A proposed reversal in federal rules that protect mountain streams can soon lead to the streams' destruction. The proposal is the latest in a series of actions by the Bush Administration to weaken protections against the devastation caused by mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia.
The rule change follows the administration's gutting of an environmental impact statement (EIS) on mountaintop mining; the repeal of a 25-year-old prohibition against dumping waste in streams; and a proposal by the Office of Surface Mining to weaken oversight of state mining programs.
The Interior Department stream rule change, which could take affect as early as mid-summer, would eliminate a ban put in place by the Reagan Administration that prohibits mining activity within 100 feet of a stream. The ban was enacted to prevent the burial of streams in Appalachia from mountaintop strip mining, a practice whereby mountain peaks are leveled to extract coal. Countless tons of rock are simply dumped into the adjacent valleys and streams.
Mountaintop mining has resulted in the burial of or damage to more than 1,200 miles of streams and the destruction of 380,000 acres of Appalachian forests, according to a federal environmental impact statement (EIS). The environmental analysis was conducted to settle a citizen lawsuit filed over the issue in the 1990s.[1]
The Bush Administration describes the rule change as a "clarification" of surface mining rules. But rather than protecting streams, the new rule would establish that filling valleys and streams is permitted if companies show they are trying to minimize damage "to the extent practicable."[2]
This latest reversal of policy comes on the heels of the administration's gutting of an environmental impact statement on mountaintop mining that led to internal agency strife and complaints by officials in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Internal documents were obtained through a federal Freedom of Information Act request filed by Trial Lawyers for Public Justice.[3]
Under the Clinton Administration, a preliminary draft of the EIS outlined restrictions for mining and valley fills. But Steven Griles, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, reversed that position. Griles removed any meaningful reforms and reduced the document to what one FWS official referred to as nothing more than "permit process tinkering," because it focused only on easing coal mine permitting.
"All we've proposed is alternative locations to house the rubber stamp that issues the permits," complained one Fish and Wildlife Service official, according to the internal documents. An EPA official said the public would want to know, "where's the beef?"[4]
The proposed rule change on streams was made public the day after public comments on the environmental impact statement closed, said Jim Hecker, Environmental Enforcement Director for Trial Lawyers for Public Justice.
"The proposed stream rule is another in a series of actions by the Bush Administration to gut longstanding safeguards against the wholesale burial and pollution of streams in Appalachia by the coal mining industry," Hecker told BushGreenwatch. "It's just another example of the Bush Administration's preferential treatment of the energy industry."
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SOURCES:
[1] Trial Lawyers for Public Justice.
[2] “Decapitating Appalachia,” New York Times editorial, January 13, 2004.
[3] Trial Lawyers for Public Justice.
[4] Ibid.
