Groups Seek Federal Intervention For West Virginia Mountaintop Mining Regulation

The record of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has not been a good one. In her exposé of Appalachian mountaintop removal for U.S. News and World Report Penny Loeb found that enforcement of environmental regulation was lax to nonexistent in West Virginia.[i] And Ken Ward, who has covered mountaintop removal, as well as all things related to coal and coal mining for the Charleston Gazette, had once uncovered in an investigative report that the DEP did not know the number of acres under mountaintop removal operations. The West Virginia DEP did not even keep track of the number of mountaintop mining permits that it had granted.[ii]

            Well, finally after all this time, a group of environmental and religious groups hope that they can get officials from the federal surface mining office to ameliorate things in the Mountain State. They want the feds to hear the concerns of citizens who claim that they have been rebuffed by West Virginia’s environmental department. And now in response to a petition by 19 community and environmental groups, including the League of Women Voters and the Catholic Committee of Appalachia, the federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement said it would investigate five aspects of West Virginia’s DEP mining regulation.

            Among the complaints are wells drying up or being contaminated and damage to homes and other structures. Rob Goodwin, technical analyst for the Coal River Mountain Watch, a small grassroots organization that works to empower local residents in the face of mountaintop removal, says, “Ninety-nine percent [of the complaints], if not all, are being dismissed as frivolous or unsubstantiated.”

            The coal industry responds that it is over-regulated.

The coal industry says that this type of mining is over-regulated.

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[i] Loeb, Penny “Shear Madness,” US News and World Report 3 August 1997

[ii] Ward, Ken “Flattened,” Charleston Gazette, 9 August 1998

This Week a Mixed Bag of Court Rulings For Mountaintop Removal

UPDATE BELOW

As far as the court rulings go, it’s a mixed bag for the mountains and the people of Appalachia this week. Some good news, some not so good news.

            First the bad news. In Kentucky a judge ruled against the Sierra Club and other environmental organizations who had brought suit to block a permit for a valley fill that the Army Corps of Engineers had granted for a mountaintop removal coal mining operation in the eastern part of the state.

            When folks challenge the legality of these permits, they usually concentrate on the environmental harm that the mountaintop mining operation will bring to the hills, valleys, and streams of Appalachia, but in this case, the first to do so, the environmental groups said that the Corps had not considered the negative health effects that the valley fill would have on local residents.

            The judge, Thomas B. Russell, ruled in favor of the coal company, Leeco Coal, finding that the Corps did “not act unreasonably” and “adequately analyzed the issues” in issuing the permit. I’m uncertain if judge Russell considered the growing evidence that living around mountaintop strip mining is hazardous to your health. Had he done so, he probably would have ruled otherwise.

            In another courtroom, this one in West Virginia, a judge ruled that a coal industry friendly law that was recently passed by the coal industry friendly legislature of West Virginia did not protect coal companies from lawsuits brought against the mining companies because of the pollution from their mines.

Coal River Mountain Watch had brought suit against Alpha Natural Resources, saying that discharges from the coal company’s Brushy Fork coal slurry impoundment bring about excessive selenium levels downstream, in violation of environmental regulation.

 

The Brushy Fork coal slurry impoundment. So big it would dwarf the Eiffel Tower

Last year’s legislation allows coal companies to declare that they are in compliance with West Virginia water pollution standards if they meet certain discharge limits for chemicals specified in their permits. The water pollution permit for Brushy Fork does not specifically limit selenium discharges, despite West Virginia’s separate water quality standard.

            Judge Robert C. Chambers, in his 36-page ruling, said that this shielding law does not provide Alpha Natural Resources protection from enforcement from existing state and federal laws that allow citizens to bring suit against polluting companies.

           There you have it. One victory, one defeat for the mountains and people of Appalachia.

UPDATE: 9/4/13 There is some hope in the Leeco case in Kentucky. On appeal of its case to a higher court, a District Court issued an order  for Leeco to cease its operation of a mountaintop coal mine while the plaintiffs, Kentuckians For the Commonwealth, the Sierra Club, and Earthjustice, appeal their case to the Sixth Circuit Court.