ERNO
10-19-2010, 14:50
By John M. Broder .....NYT Oct, 17, 2010
Washington-A top federal regulator has recommended revoking the permit for one of the nation's largest planned mountaintop removal mining projects, saying it would be devastating to miles of West Virignia streams and the plant and animal life they support.
In 2007, the Bush administration approved the project, which would involve dynamiting the tops off mountains over 2,278 acres to get at the coal beneath while dumping the resulting rubble, known as spoil, into nearby valleys and streams. The Obama administration announced last year that it would review the decison, prompting the mine owner, Arch Coal, based in St. Louis, to sue.
In its review, the E.P.A. found that the project would bury more than seven miles of the Pigeonroost Branch and Oldhouse Branch streams under 110 million cubic yards of spoil, killing everything in them and sending downstream a flood of contaminants, toxic substances and life choking algae.
The E.P.A. said the construction of waste ponds as well as other discharges from the Spruce No. 1 mining operation would spread pollutants beyond the boundaries of the mine itself, causing further damage to wildlife and the enviroment.
Arch Coal had proposed to construct new streams to replace the buried rivers, but the E.P.A. said they could not reproduce the numbers and variety of fish and plant life supported by the indigenous streams.
The Sierra Club appllauded the E.P.A. for "staring down Big Coal and industry lobbyists."
"This mother of all mountaintop removal coal mines would destroy thousands of acres of land, bury seven miles of streams and end a way of life for too many Appalachian families," the Sierra Club's executive director, Michael Brune, said in a statement.
Washington-A top federal regulator has recommended revoking the permit for one of the nation's largest planned mountaintop removal mining projects, saying it would be devastating to miles of West Virignia streams and the plant and animal life they support.
In 2007, the Bush administration approved the project, which would involve dynamiting the tops off mountains over 2,278 acres to get at the coal beneath while dumping the resulting rubble, known as spoil, into nearby valleys and streams. The Obama administration announced last year that it would review the decison, prompting the mine owner, Arch Coal, based in St. Louis, to sue.
In its review, the E.P.A. found that the project would bury more than seven miles of the Pigeonroost Branch and Oldhouse Branch streams under 110 million cubic yards of spoil, killing everything in them and sending downstream a flood of contaminants, toxic substances and life choking algae.
The E.P.A. said the construction of waste ponds as well as other discharges from the Spruce No. 1 mining operation would spread pollutants beyond the boundaries of the mine itself, causing further damage to wildlife and the enviroment.
Arch Coal had proposed to construct new streams to replace the buried rivers, but the E.P.A. said they could not reproduce the numbers and variety of fish and plant life supported by the indigenous streams.
The Sierra Club appllauded the E.P.A. for "staring down Big Coal and industry lobbyists."
"This mother of all mountaintop removal coal mines would destroy thousands of acres of land, bury seven miles of streams and end a way of life for too many Appalachian families," the Sierra Club's executive director, Michael Brune, said in a statement.