permit for giant mountaintop removal mine.
EPA blocks permit for giant mountaintop removal mine.
In a letter issued last week, the Environmental Protection Agency “moved toward revoking the largest mountaintop-removal permit in West Virginia history.” Citing “clear evidence” of likely damage, the EPA has asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to “suspend, revoke or modify” the permit it granted in 2007 to Arch Coal to dig a 2,278-acre coal stripmine and fill six valleys and 43,000 linear feet of streams with the toxic debris:
The EPA asked the Army Corps to “suspend, revoke or modify the permit,” for the Spruce No. 1 Surface Mine in Logan County, according to the letter. “Recent data and analyses have revealed that downstream water quality impacts have not been adequately addressed.”
Obama’s EPA has granted most of the mountaintop removal permits it has reviewed. “It’s not the death of mountaintop coal mining,” said Mary Anne Hitt, deputy director of the Sierra Club’s campaign to limit the use of coal, told Bloomberg News. “But it’s clear that it’s not just going to be blanket approval of anything the Corps wants to do, which was essentially the case under the Bush administration.”
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There’s not a more heinous crime against Mother Nature than mountain top removal.
It’s almost like the coal industry dinosaurs giving the ultimate finger to her.
September 9th, 2009 at 10:06 amMary Anne Hitt, “…it’s clear that it’s not just going to be blanket approval of anything the Corps wants to do, which was essentially the case under the Bush administration.”
Thank you Ms. Hitt, well said. This however won’t stop the coal industry from crying like children.
September 9th, 2009 at 10:09 am“But George said we could rape Mother Nature all we wan’t as long as we turn a buck!”
Wow, that’s gotta suck for Arch Coal! Wasn’t there a judge up for re-election that they could buy? After all, SCOTUS recently gave the practice of purchasing judicial rulings it’s blessings.
PEACE
September 9th, 2009 at 10:10 amits a sicking thing to see the removal of a mountain top and well the destruction of rivers streams and just nature it self. its not like all that helps us out or any thing.
September 9th, 2009 at 10:16 amThey say they put it back went they are done stripping the coal but i have dug a few holes in my time and well went you fill it back in you never get all the material back in it or get it close to the way it was.
I can’t understand why Obama hasn’t ordered his EPA to stop ALL mountain-top removal, in the interest of protecting the environment.
It must be his roots in the coal industry from Illinois. I’m sorry, but he has to take the blame here, folks.
Obama, on his first day in office, rescinded Bush’s radical Executive Orders pertaining to foreign abortion funds. What’s worse–allowing abortion, or removal of acres of mountain tops, ruining the skyline, the local habitats and bio-spheres, releasing buried heavy metals and other poisons to run right down the side into streams and rivers, and then LEAVE the whole mess for some other generation?
He’s wrong, but he has plenty of other shit on his plate right now.
September 9th, 2009 at 10:18 amHang on a sec!
The Army Corps of Engineers provides/approves the mountain top removal permits?
Does the EPA having nothing to do with it until after the fact?
What role does the Dept. of the Interior play?
Guess I’ve gots some researchin’ to do.
September 9th, 2009 at 10:24 amI’m certainly NOT a religious person…
But THANK GOD saner minds are prevailing, at least in the moment, and saying NO to this hideously destructive process.
Sooooo… how long until some dingle berry troll arrives to excoriate us all for picking on the poor, poor coal companies?
September 9th, 2009 at 10:44 amIt’s definitely a step in the right direction…but logistically, the government can’t stop coal mining in West Virginia. You can’t strip away the backbone of the state’s economy without offering alternatives.
All the more reason why ACES needs to pass; the massive subsidies for alternative energy projects would provide the state with a way to keep its populace employed AND keep the envrionment from imploding.
September 9th, 2009 at 10:46 amEnnuiDivine says:
You can’t strip away the backbone of the state’s economy without offering alternatives…
___________
Maybe you can’t stop coal mining, but does it HAVE to be done in such a destructive manner? I’ve been up to the foothills of the Sierras in CA, where they did the placer mining back in the Gold Rush and 150 years later the area STILL looks like the surface of the moon. It’s STILL fu(ked up.
I sadly suspect the damage done by mountaintop removal coal mining will been there for hundreds, if not THOUSANDS of years. Just how selfish and short-sighted can human beings be?
September 9th, 2009 at 10:55 amThe Republic of Stupidity says:
I sadly suspect the damage done by mountaintop removal coal mining will been there for hundreds, if not THOUSANDS of years. Just how selfish and short-sighted can Republics and corporatics be?
There, fixed it for you.
September 9th, 2009 at 11:07 amT’anks, CZ-1. Heh… no coffee yet this morning…
September 9th, 2009 at 11:09 amThis is yet another issue (like the torture issue) where I cannot believe that I have to argue with people that blowing the tops off mountains and obliterating mountain streams with the debris is a bad, bad thing. I continue to come across people who stubbornly maintain that the ends do justify the means. It’s truly amazing how brainwashed the Republics are by the corporations and their right wing media.
September 9th, 2009 at 11:20 amI don’t know how anyone can think blowing off mountain tops could ever be right. That baffles my mind.
September 9th, 2009 at 11:55 amPresident Obama is facing the harsh reality of every preceding president before him since Richard Nixon who promised energy reform – coal is cheap. Without cheap energy this country will face a depression that would make the great depression pale in comparison. Having spent my first 10 years from college in mineral and oil exploration, I am well aware of the hazards of lethal energy. Any mining that risks pollution to nearby water supplies should be stopped. Strip mining has a dramatic impact on the view, but when surrounding water supplies are protected, its short term affect is only view changing. Water in the not too distant future will be the next resource in danger. Deep mining adversely affects water tables which you can call the straw-in-a-coke-bottle affect. Place a straw in a glass of water and you see this result. Deep mining is putting a straw into the earth and the siphoning affect can draw water for 500 miles and this is why most mining operations have continuous pumping operations to drain water. Deep mining drains water tables that may take centuries to renewal.
You can’t power a car or produce electricity without a lethal energy source. This is the harsh reality we face. Having personally invested in ethanol I have also learned the harsh reality of ethanol and the devastation that is occurring in my home state with increased corn production. Also in our state power plants are required to use a renewable source so wood (trees) are used to burn with the coal. The end result is a dirty energy source and making it worse.
Once we agree that cheap energy is vital to our nation we can come together and map a clear, clean, and logical energy plan. You cannot have a logical energy plan without nuclear power. It’s cheap and clean! The French have taken the technology to a new level and today even export electricity at a profit. We can use solar and wind, but you must have nuclear.
September 9th, 2009 at 12:13 pmwell, i guess we should be grateful for small favors.
Approvals: dozens
Rejections: one (sort of).
it’s probably better than Busheviks record…
September 9th, 2009 at 12:37 pmChange we can believe in, you betcha
coal is cheap. Without cheap energy this country will face a depression that would make the great depression pale in comparison. Having spent my first 10 years from college in mineral and oil exploration, I am well aware of the hazards of lethal energy.
then you should know that coal is only “cheap” if you calculate costs without addressing the down-stream damage and the costs to repair it.
Lemme ask ya, during that 10 years, what did you do to deflect the USer appetite to energy-smart consumption?
September 9th, 2009 at 12:39 pmI thought I had seen the most horrific ravaging of mother nature in the Olympic Peninsula in the for of clear-cutting years ago, until I saw an entire mountain blown-up in order for mankind burn something, to heat water into steam, in order to turn a turbine which produces electricity.
The goddamned dumbest method of electrical production invented which is still in use today.
Hell, I think I’ll bring back the steam engine and start building horseless carriages…
September 9th, 2009 at 12:51 pmActually, yes as I have been an advocate against coal since which is probably rare based upon the fact I am fairly conservative. Clean coal has a chance but personally I don’t believe it is possible. There is research ongoing for renewable energy but to believe that we are going to replace lethal fuels with non-lethal is a dream. Had I continued my investments in ethanol, I would be grateful to the tax payer’s subsidies which without, this production method would be history.
My point is that clean energy is not possible without Nuclear which could easily in the next ten years replace coal burning plants. Without this you will be faced 10 years from now with the same question you asked of me.
September 9th, 2009 at 2:37 pmThank you for your sharing.!
September 11th, 2009 at 3:11 pmGreat news… One less horror story is one less horror story. How they get away with this crap is beyond rational belief. saç ekimi
September 15th, 2009 at 7:08 am