Activists slam EPA rule on mountaintop coal mining debris

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Angry environmentalists launched an online campaign yesterday urging President-elect Barack Obama to undo a federal rule that clarifies when coal companies can dump mining waste in streams, calling it a long-awaited "parting gift" from the Bush administration.

Appalachian Voices, a group based in North Carolina, and others blasted Tuesday's decision by the Environmental Protection Agency to endorse the mining rule, saying it would mean the death of freshwater streams and probably the start of a new surge in mountaintop removal surface mining across Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky.

Although the rule applies to all coal mines, mountaintop removal operations are of special interest in Appalachia, where surface mines predominate.

An EPA study estimated that 400,000 acres of forest were wiped out and nearly 724 miles of streams buried between 1985 and 2001 by mountaintop mining, in which forests are clear-cut and holes are drilled to blast apart rock. Massive machines, some with buckets big enough to hold 24 compact cars, scoop coal from the exposed seams.

The rock and dirt left behind are dumped into adjacent valleys, changing the natural shape of the earth, lowering the mountain, and covering streams.

The rule, proposed by the federal Office of Surface Mining and expected to take effect next month, would govern how mining companies can encroach into a buffer zone designed to protect streams. The Bush administration finalized the rule yesterday and it will be published in the Federal Register this month.

West Virginia attorney Joe Lovett, who has filed several lawsuits over mountaintop mining, said the rule essentially removes a tool Obama's administration could use to rein in the practice.

"For the industry, this is a parting gift," Lovett said.

But the National Mining Association says environmentalists are misrepresenting the rule as a free pass for the coal industry. It argues operators will have to conduct even more rigorous analyses of their disposal plans.

"The rule does not make it easier to conduct mining activities within the stream buffer zone," said a spokeswoman for the group, Carol Raulston.

Dumping excess rock and soil has always been allowed, she said, as long as operators comply with federal water quality laws.