BREAKING: EPA Denies Permit for Infamous WV Mountaintop Removal Mine

Source: Daily Kos

BREAKING: EPA Denies Permit for Infamous WV Mountaintop Removal Mine
by rperks

Fri Oct 16, 2009 at 06:45:22 PM PDT

Go tell it on the mountain!

Today the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finally put an end to the saga of the infamous Spruce Mine, jamming a stake in the heart of what would have been the largest mountaintop removal project in the history of West Virginia.

EPA rejected the permit for this mine due to massive water quality impacts that would have resulted from a series of mega-valley fills. As the agency said in its just-released statement:
http://wvgazette.com/static/coal%20tattoo/spruceepaletter.pdf

EPA is taking this action because it is concerned about the magnitude, scale, and severity of the direct, indirect, and cumulative adverse environmental and water quality impacts associated with this project . The Spruce Mine as currently configured would bury more than seven miles of streams.





Read more: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/10/16/794233/-BREAKING:-EPA-Denies-Permit-for-Infamous-WV-Mountaintop-Removal-Mine

Headline should read, "EPA does job and stops corporations from raping the planet." :)

Pebble mine has a much less chance of being approved now.

INTERSPERSED BY HIGH TECH AND EDUCATIONAL VENTURES

Good idea. People wonder why young people want to get out of these areas as soon as possible, give them jobs and hope and maybe the best won't run from Appalachia like bats out of hell.

I am so happy to see this :D

Now that's some change I can believe in.

the freepers will shit their pants seeing a Government Agency that is actually doing it's job!

K&R

I read on a discussion board that Obama is a sell-out corporatist.

:evilgrin:

:sarcasm:

Recommended!

Actually Protecting the Environment!

Love her :)

:party:

:toast:

:woohoo:

:thumbsup:

:bounce:

:applause:

A lot of people have been working in many ways for this to happen!

Stop destroying our mountains, assholes.

Those mountains are beautiful. They need to stop screwing with them.

And they wanted to destroy that?!

It took over an hour to go about thirty miles. The last five were the best.



Once you made it past the steep pitches, it was easy.

k&R

EPA plans to veto Spruce Mine permit

By Erica Peterson

In a http://www.wvgazette.com/static/coal%20tattoo/spruceepaletter.pdf">letter sent Friday to the http://www.lrh.usace.army.mil/">Huntington district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the EPA says it has reason to believe that the mine would irreparably harm fish and wildlife.

=snip=

National Mining Association spokeswoman Carol Raulston says the action is unprecedented.

“EPA has, at limited times in the past, vetoed a permit that was still in the review process, but to my knowledge they have never vetoed a permit that was already in effect,” she said.

The mine has been in the works and embroiled in litigation since 1998. It’s already gone through the entire permit process and even an Environmental Impact Statement, but the EPA’s letter outlines several areas the agency believes were not addressed.

The EPA says the mine would cause water quality problems in already-impaired streams, and that the mitigation required under the permit was lacking. Also, the letter says there are 12 other mines proposed in the Coal River Basin, along with the Spruce Mine and the cumulative environmental impacts haven’t been measured yet.

Full article: http://www.wvpubcast.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=11690

I really hope this means http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Turborama/50">the calls for wind farms on those mountains are being listened to and they are now turning into a distinct possibility!

runs the EPA.

They never give up until the dirty deed is done and the dollars are squeezed out.

A little while ago, U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., joined West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin in blasting the Obama EPA for urging the federal Army Corps of Engineers to revoke the nearly 2,300-acre permit to mine in Pigeonroost Hollow near Blair in Logan County, W.Va.

In his two-page letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, Rockefeller expressed “grave concern” about the agency’s move:

Such an action not only affects this specific permit, but would also needlessly create great uncertainty surrounding other currently operational permits.

Rockefeller took the unusual action — for a member of the Senate — of encouraging a specific action by a regulatory agency on a specific matter pending before that agency (and also pending before a federal judge), telling Jackson that EPA should “retract” the agency’s Sept. 3 letter to the Corps and “to remove any further impediments to this mining operation. In a handwritten note at the end of the letter, Rockefeller said:

Obviously, I feel more than strongly about this matter. It needs to be corrected.

Rockefeller noted that the Corps reviewed the Spruce Mine proposal for nearly a decade before it was approved in January 2007, and that this was the only mountaintop removal mine for which the agency ever completed a full Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS:

In fact, the satisfy the environmental concerns raised by the EPA at the time, the permit was substantially scaled back. As approved, the final permit reduced the acreage of the permit by 835 acres or 27 percent and excess spoil by 150 million cubic yards, a 57 percent decrease.

These dramatic reductions in environmental impact were noted specifically by the EPA before the final permit was issued. All parties involved, including the EPA and the Corps, highlighted this process as a model for future efforts.

Rockefeller appears to be the only member of the West Virginia congressional delegation — so far — to have stepped forward to defend the Spruce Mine (which, interestingly, was moved at some point from Arch Coal’s unionized Hobet subsidiary to the company’s non-union arm, Mingo Logan Coal). No word on any action regarding this permit by Rep. Nick J. Rahall, who has been closely watching EPA’s actions on mountaintop removal. And nothing from Sen. Robert C. Byrd, whose office has said nothing about any results of a staff fact-finding mission to the coalfields back in June.

http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/2009/09/10/jay-to-epa-let-the-spruce-mine-permit-go/

I assume that this is because so many jobs depend on coal in WV. Congratulations to the EPA.

used by powerful coal companies, to rape the land, destroy the water system and shorten miners lives. When I lived in West Virginia, throughout the 70s to early 80s, miners, disabled w/ blacklung were still dying from it. There are some that still are, I bet. West Virginia has been sentenced to widespread poverty and a horrible education system (at least where we lived in Appalachia) because of its reliance on this 18th century technology. Coal pretty much dictates it's own terms in West Virginia because of that attitude. Coal benefits from an uneducated work force. That was so clear in the area where we lived. Rockefeller needs to get his ass in gear and work on a viable future for the state.

I was back there this past summer. Our farm - 68, in fee, acres w/ 2 streams, a natural spring and 7 seams of coal remains as beautiful as the first day we saw it. The canopy is more dense and it would benefit from some forest management (about 45 acres are forest) but at least now I know the streams won't be polluted upstream from the property.

Your words are so persuasive here. It is surprising that Rockefeller, who did see the impact so well on the issues of the healthcare bill, can't see that this destroys the quality of live as much as having to find some other source of employment. Your farm sounds gorgeous.

I knew I'd be able to recognize it when I saw it.

Fossil fuels are poison. We are finally taking steps to reduce carbon pollution and ignite the transition to clean energy, end our dependence on dirty fossil fuels, and put America on a path toward economic recovery.

This is change I can believe in

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

we're still in the middle of the block, and can't even SEE the corner yet.

This is going to be a good day.

May it be a harbinger of things to come.

but when i read this:

"EPA is taking this action because it is concerned about the magnitude, scale, and severity of the direct, indirect, and cumulative adverse environmental and water quality impacts associated with this project . The Spruce Mine as currently configured would bury more than seven miles of streams." (my bold)

i couldn't help but think that if the Spruce mine were "configured" differently, they'd let the mining begin. Maybe cover only 5 miles of streams, and promise to do remediation.

Mountaintop mining should BE BANNED period. The fact that they shut this one down only means they'll ax the most egregious and most public of the offenders. That's not enough.

:shrug:

I am sure most of us wish that were possible, but the forced joblessness of so many people in an area without jobs to begin with would be looked at as an evil act and could so easily be used to say liberals don't care about people, then we get another GOP President who really doesn't care about anyone but the big corporations.

There is no way to get people in the mountains to see the environmental light right away, they are very much behind most of the rest of the country in their thinking.

They want to have luxuries such as food and shelter.

That was why I left, no jobs. I grew up there. An open mine like that usually employs less than 20 people, where the old underground mines employed hundreds.
They use such huge equipment and dynamite that there is no need for more workers.
So few people can do so much destruction and remediation is a F ing joke. They throw out some grass seed and call that repaired.

I used to travel through there a lot and all I ever remember being there was coal.

Oh, and Wal-Mart, McDonald's, and the usual service industries.

But the propaganda value to the right would be tremendous.

Check link for my post from a few days ago.

http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6780577

This is what a lot of waterways look like in this part of PA already due to mine drainage.


Can anyone provide information on the exploration of the Marcellus Shale in PA?

I posted this the other day and would appreciate any input from engineers or energy experts as to the pros and cons of this type of exploration.

I've looked on the web, but as always you get two opinions, which is to say one from each side of the debate.

I know that it's been discussed already on numerous occasions, but new people join here all the time so there might be additional facts that they can provide.

for the greater good aka grand scheme.

It appears that we have fallen into the habit of compromising on issues that should not, and in fact cannot, be compromised. I have an idea that a large number of us, including even a large number of politicians, believe that it is wrong to destroy the Earth. But we have powerful political opponents who insist that an Earth-destroying economy is justified by freedom and profit. And so we compromise by agreeing to permit the destruction only of parts of the Earth, or to permit the Earth to be destroyed a little at a time -- like the famous three-legged pig that was too well loved to be slaughtered all at once.


The logic of this sort of compromising is clear, and it is clearly fatal. If we continue to be economically dependent on destroying parts of the Earth, then eventually we will destroy it all.

We have got to learn better to respect ourselves and our dwelling places. We need to quit thinking of rural America as a colony. Too much of the economic history of our land has been that of the export of fuel, food, and raw materials that have been destructively and too cheaply produced. We must reaffirm the economic value of good stewardship and good work. For that we will need better accounting than we have had so far.


We need to reconsider the idea of solving our economic problems by "bringing in industry." Every state government appears to be scheming to lure in a large corporation from somewhere else by "tax incentives" and other squanderings of the people's money. We ought to suspend that practice until we are sure that in every state we have made the most and the best of what is already there. We need to build the local economies of our communities and regions by adding value to local products and marketing them locally before we seek markets elsewhere.


We need to confront honestly the issue of scale. Bigness has a charm and a drama that are seductive, especially to politicians and financiers; but bigness promotes greed, indifference, and damage, and often bigness is not necessary. You may need a large corporation to run an airline or to manufacture cars, but you don't need a large corporation to raise a chicken or a hog. You don't need a large corporation to process local food or local timber and market it locally.


And, finally, we need to give an absolute priority to caring well for our land -- for every bit of it. There should be no compromise with the destruction of the land or of anything else that we cannot replace. We have been too tolerant of politicians who, entrusted with our country's defense, become the agents of our country's destroyers, compromising on its ruin.


And so I will end this by quoting my fellow Kentuckian, a great patriot and an indomitable foe of strip mining, Joe Begley of Blackey: "Compromise, hell!"


.
-WENDELL BERRY

This is the best news I've heard in a long time. Just when I thought that everything that comes out of Washington was bound to piss me off, Washington does something good. Very good.

nt

many.:bounce:

and those outside of the state who fought for this!

A new day has dawned!

There's an election next year and the big one in 2012. Gotta get started on the "campaign!"

18,181 -- 18,181 -- 18,181 -- 18,181 -- 18,181 -- 18,181 -- 18,181 -- 18,181 -- 18,181 -- 18,181 -- 18,181 -- 18,181 -- 18,181 -- 18,181 -- 18,181 -- 18,181 -- 18,181 -- 18,181 -- 18,181 -- 18,181 -- 18,181 -- 18,181 -- 18,181 -- 18,181 --

EPA.

to restore the topography, hydrology, and ecology of the lands they have destroyed through mountaintop removal. And adequately compensate the people whose homes and lives they have destroyed.

This is for sure a sharp contrast from Bush.

Need more love. They have been pretty poor quality for years due to the mining, sedimentation due to earth moving by mines and individuals and failing septic systems.

Glad to see this get torpedoed. I'd like to see the insult to those two waterways be significantly reduced for 10 or 15 years at least.

One thing is for sure you'd never see the politicized WV DEP do something like this. The inspectors are good folks but they get overuled continually by the executive branch.

The one (sort of ) benefit of Mountaintop Removal is since it takes craploads of coal and has a really big environmental impact, but provides few jobs many more home grown coalfield residents are becoming activists. You didn't see that with deep mining or even small strip mines because they provided more employment and residents were less likely to protest. Back then a lot of the environmental activists in WV were origianlly from out of state, which was easy for the opposition to riducule. But now since MTR takes so much and gives so little it has spawned a whole wave of home grown environmental activists.

Mountaintop removal must end.


Thanks,Kpete!

:)

Let's give Obama some credit for this.

We support your stopping these mega projects with severe environmental impacts, wherever they might be and whatever they involve---oil and gas drilling, clear cutting, any all types of mining. :applause: :woohoo:

Thanks for the thread kpete.:thumbsup:

Finally an EPA that actually works--not like Christie Whitman's, who looked the other way while people returned to Ground Zero before the air was safe!

:woohoo:
rocktivity

WV is treated precisely like every corporate-abused nation on the face of the earth: steal their resources as you offer temporary relief from poverty, and then leave with billions upon billions.

WV citizens need to get selfish about their state and kick the corporateers the hell out of here!!!