Good News For the Mountains: The EPA Can Revoke the Spruce Mine Permit

This is some great news! The U.S. District Court of Appeals has ruled that the EPA can withdraw a previously approved Clean Water Act permit for the mountaintop removal Spruce Mine No. 1. If there were to be any mine to get the thumbs down from the EPA, it should be this one, which would have been the largest such operation ever in West Virginia.

            More and more scientific evidence has been gathered showing a link between mountaintop removal and cancer, birth defects, and other health problems. And today the National Commission on the Health Impacts of Mountaintop Removal Mining, an independent group of physicians and scientists, has published a report that summarizes the findings of studies on the health effects of mountaintop removal and calls for congressional action that would place a moratorium on all mountaintop mining “until such time as health studies have been conducted that provide a clearer understanding of the associations between adverse health impacts, notably adverse reproductive outcomes, and MTR mining.” The paper, The Health Impacts of Mountaintop Removal Mining and sponsored by the Center for Health, Environment & Justice, recommends that the funding for further health studies should come from the corporations that have profited from mountaintop mining.