D.C. Court Throws Out Bush Gutting of Mountaintop Mining 100-Foot Buffer Zone Protection

This is some good news. The eleventh hour rewrite that the George W. Bush administration gave to the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act that stripped the 100-foot buffer zone for streams and rivers has been struck down by the Washington, D.C. district court.

            The Obama administration has been unsuccessful in its efforts to reinstate the buffer zone. So this ruling is some progress. The court, in its ruling in this case that was filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center, said that in doing away with the buffer zone, the Office of Surface Mining did not adequately consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service as to the effects the rule change would have on endangered species. The court ruling is here.

            The buffer zone rule applies to the disposal of what is called ‘overburden,” the soil and rock that lays atop the seams of Appalachian coal. In mountaintop mining this overburden is blasted away to get at the coal underneath. As the rock and soil are removed from the mountain, it is dumped into adjacent valleys. The buffer zone protects the streams in these valley from being covered over with the overburden.

Just 100 feet to protect the stream, that's all.

This ruling give us hope, but mountaintop mining will continue. And in many ways the 100-foot rule had been merely symbolic, due to the history of its lax enforcement. Even with the buffer zone regulation, 2,400 miles of Appalachian streams, the length of the Mississippi River, have been destroyed by mountaintop removal. And since the ruling, some Washington lawmakers are voicing support for H.R. 2824, the Preventing Government Waste and Protecting Coal Mining Jobs in America Act, which would turn the 100-foot buffer zone regulation over to state regulators, essentially gutting the federal law.

            Hat tip to Andy for notifying me of this news.