The Mountaintop Removal Word For the Day: Thwart

Thwart is the word for the day, when it comes to mountaintop removal.

According to this story from The Hill, the GOP in the House of Representatives is set to thwart efforts by the Interior Department to reset environmental standards that protect Appalachian streams from the harmful effects of mountaintop mining.

Under president George W. Bush, the Interior Department rewrote a section of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act to do away with the 100-foot buffer zone rule. That rule restricted mining companies from dumping mining waste and overburden to areas 100 feet or more from rivers and streams. The proposed legislation, H.R. 2824, would keep the present administration from reinstating that rule and returning the regulation to what it was before George W. Bush entered the White House. The Hill says that the bill, called “Preventing Government Waste and Protecting Coal Mining Jobs in America,” will likely pass the House Natural Resources Committee. If it becomes law, regulating the areas where mining companies can dump their waste would be given over to the individual states, with their tradition of more lax regulation and oversight giving way to the federal rule.

The second example of thwarting comes from my old college town of Huntington. According to Huntington’s Herald Dispatch newspaper, an Energy and Natural Resource Symposium, sponsored by the Huntington Regional Chamber of Commerce, is to be held at a conference center at Huntington’s Saint Mary’s Hospital. Robert M. (Mike) Duncan, president and CEO for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, an organization set up by the coal industry to promote coal and coal mining, is to give the keynote address.

            The Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OHVEC), a nonprofit that has worked for decades to end or mitigate mountaintop removal, has planned a rally in opposition to the hospital hosting the event. The hospital is seeking an injunction to thwart the efforts of the environmental group. The hospital says that it seeks the injunction to prevent disruption to its normal functions. The environmental group says, however, that disrupting the hospital is not their goal, as reported in the Herald Dispatch:

Janet Keating, OHVEC's executive director, said the rally is based on the principle that it's inappropriate for a facility meant to heal to host an event promoting coal mining, which numerous medical studies have linked to health problems.

“There's been a lot of silence from our state leaders about these health studies and the impacts on communities around coal,” Keating said. “It's a mystery to me why a hospital would want to host this. Our whole thing is, ‘Let's not have it at a hospital, where you're supposed to be helping people.’”

She said the organization has a reputation for peaceful protests and those who join the rally will be asked to remain on the sidewalks outside the property, which is located near the corner of 5th Avenue and 29th Street.

“We had no intention to be on their property or at the hospital,” she said.

As Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette, who gets a big hat tip for leading me onto this story from Huntington, points out in his blog, Coal Tattoo, there is something a little funny about a hospital hosting a function for an industry whose mining practices have been shown in a larger and larger body of studies to contribute to the ill health of the residents who live among the mines.

UPDATE 11/12/13: The judge in this case, Paul T. Farrell has denied the restraining order sought by the hospital. I guess you can only thwart so much.

UPDATE 11/14/13: The House Natural Resources Committee approved H.R. 2824.